March 2019— CropIn has won the AI Innovation Challenge 2019, organized by the Government of Maharashtra and NITI Aayog, in association with NASSCOM. The challenge was held earlier this month at Taj Vivanta, Mumbai. The AI Innovation Challenge is a platform for AI-based organizations to showcase their solutions and to collaborate with the Government of Maharashtra on a proof of concept. The event was graced by the Chief Minister of Maharashtra Sri. Devendra Fadnavis, senior officials from NITI Aayog and Government of Maharashtra, along with luminaries from the corporate and startup community.
In January 2019, the Government of Maharashtra had invited applications from enthusiastic and passionate organisations from across India, that have developed artificial intelligence based solutions for social problems, to collaborate and partner with the Government in areas that include, but are not limited to agriculture, healthcare, education, smart mobility and water management.
“We are happy to win the AI Innovation Challenge 2019 organized by the Government of Maharashtra. This will be a great opportunity for us to work for a social cause for the farmers in Maharashtra. Making agriculture more predictable is the need of the hour and only technological disruption can create impact at scale.” commented Krishna Kumar, CEO & Founder, CropIn.
CropIn’s ‘SmartFarm’ technology platform has reached 5 million acres of farmland across 2 million farmers. At the back end, CropIn’s data lake amplifies this ground-truth data with local weather information and high-resolution satellite imagery, which are the strong foundations of their AI-based solution platform called ‘SmartRisk’.
By analyzing and interpreting this data for the 265 crops with nearly 3,500 variants on its platform across billions of data points that grow every day, CropIn is building an agri-information highway that detects patterns and predicts the future of the crop highlighting the risk and opportunity for agri stakeholders. CropIn provides near-real-time actionable insights to agriculture processors, distributors, inputs providers, lenders and insurers through its connector APIs. Additionally, CropIn’s algorithms can establish historical performance of every satellite image pixel at farm and regional level.
CropIn’s underlying mission runs parallel to the Indian Government’s vision for the agri-sector, which is to double farmers’ income by 2022. CropIn has also partnered with the Department of Agriculture (DOA), Government of Karnataka, to help farmers create more value for their crops. The project aims to assist 4.15 lakh farmers across 30 districts of Karnataka in digitizing 3.4 lakh acres of farmlands.
Additionally, CropIn is also the chosen technology partner in a public–private partnership project of the National Rural Livelihoods Project (NRLP), State Rural Livelihood Missions (SRLM) and the World Bank. Through this project, CropIn brought about a significant change in the farming practices of farmers in Madhya Pradesh and Bihar, and successfully helped them adapt to climatic changes and unpredictability.
