Page 65 - 2018 Annual Report Council of Agriculture, Executive Yuan

Annual Report 2018 Council of Agriculture, Executive Yuan interfacing with value-added applications, upgrade the effectiveness of information applications, and increase positive communications and interactions between the government and citizens. In order to encourage cross- disciplinary teams to work together to use open data to resolve problems encountered by agriculture, the COA held the “AgThon2018” agricultural innovation hackathon competition. After the seminals on December 8 and the nals on the 15th, we selected the top three prize-winning teams and awarded three other prizes to teams with potential. Creative solutions that were part of the competition included a chatbot application, a combination of unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV) with image recognition to do monitoring, a smart agriculture monitoring device, AI combined with a robotic arm, and a sweetness testing device for fruits and vegetables. In the future we will continue to guide the teams and help make products with potential into ones that can be used practically. The “2018 Good Idea Agricultural Crowdfunding Competition” was held to encourage farmers’ groups to use crowdfunding as a tool for market-testing or product marketing. The COA created an agricultural startup testing platform, and this year, in addition to accepting proposals in the normal categories, we also included four specially designated categories: open data, circular use, product design, and adjustment of production vs. sales. A total of 68 teams signed up, and 33 proposals were put up for crowdfunding. A total of 23 projects reached their crowdfunding goals, collecting NT$10.78 million in capital. In the future we will continue to guide prize- winning hackathon teams to participate in fund-raising. A group photo of honored guests, jury members, and participating teams at the “AgThon2018” agricultural innovation hackathon competition. 63