Badir Program for Technology Incubators and Accelerators, on behalf of the King Abdul Aziz City for Science & Technology, will be launching the first-ever agricultural hackathon in Saudi Arabia. To make the event a grand success, Badir has teamed up with Faisal bin Mishal bin Saud bin Abdulaziz Community “Mojtamae”.
The hackathon, dubbed the “Agricultural Techniques Hackathon” will kick off on Sep 26 and continue for three days before wrapping up on Sep 28. To be hosted in the Al-Qassim region, the event can be participated by programmers, web developers, entrepreneurs, designers, and basically anyone with an innovative idea to help boost the Kingdom’s agricultural industry.
It will consist of three different tracks including:
- Marketing and growth
- Management and follow-up of agriculture projects
- The use of artificial intelligence (AI) in pest and agricultural control
A jury will evaluate the ideas and innovations pitched by participants in an attempt to find the best solutions to some of the country’s most pressing agricultural issues. Winners in each of the three tracts will get the opportunity to be a part of Badir’s dedicated plan with its accelerator program.
Speaking of the significance of the hackathon, Nawaf Al-Sahaf, the CEO of Badir Program, stated: “Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 program aims to adopt a more sustainable, productive, and efficient food system. Our joint ‘Agricultural Techniques Hackathon’ with Mujtami will help generate fresh innovative ideas and solutions to transform the existing food system in the Kingdom, which will lead to a reduction of natural resources waste, increase in the efficiency and quality of production, and higher economic return.”
For those out of the loop, the agriculture sector happens to be one of the key pillars in Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030 roadmap. The sector currently contributes one-fourth of all food available for consumption in addition to providing employment to just under half-a-million people across the country and adding 4% of non-oil GDP.
