innovTeam Nigeria

AGRIVISION Agrivision (Agriculture + Vision) is an IOT smart camera system designed to monitor fruits and other crop growth and prevent spoilage by giving real-time alerts to its users about current growth condition. The need to ensure food security is on the rise, especially in the recent global pandemic. According to the United Nations Environment Program (UNEP), nearly half ( 1 / 2) of all fruits & vegetables produced globally are wasted each year, and roughly one-third of the food produced in the world for human consumption every year (an approximated 1.3 billion tons) gets wasted due to spoilage. Also, about two-thirds of food waste at home is due to food not being used before it goes bad. Taking Africa as a case study, UNEP reports that inefficient processing, poor storage, and insufficient infrastructure are instrumental factors in food waste in Africa. Unfortunately, this alarming rate of food wastage means less food, and consequently, food insecurity which puts nearly 690 million people in hunger (UN). Furthermore, our research into food wastage revealed that a principal cause of this is the fact that people are oblivious of when their fruits and vegetables is ripe for consumption and hence lead to wastage. The growth of certain food items is significantly influenced by external factors which makes it impossible to predict the exact time a fruit will be ripe for consumption. To solve this, we used Azure technologies to develop a smart monitoring system christened Agrivision. Agrivision uses Azure cognitive service (vision) and machine learning in combination with IOT devices to monitor fruit and vegetable growth by considering factors like the fruit color, overall gross weight, and the surrounding humidity. Our goal is to use Agrivision to reduce food wastage by 70% thereby lifting up to 400 million people out of hunger. INTRODUCTION Agrivision is an IOT smart monitoring system that helps its users (including both farmers and consumers) monitor the growth of their food items and prevent spoilage by giving real-time alerts about immediate growth conditions. Agrivision uses the cheap Espressif systems esp32 camera and microprocessor in combination with weight and humidity sensors, and can be accessed and controlled from any web browser using a local area network (LAN) or the internet, thereby making it low cost, simple, and flexible, which makes it suitable for both businesses and consumers. In addition to providing real-time alerts on food growth, Agrivision also lets its users livestream their foods through the internet. THE PROBLEM. The problems Agrivision solves revolve around food insecurity. The recent global pandemic has caused more people to be in hunger as more food wasted due to the lockdowns and breakdown of the food supply chain. Farmers, unlike schools, were not prepared to work remotely and could not monitor their stored foods to know when they are ripe for consumption. Also, individuals wasted stored food as they were oblivious that is ripe for consumption. HOW IT WORKS. Agrivision uses weight sensors, humidity sensors and the esp32 camera to take pictures and videos of food items in its field of vision and monitor growth changes. To use the device, the user presets the food item he will like to monitor (which may be banana, tomatoes, oranges, vegetables, and so on), or lets the device automatically recognize the food item using Azure cognitive service and places the food item on the weight sensor in a pure white background and in the field of vision of the smart camera. This camera takes pictures and livestream videos of the food item at certain interval depending on what is being monitored. Using the Azure cognitive service (vision) to recognize the food and extract colors from the picture (such as accent color and dominant background and foreground color) and the Azure machine learning algorithm to deduce the current condition of the food item, Agrivision determines whether to alert its user. For alert, Agrivision uses Azure to send picture emails and SMS to its user about the current food growth condition and the user can livestream the food item from anywhere in the world as a visual confirmation. In addition to visual parameters, Agrivision monitors the gross weight of the food item, as some foods such as tomato get heavier when they are ripe and even more heavier as they begin to develop more liquid content (a condition indicating the onset of spoilage). Also, Agrivision takes the surrounding humidity as some food tend to smell as they decay such as vegetables and tomatoes. To access Agrivision over the internet, the user goes to our website, provisioned by Azure web service, signs in, and view analytics data as well as livestreams of each unit. WHO IS IT FOR? Agrivision is for agricultural companies, such as farms, grocery stores, food retails, and food storage facilities, and end users who store food items at home.

INNOVTEAM. InnovTeam is a team of three students of the Federal University of Technology, Akure with skills that structure themselves like a giant Lego. HOW WE CAME TO BE. I have to say, finding a team was one of the hardest things I have ever had to do. I have tried and failed to work with multiple people as they, at some point, lose interest in the vision and relent. This was when I realized I had to find someone whom I not only share vison with but has the same hunger and determination to achieve it as I do. This venture led me to look towards two great friends – AKINDEJU GBENGA MICHEAL, and LAWAL OLUWATOMISIN, that I now call team-mates. ADENIYI DANIEL ADURAGBEMI (Team Leader) I am an Electrical Electronics Engineering student of the Federal University of Technology, Akure, Ondo state, Nigeria. I am, at this moment, a third-year student of the university. As mentioned earlier, my journey in the technological space began when I decided I wanted to build a smart home system. First, I learnt android development, C++ for Arduino, and python. As time went on, I learnt Node.js to develop one of my android applications – Currency, a finTech app that allows users to pay contactless. Furthermore, I learnt HTML, CSS and JavaScript. I would say that the major languages I still strongly look forward to learning is swift and objective C. AKINDEJU GBENGA MICHEAL. Gbenga (meaning lift me up in the Yoruba language) is my cousin. He is also a student of the university studying Metrology and Climate science. Gbenga, though an earth student, has an overwhelming passion for technology. Ranging from the Google IO, Samsung Unpacked, and the Microsoft surface event we are always so anticipative of technology events by great companies. I remember our gist on the Jeff Bezos blue origin and Richard Branson Virgin Galactic touchdown. In addition to Gbenga’s passion for technology, and his excellent taste of design, he is a 3D modelling prodigy. LAWAL OLUWATOMISIN. Tomi (short for Oluwatomisin – meaning God is enough for me) recently joined InnovTeam. He is also a student of the university, Akure and my course mate. Tomi is a very interesting member of the team, he is always about how he would solve Nigeria’s problem of technological inclusion and he joined InnovTeam to actualize that goal. Tomi is an enthusiastic web developer with skills in HTML and CSS. He is very good at making decisions. Tomi has the excellent ability to look at the bright side of a situation when I am all about giving up on it. In addition to giving highly valuable advises, Tomi loves public relations. He is always about designing a “fool-proof” marketing stunt. Together, we come up with mind-blowing plans to advertise our products and spend much time considering every variable we can think of that will make our plan “fool-proof”, as we hope. OUR STRENGTH. It’s exactly our shared goal. Skills go a long way in a team but from personal experience, skill is nothing if the team does not share a common goal. I remember when I started Currency – my contactless payment solution. People were like you cannot compete with likes of Mastercard contactless, and visaWave. The general population in Nigeria seem to believe any popular product has to be from overseas. However, at innovTeam we believe in ourselves and our country and that we can build products from Nigeria that will be appreciated in the United States of America. This shared goal keeps us going. OUR WEAKNESS. Our weakness is a peculiar one – Time. Time is our weakness. Being an entrepreneur and a student, especially a student of the Federal University of Technology Akure, is a difficult task. Frankly, the only time we have to work together is the holidays, which is mostly short. Sometimes I just wish we could pause time for a while and work on our projects. Notwithstanding, innovTeam always find time out of time. OUR WORK FOR THE IMAGINE CUP Imagine cup is one of the competitions we will really love to win. Even from my first year in the university I have always envisioned going for the imagine cup. I believe the connection, mentorship and exposure to be invaluable. On announcement of the Build your epic challenge, we set out to develop a project for the competition. Admittedly, it took a while to come up with our project -Agrivision. We have never really worked on agriculture before as we are always about software, payment solutions, and smart homes but looking at how the covid 19 has impacted the world, we set to develop a food security solution. With the help of our mentor, Eng. Oladele Samuel, a lecturer in the Agricultural Engineering department we came up with Agrivision – a smart monitoring system that can be used by anyone, farmer or not, to monitor food item growth and prevent food wastage by alerting the user and providing a livestream using Azure technologies as described in the “About our project” submission.