Say the word “Artificial Intelligence” and you’re bound to get some strong opinions from people in the tech industry. Farmers, on the other hand, would hardly bat an eyelid!
I love cows- having started work on dairy farms as one of my first real jobs. Thirteen hour days- twelve days on, two days off. What. A. Life.
I love technology as well- and it’s ability to impact and change our society is something I believe we all need to grasp. Being a country bumpkin, I admit it was not something I picked up early on in my youth. And I believe a lot of farmers and rural communities are still unaware of the impact it can have in their lives- for better or for worse. The traditionalist in me sometimes holds back, thinking that there is peace in the non-tech bubble, free from the curse of technology*
*this is an inside reference to Black Mirror, the TV series. Watch it if you don’t get it!
Well anyway, enough philosophical ramblings.
I managed to marry my two passions by developing Betty, an app to diagnose cattle diseases. We’ve published our app on the Apple store. It’s a work in progress but we have around 60 farmers trialling it in our TestFlight closed beta program- trying to gather more data as we build a robust diagnosis system.
I could write more about it, but others have written a better summary here:
https://www.computerworld.co.nz/article/620747/ai-diagnose-sick-cows
Also our app store page:
https://itunes.apple.com/nz/app/betty-the-artificial-intelligence-cow-app/id1166072057?mt=8
Ps. If you are or know of any AI researchers/programmers/farmers or are keen to find out more hit me up!