An early-stage business idea focused on using wireless sensors to monitor environmental conditions in chicken barns to improve poultry production has been declared winner of the UCD Agri-Food Sprint Programme.
The UCD Agri-Food Sprint Programme is a one-day initiative delivered by NovaUCD in collaboration with the UCD Earth Institute. It aims to encourage the development of commercial outputs arising from UCD Agri-Food research by engaging with University College Dublin (UCD) researchers at an earlier stage in the commercialisation process
The winning idea involves placing wireless sensors in chickens’ living spaces to record the environmental conditions.
A key factor impacting poultry production is the environmental conditions in which the chickens live. If these environmental conditions are non-ideal, the chickens will eat and drink less impacting their weight gain.
Real-time spatial and temporal data is recorded and reported to a cloud repository via 3G. Any deviations between the recorded data and acceptable environmental limits can be quickly detected, the poultry producer informed who can then take the necessary remedial actions. This will help to ensure optimal environmental conditions for poultry production resulting in higher chicken yields.
Wholesalers will also be able to use the data to monitor producers in terms of production quality.
The promoters of this early-stage business idea are principal investigator Prof Shane Ward, postdoctoral research fellow Dr Conor Shanahan, and a research scientist Dr Patrick Jackman from UCD’s Smart Systems Unit at the School of Biosystems Engineering, and was funded by Science Foundation Ireland.
The unit specialises in the application of ‘smart farming’ systems to the agri-food and bioresource industries. Smart farming encompasses the use of the latest technologies and systems associated with realising the potential of the Internet of Things, coupled with the widespread adoption of smartphones, and the suite of capabilities delivered by them.
The UCD Agri-Food Sprint Programme, which took place in the UCD O’Brien Centre for Science, involved four early-stage agri-food business ideas being developed by UCD researchers and scientists.
During the one-day programme a number of internal and external technology and business professionals collaborated with the UCD researchers to explore the commercial potential of transforming their research ideas into early-stage agri-food business ideas.
At the end of the programme Dr Shanahan and Dr Jackman were presented with an award and a €1,000 prize fund to assist them to further develop their business idea.
This Sprint programme followed on from the UCD CleanWeb Sprint Programme which took place in May.
Speaking at the presentation of the Award, Brendan Cremen, UCD Director of Enterprise & Commercialisation, said: “Our objective with the Sprint Programmes is to engage with UCD researchers at an earlier stage in the commercialisation process and to use internal and external experts to assist them in understanding and defining more clearly the commercial potential of the outputs emerging from their research activities… We look forward to working with other UCD Institutes and Centres in the near future as we roll out similar Sprint Programmes in other UCD research areas.”
The judging panel constsed of director of UCD Enterprise and Commercialisation Brendan Cremen; Siobhan Wall, associate director of corporate finance at Goodbody Stockbrokers, and Dr Edward McDonnell, director of the Centre for Applied Data Analytics Research
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