Presenting 5 innovative ideas on “smart farming” and the Winner start-up
there-for-you.com together with MassChallenge Switzerland, conducted the annual pitching competition, with the goal of finding the most effective and sustainable start-ups out there.
The crowd-donating platform there-for-you.com collaborated for the second year in a row, with the established start-up accelerator MassChallenge Switzerland, who facilitated the pitching competition between the five start-ups active in the field of sustainability.
These start-ups, all of which have the goal of making the use of our natural resources more efficient, had the opportunity to present their company and their idea in a so-called “pitch” online. The projects ranged from soil measurements for more efficient water use, to improved weed killers, to robots that can simplify complex harvesting processes. The jury members, who themselves come from a wide range of professions, listened intently to the founders of the respective start-ups. Afterwards, there was a heated discussion. “How big is the benefit for mankind?”, “How easy will it be to integrate the new technology into existing process flows?” and “What consequences will the use of these devices have for farmers?” These were all questions the jury asked themselves and were instrumental in deciding
the winning company.
“They are all impressive and thus deserve the opportunity to receive additional capital for their idea.” This is how Pascal Jenny, Founder of there-for-you.com and a jury member, described the decision-making situation. The jury was able to award points anonymously and independently via an online tool. It was a close race, but in the end one winning project emerged: “Save the chicken”.
The AIT Group, based in Cameroon, convinced with a stringent presentation, a lot of emotion and with the complete and professional answering of all detailed questions. The idea is to prevent billions of chickens from dying by using an AI-powered app to analyze the health of the animals. In this way, disease outbreaks can be predicted, and the veterinarian contacted at an early stage. As an expert for animal welfare organizations, Pascal Jenny sees further added value: “Poultry and livestock farming can certainly be improved with the facts gained. This is an added value that the founders could use effectively in the field.”
”MassChallenge Switzerland is extremely pleased to be partnered with there-for-you.com as it offers our start-ups more opportunities to raise non-dilutive funding and publicise the worthy causes they are working on. Congratulations to all who participated in the Smart Farming Challenge, and especially our winner AIT Group (Poultry Farmer’s Management Systems)! ” – said Matt Lashmar, Managing Director MassChallenge Switzerland.
The winner project as well as the four further projects will be highlighted on Monday, November 29 on the platform there-for-you.com, so that these start-ups can be directly supported, by means of donations.
The winning start-up will be additionally honored by acquiring a partner company for large donations. First talks have already taken place in the run-up.
If you are interested in a partnership and thus in supporting a project that will make the world a better place on a small scale, please get in touch with our contact below.
About there-for-you.com
The neutral crowd donating platform there-for-you.com presents projects in the fields of climate protection, animal welfare, children’s aid and humanitarian aid. The platform is open to NGOs, companies or private individuals to post their projects and thereby achieve more awareness and generate donations. Together we can make the world a better place in small steps!
About MassChallenge Switzerland
MassChallenge Switzerland was founded by Nestlé, Bühler, Givaudan, Barry Callebaut, Swiss Economic Forum and Inartis Foundation in 2016 as a non-profit start-up accelerator with a mission to help entrepreneurs add value to society. Together with our corporate partners, and expert volunteer community we’ve created the capability and know-how and made a massive difference awarding over 2M CHF in non-dilutive no-strings attached cash prizes to the very best start-ups. These 461 start-ups have gone on to raise $558M, generating sales of $138M and creating 16,000+ direct & indirect jobs. Swiss start-ups made the biggest impact, representing half of our Alumni and jobs created, but producing two-thirds of the funding raised and sales. We attract over 1,800 start-ups to our programs annually, about half of which are connected to Food and Ag-tech.
About MassChallenge
MassChallenge is the global network for innovators. Headquartered in the United States with seven locations worldwide, MassChallenge equips bold entrepreneurs to disrupt the status quo and to create meaningful change. Since launching in 2009, more than 2,928 MassChallenge alumni have raised more than $8.6B in funding, generated more than $3.6 B in revenue, and created more than 186,000 total jobs.
Learn more about MassChallenge at masschallenge.org.
