Tuesday 04 Feb 2014 @ 15:20
Innovate UK
Innovate UK
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Success Story: Hackathon success for WeatherSafe
From hackathon to international business success in twelve months has been the journey of a lifetime for three people who met at a Catapult event.
Francesco Liucci thought it ‘would be interesting' to spend a couple of days exchanging ideas with software developers at a hackathon in December 2012.
Just over a year later he was waiting to hear about a major order for the software products his new company had developed that could benefit the world's coffee growers – and drinkers.
Catapult Hackathons are designed to bring people together to exchange ideas. They are open to anyone who would like to participate – software developers, engineers, technologists, scientists, designers, artists, educators, students and entrepreneurs – anyone who has a passion for changing the world.
At the hackathon, the business analyst met software developers David and Graham Mills. The challenge set by the Catapult was to identify how space technologies and data could be used to benefit Rwanda.
Catapult Hackathons are designed to bring people together to exchange ideas. They are open to anyone who would like to participate – software developers, engineers, technologists, scientists, designers, artists, educators, students and entrepreneurs – anyone who has a passion for changing the world.
‘We were asked to improve the Rwanda Meteorology Agency website that provides weather forecasts,' said Francesco. ‘But we essentially decided to change the challenge. Instead we came up with an app that provides recommendations to coffee farmers based on weather conditions.'
The Satellite Applications Catapult invited Francesco to join it as a business innovation analyst to help coordinate its programme designed to support small and medium enterprises (SMEs). It provides SMEs like WeatherSafe with technical expertise and data and helped organise some initial workshops with experts in satellite technology and weather observations.
The Mills brothers knew something about the coffee business because of work they had done with a specialist coffee seller in London. ‘We started to realise that one of the main problems was pest and disease and the connection between these diseases and climate, so we wanted to develop something that would give coffee growers an early warning,' said Francesco.
Winning product WeatherSafe Coffee
That was the beginning of WeatherSafe, a start-up which is developing software to provide coffee farmers with an early-warning service, coupled with practical and targeted suggestions on the actions they should take to mitigate and prevent risks caused by the weather and climate change.‘Our mission is to significantly increase yields and profitability from agriculture through improvements in the management of agricultural practices and intelligence,' said Francesco.
The trio won the hackathon with their initial prototype for their first product, WeatherSafe Coffee. A few days later they were invited to present their idea at the European Space Solutions conference in London.
Click here for full success story
Click here for full success story
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