Penn State students’ entrepreneurial spirit shone brightly at the 2024 Ag Springboard student business pitch contest, which took place in early April in State College.
Sponsored by the College of Agricultural Sciences, Ag Springboard is a key event for the college’s Entrepreneurship and Innovation Program, which fosters an entrepreneurial mindset for student success across majors and career paths.
During Ag Springboard, student teams pitch new business or nonprofit ideas to improve food, agriculture, biorenewable materials, community development or sustainability. Each student team must have at least one member enrolled in the college. Since 2011, more than 500 students have competed in Ag Springboard with more than $100,000 in awards offered.
Taking home this year’s first-place award was the team that created CropNSoil, a platform to support international multicropping. Students Kanika Gupta and Kartikey Pandey, both computer science majors in the College of Engineering, and Samuel DeLozier, an agribusiness management major in the College of Agricultural Sciences, received $7,500 to further their project.
DeLozier explained that multicropping is an ancient technique that has been shown to increase yield, income and soil health. CropNSoil is an artificial-intelligence-based technology that produces multicropping patterns, market information and other unique features that help farms maximize growth. The team aims to help underrepresented farmers in India by working with agricultural cooperatives.
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Photo Credit: gettyimages-eugenesergeev
Categories: Pennsylvania, Crops