hyderabad may 13 a unique hackathon to explore digital solutions to agriculture issues in the country was organised here with support from software giant microsoft and other organisations the twoday event which concluded today was held at the international crops research institute for the semiarid tropics icrisat hackathon an event in which computer programmers and others involved in software and hardware development including graphic designers collaborate on software projects was also supported by awhere a usbased agricultural information firm and thub a startup incubation centre set up with the participation of telangana government and some premier academic institutions over 100 participants 11 teams took part in the programme hack4farming a team dare digital agri rural emarketing won the prize of usd 2000 for an innovative model they also won the opportunity to get business and sector specific mentorship services with thub to develop their idea into a viable business or product a release issued by the organisers said today their model was chosen by a team of judges for the cloudbased application that will help connect a large number of smallholder farmers with multiple buyers it said the model will help in realtime price discovery using current emandi price recent price trends variety and other quality parameters the application will also provide farmers locationspecific weather forecasts and information on technology providers in their locality hack4farming aims to unlock benefit of intelligent cloud solutions to positively impact the agriculture sector it had mentors from microsoft to guide participants in their quest to build solutions using intelligent cloud technology the hackathon has highlighted that technology when harnessed correctly has the potential to transform lives and have a major socioeconomic impact said anil bhansali md microsoft india r d pvt ltd noting that digital technology can accelerate the pace of developing and delivering sustainable solutions to small holder farmers icrisat director general david bergvinson said the hack4farming was part of the institutes digital agriculture initiative digital technology such as cloud computing and mobile phones provide an important platform for youth to see farming as a viable business these tools will help us manage natural resources and support a modern food system that delivers safe and nutritious food to all consumers he said sjr rsy mr