National Ploughing Championships - Young Innovators
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What is the National Ploughing Championships and why are young agri start‑ups featured?
Now to the plowing, which drew over a quarter of a million people to Screggan this week. Well young agri startups had a chance to pitch for Enterprise Ireland Awards. So Suzanne Campbell went to meet three people behind companies as they tried to catch the judges' attention.
Hello, my name's Blake McVicker and I'm seventeen years old from County Monan. From from a farming background and last summer I was reversing the slurry tanker around the yard. I became aware of the dangers due to the lack of visibility and farm machinery. That's what led me to create a wireless camera.
How does it work?
Well, so there's a Wi Fi chip inside the camera and you connect that Wi Fi to an app onto your phone so that that's completely wireless and there's also a battery pack on it so there's no constant power supply needed. So there's no hard wire and and also I fit them all with a magnet so you can move it from each implement with ease.
Wow, so if you have like a a diet feeder, the big machine that goes down the middle aisle of a cattle barn or a trailer, you're bringing cattle to the mart, you're bringing them home, you can put it on all those things that you're towing.
Yes, you can put it on an as the magnets so easy to m take off a machine like you can have it on a mower today and maybe a slurry tank or a silage trailer later.
And is the issue that these machines are quite big and a lot of them don't have reverse cameras on them or would they typically have them on them?
No, a lot of machinery now doesn't have reverse and cameras and that leads to a huge danger due to the blind spots on them so that's what's really good about wireless cam.
And do you make up the unit yourself or where do you get it made?
How does Blake McVicker’s wireless camera solve visibility problems on farm machinery?
Yeah, I make the unit myself at my house. I buy in all the parts and make them assemble them and monitor 'em at my home.
How did you learn how to do that? That's amazing.
I was just practice and eventually got fit to do it.
And how many have you sold so far?
Over three hundred now.
And how much does it cost and what's the name of it?
It costs a hundred and fifty per unit and it's called Wireless Cam.
What would be your ambition if you were to see this, you know, reach a a successful kind of level? What would that level be?
Well at the moment I'm exporting twenty percent of my products to UK so in the next couple of months and years I hope to export more and do more trade shows in the UK and really bring my business, not even just Ireland, UK, even to across the globe.
Wow. And what year in school are you next?
Just started fifth year.
Oh my goodness. You probably don't need to go anywhere after school. You can just continue what you're doing.
Yeah, hopefully.
Basically in twenty twenty three I come home from Dubai quite abruptly.
What is Furrow and how does an AI‑powered WhatsApp advisor help new and obligated farmers?
My father was sick and I'm not typically a farmer, so I was presented with basically a ton of forms, a ton of this to try and run this actual business.
Now Brennan has designed an AI farm advisor called Furrow, who you can talk to on WhatsApp.
What I noticed was there was a lot more people than just typical farmers who were faced with this problem, either wanting to get into farming or just obligated to take over the farm due to inheritance. So at the time I was very aware of AI and how it can sit on WhatsApp and easy ways to interpret this. So we built a WhatsApp agent that basically interprets your whole farm, runs off of compliance, everything that you need to know about farming in general and also learning about your farm over time and how to stay compliant and build up a record of notes so that the next person coming after them will actually know how to run that farm.
Furrow can send information to a farms advisor on applying for Department of Agriculture schemes and compliance with the many regulations and standards now in food production. But as smaller farms may not have an agricultural advisor, could it do that job as well?
Yeah, absolutely. So I started the green cert, which is like the agricultural course, and what I found was there was so many more people than just young farmers that wanted to be a full time farmer.
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Chapters
7 chapters
1
What is the National Ploughing Championships and why are young agri start‑ups featured?
0:00–1:29
2
How does Blake McVicker’s wireless camera solve visibility problems on farm machinery?
1:29–2:23
3
What is Furrow and how does an AI‑powered WhatsApp advisor help new and obligated farmers?
2:23–4:50
4
Why are barbers‑pole parasites a threat and how does Telenostic’s AI platform detect them quickly and cheaply?
4:50–7:24
5
How is Ireland’s AgTech sector growing and what role does AI play in modern farm equipment and digital services?
7:24–8:36
6
Which start‑ups won the Enterprise Ireland awards and what innovations did they pitch?
8:36–9:06
7
What are the next steps for the winners and how will their technologies impact Irish agriculture?
9:06–9:08