PI: Dr. Kadeghe Fue
CO-PI: Dr. Alcardo Alex Barakabitze, Prof. Camilius Sanga
Collaborators: Prof. Glen Rains, University of Georgia, USA
The project established Youth empowerment through the Establishment of Social Innovation (YEESI) Lab for problem-centered training in machine vision that is used by youth in the Morogoro region of Tanzania.
There are young people in Morogoro who have studied information technologies and allied sciences, and while most of them can write computer programs, they cannot solve machine vision problems.
This project aims to increase awareness among the youth of Morogoro and nearby regions to address machine vision problems in agriculture. Machine vision is a new and understudied practice in Tanzania; hence, this project will contribute to efforts in the creation of scientific societies that address the most pressing problems faced by more than 80% of Tanzania’s population who engage directly or indirectly in farming.
The project expects to train more than 50 young technology enthusiasts who will be able to address the most pressing problems in agriculture and develop advanced digital tools to solve these problems.
The main agricultural problems can be classified into five categories: Disease Detection and Classification, Weed Classification, Pest Detection and Classification, Crop Seedlings Stand Count and Yield Estimation, Crop Vigor Estimation.