Firm Unveils Platform to Boost Agriculture in Nigeria, Africa

By Uchechukwu Nnaike

As part of its quest to use technology to improve modern day farming with seamless data gathering, a Nigerian start-up Artificial Intelligence (AI) company, AirSmat Limited, has launched an AI-powered software platform to help farm owners and other corporate organisations have access to actionable intelligence that will drive efficiency in cost savings, enhance their business operations and improve their profitability.

At the virtual launch in Lagos, the company disclosed that the products, SmatCrows, SmatAI, SmatSat and SmatMapper are the first of its kind that will enable predicable improved crop yield for farm corporations.

Speaking during the launch, the Chief Technology Officer, AirSmat, Adeoluwa Ibukunle said: “Our SmatCrows software app is built to autonomously fly drones; drones serve as a vehicle to capture aerial farm data which automatically gets ingested to our SmatPortal for processing using machine learning capabilities running on a GPU capable machine. Our SmatSat provides historical forecast and real time intelligence such as soil temperature, moisture, humidity, NDVI to our customers.”

He added: “Our SmatAI analyses captured data to extract useful intelligence such as crop count on the farm, weed detection, possible plant diseases, among others.”

He said with the software solution, farm owners can also obtain prompt intelligence that will help them decide on the type of crops to farm with the soil temperature and moisture content information provided through the SmatSat capabilities.

“AirSmat is on a mission to help clients make smarter business decisions, prepare for predicted drought season, weed infestation or disease infection, which can be conveniently obtained at the click of a button. General operations across the globe are becoming smarter, the agricultural sector should also benefit from the digital transformation; we refuse to leave agriculture behind,” Ibukunle stressed.

In her remarks, the Vice- President, Business Operations, AirSmat, Uche Olukoju expressed delight about the launch of the services to help farmers in Nigeria and other African countries with a technological solution that will encourage smart farming.

“In light of technology disruption, many farms and agribusinesses are beginning to adopt technology into their operations because of its significant impact on productivity and efficiency. We help farmers gather data using drones, analyse the date using AI powered platform and share intelligent analytics with farmers throughout the planting season.

“With our approach of capturing and ingesting data to our platform, processing same using analytics will help businesses gain insights to increase productivity,” Olukoju explained.

To drive adoption of the service offering, the vice-president announced that AirSmat has opened a one-month SmatSat free subscription plan that will enable potential and prospective clients sign up to the offerings for a trial run and for subsequent usage to improve operational efficiency and crop yield.

AirSmat is a software company founded on the belief that drones will shape the future. The company is aimed at providing cutting-edge software solutions to many rapidly growing industries adopting drones into daily operations by helping to transform the way businesses collect, manage and interpret drone data. It is the company’s desire to help businesses unlock the power of drone data.