Moroccan AI platform to power agricultural tools in seven countries
Artificial intelligence technology developed by a Moroccan start-up will serve as the basis for new agricultural tools in seven countries, including Italy. Presented in Rome with support from the UNDP, the project will enable local companies to design solutions tailored to their farmers’ needs.
The same Moroccan technology could soon help farmers in Rwanda, Italy and Ghana. Start-up DeepLeaf and the AI Hub for Sustainable Development launched a shared artificial intelligence model for agriculture and food security on November 3 in Rome, according to the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP).
Based in Sidi Bennour, DeepLeaf develops tools that can analyze images of plants to identify diseases and monitor crop conditions. Its technology has already been validated in Morocco, Kenya and Italy, according to the UNDP. The company is now taking a new step by making its model available to other players in the agricultural sector.
Seven countries are involved: Morocco, Tunisia, Kenya, Ghana, Tanzania, Rwanda and Italy. In each, local start-ups will be able to develop their own applications using this shared platform. The aim is to make it easier to create tools suited to the crops and agricultural conditions in each region, without having to develop the entire technology from scratch.
The arrangement also stipulates that participating companies will retain ownership of the solutions they develop. Agricultural data will be shared with the consent of its owners, while the model’s open components can be reused as digital public goods.
The initiative builds on cooperation already under way between DeepLeaf and European partners. Last June, the Moroccan company signed an agreement with the Fondazione Edmund Mach, an Italian agricultural research organization, to work on the scientific validation of its models. The new project is led by the AI Hub for Sustainable Development, an initiative supported by the G7 and co-directed by the Italian government and the UNDP.
