The Benefits of Machine Vision

[Music]

[Applause]

i’m delighted

and honored to be here to tell you my

story

it is about how the company i co-founded

listen feel you make life better for

farmers

and for the rest of us i believe that

our api integration platform will help

farmers to produce more clean food

in the way that make our planet more

sustainable

i grew up in bangna the village of paddy

fields

in the kona york province 100 kilometers

from bangkok

i was typical of many thai girls until

we lost my father when i was just 14

years old

we felt like we were in the small boat

lost at sea we suffered

but along the way good thing has also

happened

so much so that i’m able to be here with

you today

i was a good student but never the best

i did not like the routine of standing

in the sun for smb

each morning before the cast begin

so i try to sneak over the school

friends just before the class begin

definitely not a good long term strategy

i found a better way i volunteered to

help look after the school computers

every morning it was from this

that i learned to write and do my last

computer program

programming remained and important of my

life to this day

one thing led to another and one day

i obtained a degree in computer study

from king mongood institute of

technology like

bang i then continue my study at

asian institute of technology

my thesis apply advanced image

processing technology

to convert two-dimensional digital

images

into three-dimensional shape of corals

in so doing we were able to monitor

the growth and determine the health of

coral reefs

i then turned my interest to agriculture

a proud moment for me was the success

we had in boston in real time

images of spinner’s plants in xiangdao

to the university of tokyo our sensor

also monitor soil acidity

availability of water temperature

and moisture in the air

why was this important japan used to

impose spinach from another country

but foul chemical residues and need to

find another sort of surprise

when processed and analyzed

chiang dao images allow japanese

consumers

to see with their own eyes how we

in thailand are growing fresh organic

spinach

using the minimum amount of fertilizer

we want japanese consumer confidence

they know about the thought of surprise

and can see with their own eyes

how spinach spent growing in real time

back then in 2006 there was no internet

in chiang dao

a remote part of thailand so we built

field server essentially computer

that processed the data on site

in the field to economize on the use of

information which was then transmitted

via ipsta satellite to the computer

network had

information on the screen

this project create

a lot of winner and with this

we in thailand our technology

can empower huge high farmers

to grow fresh organic spinach

which won japanese consumer confidence

moreover this birthday also attacked

such a wide interest

that more japanese academics visited the

area

they kindly gained more scholarship to

huge high children to further their

education

this project creates many winners and

it opened up a new world for me from

then on

i knew what i was born to do and this is

what listenfield will do

in the years to come i then received

a scholarship from the national

agricultural research institute

of japan professor kiyoshi honda was my

advisor

he guided me to do a phd dissertation

at chubu university in nagoya

on an api integration platform

for economic models definitely

not a catchy title but

i believe that our work could be an

important

contribution to precision agriculture

because it provides insight into

three things which are most important

for all plants

first is soil japan already survey

and therefore know the quality of the

country top soil

the top 15 centimeter using this data

and deeper soil sample i built what i

call

a soil fusion model that can determine

deeper soil sample

deeper to 60 centimeter that can tell

about the soil quality everywhere in

japan

this information available for anyone

using api

second is climate and weather condition

for this i use 30 years of

climatological data

as the benchmark this weather pattern

can determine the climate condition

at precise location with the help of

on-site sensor

our sensor monitor rainfall

and combined with past data can help

anticipate short-term trends

our sensors also monitor moisture

and other factors that are important for

plant growth

that is our model can provide

detailed and timely data about climate

conditions

as well as their outlook at precise

location

anywhere in japan first

is cultiva coefficient

plants have their own unique genotype

this means that they will grow and

reproduce

differently in the response of

environmental condition

this cultural fight that listenfield

have put together

can help tell you how your plants

are growing under prevailing condition

even better we can tell you

how your plants will turn out if they

are fed differently

or if the soil or climate condition

change

it is as if you can see the food

being digested and how this food is

making your body grow

putting all these things together we now

have a very powerful platform

that can produce actionable data

this information allows farmers

to improve their crop yields using the

right amount of fertilizers

at the right places and at the right

time

farmers would also know the best type of

crop to plant in a particular area

as their crop grow farmers would be

given

early warning to avoid costly

infestation

finally our technology

could also tell farmer when is the best

time to plan

and when is the best time to harvest

that crop

how does all these come together in

terms of serving the planet

in 2019 listenfield received

the undp low carbon award

the undp evaluated our farming model

and estimate that we could deliver

an average of 48 to 66

reduction of carbon dioxide emission

compared to conventional farming

to further develop

we set up listenfield japan

i’m glad to say that professor kiyoshi

honda

was my co-founder for this company

the name listenfield reflects our

realization

that nato have always been trying to

tell us many important things

if only we could know how to

listen taking one step further

listenfield is now looking at dna

sequencing of plants

this is how the plants interact with

environmental condition

can produce the quality in fruit and

vegetable

that we desire texture

taste nutritional content

and so on

another technology that we are using to

help farmers to produce

more clean food and more more productive

is multi-spectral emerging technology

this technology allow machine to see

what we human cannot see a kind of

exploration from the sky

how is this useful i will give you two

examples

first is to manage nitrogen stress

multispectral imaging can help determine

whether crop have enough fertilizer

at particular location in the pot of

land

then we can manage fertilizer by added

or cut back

and then we can also help

farmer to maintain the high yields as

well as

manage the minimum amount of fertilizer

in some plants if we add too much

fertilizer

it increase the risk of lodging

which means that the stem of the plants

bend

over making is very difficult to harvest

the grain

and gas re-reduce the yield this is how

we economize on the use of fertilizer

and at the

same time maintaining high yields

second example is we use multi-spectral

images

to manage water stress

for example in oranges

if not enough water oranges cannot

survive

but just enough water stress

the oranges will become sweeter

this is what i’m saying machine vision

in this case multi-spectral imaging

is precision agriculture that

would help farmers to cut cost

risk output and making our planet

more sustainable at the same time

not long ago we submitted our technology

and our model to japanese

to the government of japan

it is now a part of japan agricultural

reform i believe that

japanese authorities think as we do

that investing and an in an api

integration platform

could help to transform agriculture

practice into precision agriculture

this could be the technological

infrastructure

that helped redefine agriculture

into precision agriculture

and can help farmers to produce

the better product at the same time

i also set up listenfield thailand

two years ago to promote adoption of

this technology

while in my country we made a good

progress

there are 30 000 farmers on our platform

over farmland of seventeen thousand

hectares

more importantly seventy percent of

our farmers are producing organic

farming

in general agricultural data in thailand

is

numerous but really fragmented

and scattered and therefore not helpful

for thai farmers

our api integration platform will

integrate this data

in such a way that farmers can easily

use them

to make informed important information

important decision in terms of

planting harvesting

and minimizing cost

imagine how comforting it will be

for farmers if they could see

their fields in all dimension

up close with our machine vision

imagine how farmer welfare

will improve if

uncertainty about their harvest are

greatly reduced

imagine how assure

we consumers would feel if we know that

chemical use have been reduced to a

minimum

i believe that our api integration

platform

with machine learning technology

could help to transform agricultural

practice

into precision agriculture at the same

time

help farmers to produce more

better product

my life story have given me

some important lessons

if something fascinates me i will do my

best

to list out for it in life

i have to deal with many setbacks

a lacking skill such as english

this being that i need to work myself

much harder to limit my endurance

but working hard have been rewarding

so far i only have to cope with

setback never failer

i cannot claim that i found success

but i can say this many people that i

have met

have been really kind and thoughtful

i always admit that i don’t know

please help me learn and i will show

them that

i will work really hard to learn and

truly understand it

the bottom line is this

whenever i was given the opportunity

i would never back away

it is a great privilege for me to be

here with you today

but all good things must come to an end

i would like to leave you with this

thought

where you come from need not matter

this is about how you decide what you do

today and every day to

defy your life tomorrow

promise yourself as i have made promise

to myself

live your life in the way that make this

world a better place

find time to be nice to yourself

but always be nice to your neighbor

and please listen to

what our planet is telling us

my name is la celine chinese and i thank

you very much for watching my talk

cool swadica

[Music]

you