[Updates] Fwd: USDA, Microsoft to Launch "Innovation Challenge" to Address Food Resiliency

Wed Jul 29 00:52:55 EDT 2015

Hello Cocoa Conspiracy!

This is app-related though not Apple-related.

My advisor (ccd) and I have yet to publish my M.S. work re: foodshed
scaling. We identify fractal scaling of diversity (aka uncertainty) from
blocks of a couple hundred pixels in the USDA CDL
<http://nassgeodata.gmu.edu/CropScape/> to blocks the size of our great
state, NM. Our theoretical framework leverages an accounting procedure we
refer to as the "distributor" entropy by incorporating information from the
whole-system into the entropy statistics. old-school ecology generally only
uses site-specific information. our approach lowers uncertainty about which
types of produce you'll get by an order of magnitude.

The app idea would be to identify a "region" within which a distributor
might wish to attempt to invest in a food hub
<http://www.ngfn.org/resources/food-hubs>. Then, within that region, the
app "reads" the landscape to identify the most probable crops to be
processed by a food hub, the optimal scale for the hub to operate, and a
general neighborhood for the location of the
storage/distribution/processing facility. I still need to comb through some
of USDA's other open data sources to see what's available. Would be cool to
identify potential local business partnerships based on census data.

The point is: we are academics and probably don't have a shot at this
without a good app developer. Our statistical engine currently works in
MATLAB but I could definitely rewrite it in scipy (or probably also R; both
work in MS Azure). We would need someone who can understand enough of what
we're doing to be able to make it practical and intuitive for users. Could
be a really fun project; some really cool insights could emerge out of the
collaboration of academic and app-ademic. I'll stop now.

If anyone is interested, I'll be dropping by Winning this Thursday morning.
Or shoot me an email.

*clinks glass*

Mike Chang

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: USDA Office of Communications <usda at public.govdelivery.com>
Date: Fri, Jul 24, 2015 at 7:40 AM
Subject: USDA, Microsoft to Launch "Innovation Challenge" to Address Food
Resiliency
To: mikethechang at gmail.com

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  Release No. 0215.15  Contact:  Office of Communications
(202)720-4623     USDA,
Microsoft to Launch "Innovation Challenge" to Address Food Resiliency
   *$60,000
in Prizes Offered for Most Creative Applications Using USDA Open Data*

WASHINGTON, July 24, 2015 - The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) is
partnering with Microsoft to launch the "Innovation Challenge," a contest
designed to explore how climate change will impact the United States' food
system with the intent of achieving better food resiliency. The challenge
invites entrants to develop and publish new applications and tools that can
analyze multiple sources of information about the nation's food supply,
including key USDA data sets that are now hosted on Microsoft Azure,
Microsoft's cloud-computing platform.

"For more than 100 years, USDA has compiled data from economic reports and
farm production surveys, and more recently from satellite imagery and
remote sensors that can provide information on the health of crops around
the country," said Agriculture Secretary Tom Vilsack. "Through this
partnership with Microsoft, we are now putting that data into the hands of
people who can help us derive new insights to address factors that threaten
our ability to feed a growing global population. This offers very exciting
possibilities, and I look forward to seeing the new tools that contest
participants develop."

For the first time, key USDA datasets
<http://links.govdelivery.com:80/track?type=click&enid=ZWFzPTEmbWFpbGluZ2lkPTIwMTUwNzI0LjQ3NDk4NTUxJm1lc3NhZ2VpZD1NREItUFJELUJVTC0yMDE1MDcyNC40NzQ5ODU1MSZkYXRhYmFzZWlkPTEwMDEmc2VyaWFsPTE3Mzk3MzAzJmVtYWlsaWQ9bWlrZXRoZWNoYW5nQGdtYWlsLmNvbSZ1c2VyaWQ9bWlrZXRoZWNoYW5nQGdtYWlsLmNvbSZmbD0mZXh0cmE9TXVsdGl2YXJpYXRlSWQ9JiYm&&&101&&&http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/projects/azure/cdi2.aspx#datasets>
are being made available in the cloud where they can be accessed and
blended with other data to give novel insights or used in new types of
end-user applications. Combining these USDA data with cloud-computing
resources allows even very high fidelity and complex models to be processed
in a timely manner and enables results to be delivered to remote users on
their laptops, tablets or mobile phones.

The challenge offers $60,000 in prizes, including a top prize of $25,000,
for applications that make use of the USDA data and provide actionable
insights to farmers, agriculture businesses, scientists or consumers. In
addition, Microsoft is granting cloud-computing awards to aid university
researchers and students who wish to take part in the challenge. The
deadline for entries is November 20, 2015, giving challenge participants
three months to create their applications. Winners will be announced in
December 2015.

The increased prevalence and availability of data from satellite imagery,
remote sensors, surveys and economic reports mean that we can analyze,
model and predict an extremely diverse set of properties associated with
our food production. Applications might combine data from the USDA and
other government sources, such as the National Oceanic and Atmospheric
Administration (NOAA), the National Aeronautics and Space Administration
(NASA) or the United States Geological Survey, and can be targeted at
farmers, scientists, food producers, insurance companies or consumers.

"I am looking forward to discover what creative ideas the community comes
up with through blending together USDA data, novel ways of exploring and
analyzing data with access to large scale computing and data analysis in
the form of Microsoft's Azure platform," said Dr. Daron Green, Deputy
Managing Director of Microsoft Research. "Microsoft and the USDA seek to
catalyze the creativity of others and hope that the challenge will provide
a great incentive for developers and researchers interested in data science
to put together some great applications helping address the USA's food
resiliency needs."

Microsoft will promote the challenge at the 2015 meeting of the Agricultural
& Applied Economics Association
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Full details can be found at http://usdaapps.challengepost.com
<http://links.govdelivery.com:80/track?type=click&enid=ZWFzPTEmbWFpbGluZ2lkPTIwMTUwNzI0LjQ3NDk4NTUxJm1lc3NhZ2VpZD1NREItUFJELUJVTC0yMDE1MDcyNC40NzQ5ODU1MSZkYXRhYmFzZWlkPTEwMDEmc2VyaWFsPTE3Mzk3MzAzJmVtYWlsaWQ9bWlrZXRoZWNoYW5nQGdtYWlsLmNvbSZ1c2VyaWQ9bWlrZXRoZWNoYW5nQGdtYWlsLmNvbSZmbD0mZXh0cmE9TXVsdGl2YXJpYXRlSWQ9JiYm&&&103&&&http://usdaapps.challengepost.com/>
.

The Innovation Challenge was created in support of the President's Climate
Data Initiative
<http://links.govdelivery.com:80/track?type=click&enid=ZWFzPTEmbWFpbGluZ2lkPTIwMTUwNzI0LjQ3NDk4NTUxJm1lc3NhZ2VpZD1NREItUFJELUJVTC0yMDE1MDcyNC40NzQ5ODU1MSZkYXRhYmFzZWlkPTEwMDEmc2VyaWFsPTE3Mzk3MzAzJmVtYWlsaWQ9bWlrZXRoZWNoYW5nQGdtYWlsLmNvbSZ1c2VyaWQ9bWlrZXRoZWNoYW5nQGdtYWlsLmNvbSZmbD0mZXh0cmE9TXVsdGl2YXJpYXRlSWQ9JiYm&&&104&&&https://www.whitehouse.gov/blog/2014/07/29/unleashing-climate-data-empower-america-s-agricultural-sector>,
which aims to harness climate data in ways that will increase the
resilience of America's food system. This is a direct response to the
President's call for all hands on deck to generate further innovation to
help prepare America's communities and business for the impacts of climate
change.

#

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