A team of students from Narrabri High School has won the 2024 AgTech Innovation Summit at the University of New England (UNE) with an idea for floating solar panels on water storages.
The team of Year 11 students beat four other teams from Moree Secondary College, Farrer and NEGS to claim the $2000 prize offered by sponsors, the NSW Office of Regional Economic Development.
The three judges – UNE Vice-Chancellor Professor Chris Moran, UNE SMART Region Incubator (UNE SRI) Director, Dr Lou Conway, and entrepreneur and FarmLab founder Sam Duncan – were impressed with the novelty and potential of the Narrabri team’s concept.
By building a modular system of floating solar panels on storage dams, the team suggested that farmers could simultaneously address energy costs, storage evaporation and algae blooms.
Other teams proposed an AI-assisted app for rural veterinarians, an eartag that remotely monitored animal health, and AI-assisted apps and methodologies for monitoring and saving water.
In presenting the award, Prof. Moran congratulated the Narrabri team on the novelty of their idea, and their technical understanding of what they would need to do to start addressing a technically challenging concept.
Prof. Moran also complimented all the teams on the quality of their pitches. “I’ve sat through a lot of pitches, and know how difficult it is to get across a concept in such a short time. You should congratulate yourself on the background work you did, and the structure of the pitches you developed.”
Narrabri took away $1000 for the team, and $1000 for the school, part of the support package for the summit provided by program sponsors, the Office of Regional Economic Development and Training Services NSW under the Regional Investment Attraction Program, Targeted Workforce Development Scheme.
Armidale Rotary is now funding the team to attend EvokeAg in Brisbane in February 2025.
The team's members were Zoe O’Connor, Holly Anderson, Jobe O’Regan, Stella Laws and Caitlin Evans.
The summit was hosted by the UNE SRI, which pulled together a group of experts to support the school teams in development of their pitches. The summit “shows how government, industry and tertiary education can come together to help grow opportunities for young people in the agtech sector,” said UNE SRI Director, Dr Lou Conway.
Amanda Chahine, Senior Project Officer with the NSW Department of Education, agreed that the collaborative nature of the event was an important distinction.
“Seeing schools, tertiary education and industry come together to help students develop an idea really has made the day very relevant,” Ms Chahine said.
“It’s helped ignite ideas that may help students find direction in their future careers.”
