Welcome Jim and everyone else! We just had a fun game night last night with some GOATs and realized we really really really want to get everyone back together and meet all the new and amazing people showing up here again.
Can’t wait till we can have some kind of in-person event!!
Hi everyone, this is me:
“Timothy Schmidt has an extensive background in electronic systems diagnostics and repair. As an innovator in the Free, Libre, and Open Source Software, Open Hardware, and desktop fabrication movements for over twenty years, Timothy has contributed to several efforts noteworthy enough to merit preservation. Tim maintained the first version of the Mendel 3D printer in a Free Software CAD system, and founded the Michigan RepRap Users Group. Tim co-founded the Open Graphics Project, and participated in development of the first Open Hardware phones via OpenMoko. Tim has helped to 3D print human stem cells with lasers and consulted on the development of the 3D printer aboard the international space station. As partner in mUVe3D he helps produce the industry’s most open and flexible SLA liquid resin 3D printers. Tim has co-founded and aided in the development of several community and maker spaces. For the last six years Tim has served as the Information Technologist of the BEACON Center for the Study of Evolution in Action at Michigan State University.”
I am working on a project I call Replimat here: https://wiki.replimat.org/wiki/Main_Page
Please come check us out, and thanks for all the excellent work!
Hi there, I’m Kathryn Hurchla. Excited to find this group, while researching data sources for my graduate capstone project involving data visualization around adopting sustainable soil practices and climate change I’m working on. I’m also a friendly colleague and big fan of The Common Market (https://www.thecommonmarket.org/) a nonprofit regional food distributor started by friends (now in Mid-Atlantic, Georgia, and Texas) and I hope to work on more data projects with them in the future in this area. Just warms me to mix my passions and meet others working with open source/ag data.
I enjoy mountain biking, “forest bathing”, identifying plants, am country at heart. I’m from W. New York State where one my first jobs was on an organic farm, have been living in Philadelphia now going on nearly 20 years, and am fixing up a home on 10 acres mostly Spruce-Fir forest in the Northeast Kingdom area of Vermont–before I replaced the missing wall I planted garlic, just sayin’. Cheers!
Hi, I’m Michael Malinowski.
In past years I wanted to set up and showcase a commercial aquaponic business but couldn’t figure out how to make it profitable on paper. Automation was needed to lower operating costs which I think is also true for organic field farming (eliminated back-breaking work). I’d like to help with that automation which I am currently exploring and your community looks intriguing.
I’m a retired electrical engineer, controls engineer, programmer, project manager and live near Chicago, IL, USA.
Hello Everyone, my name is Steven Doyle. I am a PhD student at Purdue University’s Agricultural and Biological Engineering department.
A Bit About Me
I am a 3rd year PhD student in @sudokita’s Agricultural Informatics lab. I have a master’s degree in soil science from Ohio State University but my primary work outside of school has been in smallholder agriculture in eastern Africa and Southeast Asia.
What I Do
My dissertation research is on decision support tools to help small and medium farmers grow annual horticultural crops, like tomatoes and melons. It involves a bit of design research, crop modeling, and coding. I am starting up the data collection phase this fall (2022) in the states of Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Michigan, Ohio, and Wisconsin. After data collection is complete, I hope to make connections with partners elsewhere in the world to adapt the methodology of tool design to other contexts.
What I Can Offer GOAT
I have a strong background in the scientific aspects of crop production and plenty of professional and research experience working with smallholder farmers.
Why I Value Open Ag Tech
I value open-source agricultural technology because a policy of sharing technological breakthroughs yields faster innovation, which produces better tools for farmers.
Hi All,
Who am I?
Greetings from the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research, by way of Washington, DC and Mobile, AL. I have been a scientific program director for the past six years and I see myself as a connector in this space. I am excited to co-host a session this year to hear more about potential research needs in OpenAg research and partnership.
What I can Offer GOAT
I have a strong background in soil science, and professional experience working with underserved communities. Also I have a high level view of other activities in the funding space.
Why I value Open Ag Tech
FFAR has, since its inception, seen the value of Open Ag Tech and have funded several projects that support the space and I hope to gain insight that might inform future funding directions.
Hi LaKisha! And (a belated) hi Steven!
Will we be seeing both of you at the conference in Rhinebeck next week?
Hi! Yes I will be arriving Sunday evening- so I will see everyone Monday!
Hey folks, happy to discover this incredible community following a fun conversation with @kylerlaird.
A Bit About Me
I’m Avi Brown, an American-Israeli robotics nerd and 4th year student of electrical & electronics engineering. You could say I found my calling when I joined an agricultural robotics startup about 1.5yr ago as a junior engineer.
What I Do
In addition to wrapping up my studies, “by day” I work as an electronics engineer at a small startup developing the prototype of a self-driving vineyard care robot (under the agROBOfood umbrella). We have fun…
With whatever time is left in the day I work on my own things, most recently a project involving running a neural network on an Arduino and publishing the inferences over micro-ROS.
What I Can Offer GOAT
Electronics (getting into designing my own PCBs), robotics (especially anything ROS related – count me in!), anything hands-on. I love to build tools that make development easier for other engineers. I love taking an idea off paper and into the real world.
Why I Value Open Ag Tech
The wild number of well-meaning ag startups that have opened and closed shop (many of which trying to solve another nuanced version the same problem) has led me to think that a closed, compartmentalized approach to agricultural innovation just ain’t the way. The problems are living and diverse, and should be addressed with the organic approach that open source allows. Though my current place of work does not follow an open philosophy, I would love to contribute to the GOAT community in my free time, and hopefully one day be able to invest my full focus into an open ag endeavor.
Please connect with me on LinkedIn – I’d love to meet folks and chat about anything!
Greetings,
I’m André Rocha (@steam228) from Portugal, currently living in a small village near the Atlantic (approx 100km north of lisbon) and working as a professor at the Polytechnic of Lisbon. As a designer and design professor, I’ve been interested in open and distributed design when applied to several areas. Over the last ten years, I’ve been especially interested in the different faces of what is or can be Open Source Agriculture and how it can contribute and be disseminated among more traditional smallholder farming communities. My PhD process started through a more tech-centric approach (and I’m still very interested in all open-source hardware) and is approaching the end by looking at a more cultural (autoethnographic) perspective.
Long story short, I’ve investigated (and played with) many sensor networks / IoT tech, and I’m interested in doing so. Still, I’m mainly interested in your take (projects, references, etc.) on how this can overcome the resistance of “traditional” aged farming communities and how it can impact digital/technological literacy among them
Thanks!
Hello Everyone, Nice to meet with you all, I am a fullstackdev, having 20+ years of experience.
Greetings,
I’m Thomas Hoy from Philadelphia. I will be graduating from Arcadia University with a bachelors degree in Computer Science and a minor in Food Studies & Environmental Sustainability. I have interests in open-source projects and currently working on an automated plant care system for my senior capstone project. (GitHub - TheThomasHoy/Osmo: Osmo is an autonomous and modular plant care system equipped with sensors and powered by Raspberry Pi.). When I am not at school I work as a cook and farm hand for a restaurant/farm based in Pennsylvania. As someone who is entering the work force I am open to any and all job recommendations in the cross-disciplines of agriculture, food, and technology.
Thanks!
Hello, my name is Mike Brunt, I was born in the UK and now live in Eugene OR, USA via New Zealand. It was just after IBM released the PC that I became avidly interested in technology and got more deeply involved as the Web emerged.
In 2014 I passed a Permaculture Design Course attaining a PDC and prior to this, in my time in New Zealand I had become very involved in regenerative horticulture. In 2015 I became very interested in blockchain technologies, with the emergence of Ethereum, in fact.
Currently I have three main projects, one in particular, THEDAOScape just released an MVP app which is a community DAO (distributed autonomous organization) and I wondered if anyone else here is doing work on DAO’s?
Hello, my name is Luciano Delfino. I greet you from the city of Santa Fe, Argentina.
I am increasingly passionate about spaces, movements, and initiatives that aim to create diverse shared networks that generate synergies to transform what exists into more loving, harmonious, diverse, participatory, creative, democratic, and equitable versions.
That’s why I’m here introducing myself to the community!
On my part, I am recently discovering and harnessing my entrepreneurial qualities by driving a project called NUoMI. It is connected to the open-source/hardware movement, urban agriculture, agroecology, and regeneration. It is strongly linked to creating spaces to promote STEAM/STEM education, “family” urban gardens, exchange spaces, among others.
We are in an initial stage, shaping various aspects of the project as much as we can.
I hope we continue to promote these spaces and initiatives.
My contact information is:
A warm embrace!
Hola, me llamo Luciano Delfino. Les saludo desde la ciudad de Santa Fe, Argentina.
Me apasionan cada vez mas espacios, movimientos e iniciativas que se orientan a generar redes compartidas diversas que crean sinergias para transformar lo que existen en versiones mas amorosas, armónicas, diversas, participativas, creativas, democráticas y equitativas.
Por eso estoy aquí presentándome ante la comunidad!
Por mi parte, estoy recientemente descubriendo y explotando mis cualidades emprendedoras impulsando un proyecto llamado NUoMI. Vinculado al movimiento open source/hardware, agricultura urbana, agroecológica y regenerativa. Fuertemente vinculado con generar espacios para fomentar la educación STEAM/STEM, huertas “familiares” urbanas, espacios de intercambio, entre otras.
Estamos en una etapa inicial dando forma a varios aspectos del proyecto en la medida en que podemos.
Deseo que sigamos impulsando estos espacios e iniciativas.
Mis datos de contacto son:
Un fuerte abrazo!
Hi,
I’m Andrew, I was born on, the very agrarian, Prince Edward Island in Atlantic Canada, but didn’t grow up with an interest in farming…
I went to Uni for Mechatronics Eng but left in my last semester for personal reasons. I did complete a Technology Management and Entrepreneurship diploma prior to quitting. After some design work and a stint coordinating at a Makerspace, I spent the past five years building and running a small-scale cutflower farm and florist business with my partner. With bootstrapping and homesteading we were able to live off of only the income the two of us generated on-farm (with the dubious help of a local teen that probably cost more than he helped). We reluctantly had to sell our farm despite it’s success, and are on a soul-searching journey that has me living in Italy at the moment. I had hoped to see more of the local farming methods and tools but connections have proved hard to make. So, here I am on the internet…
Between my engineering background and adult ADHD my farming life was an unfiltered fountain of ideas and experiments. I’m very interested in permaculture ideology and abhor the modern world of industrial agriculture where chemical companies, equipment manufactures, and banks trap farmers in a viscous cycle of debt and dependance. Through my baptism-by-fire market gardening experience I was often disappointed by the ignorance and greed present in that sector. I believe we have undermined our collective agrIQ™ by discouraging a whole generation of innovators that farming is beneath them. Farmers used to be the best engineers and innovators around! Now, companies are cropping up all over to peddle simple, homemade solutions to unsuspecting growers. The great Eliot Coleman made his legacy teaching growers to make their own tools on public television! Now, his ideas are sold (for large profit) as finished tools despite still being made of prototyping materials. (see the Tilther *drill not included, or this)
It has been some years since I saw the electric AC model G on pinterest and I am amazed it has taken me this long to find this community! I am head over heels for the simple beauty of the original G, and believe that size of tractor fills a huge niche in market gardening (as evidenced by the popularity of the BCS). I would say my biggest passion lies in that area and the promotion of ‘village-scale’ agriculture through reviving and adapting Victorian-style inventions to mitigate the energy and investment required to produce food.
In general though, I have a broad area of interests and will be more than happy to collaborate on all sorts of ideas and projects. As someone currently unemployed, and who knows that farming is an impossible way to make a living, I find myself sometimes torn in the intellectual property/open source debate. However, it is a strange world we live in and practical skills are so few, that it seems (as in the case of Eliot Coleman’s ideas) that revealing a design does not prevent the manufacturing of it form profiting. Also, (especially in IT) the patent system is so slow and flimsy that the best way to maintain a profitable position is to keep innovating.
So, let’s do that together!
Steeves
Hi Everyone!
I’m Rosia, a robotics student at an agricultural university in Wales. I’m wanting to get into local, small scale, open source farming automation and I feel like coming from the software development side its worth me trying to learn more about the other sides of farming. When researching I found GOAT and this feels like the perfect place for me to learn and see whats going on!
I’ve been to one or two meetings for various groups here but thats about it, I’m hoping to be a bit more active on this forum,
Hopefully chat to you all soon!
Who you are
I am Matthew Fitzgerald. I am a farmer, organizer, and entrepreneur focused on building sustainable businesses. I’m focused on beginning farmers and helping other farmers (conventional/chemical) make the transition to organic/ReGen practices. I’m urgently focused broad acres solutions as that is my paradigm in the Midwest.
What you do
I raise organic grains in Central Minnesota (corn, soy, wheat, pea, edible beans, hemp, etc.) I am building a mobile app tool that will help organic farmers raise bigger yields, make annual USDA certification (required) easier and bring organization to a management-intensive farm niche.
I need some help! I am not a developer and currently have a MVP. Seeking some technical programming skills to get the project across the finish line (Est. Spring 2024). I am presenting the concept at a few organic conferences this winter with the plan to get it in front of beta farmers by spring 2024.
What projects you work on, what skills/tools/resources you can bring to GOAT
I can share my perspective as a farmer - with a Midwest/Grain/Organic lens. I am working on an app for my community and bootstrapping it at the moment. Seeking collaborators and wisdom.
Why openness in ag is important to you.
I am a believer in cooperative efforts (it is how farmers survive!). I want to fight monopolies and consolidation in grain farms. Building a model for a new way that focuses on climate resiliency and stewardship.
Who you are - Pierre-Luc Gélineau
Québecer transplanted at the foot of the Adirondacks near lake Champlain. Lifelong learner with special interests in technology/science/Data analytics/M4.0, agriculture/nature/climate change and business.
What you do
Electrical Engineer - Mostly around Power, Automation, Mechatronics, Manufacturing, Tests, Transportation, Maintenance and 3D Manufacturing. Contributed to Esteban Solar Car Project, NYCT’s R179 Subway cars amongst other projects.
Farming at the family farm Ben Wever Farm and CSG Horsemanship, rotational grazing of cows, sheep, horses, experimenting with mushrooms, composts, agroforestry, bees and much more.
What projects you work on,
Outside of regular farming activities and a full time job…
Current focus is on operating/Automating a Drum Composter as part of our Waste Management as well as implementing an ASP Composting system.
What skills/tools/resources you can bring to GOAT,
Well rounded engineering skills and technical knowledge, project management, across products lifecycles.
Probably not as much time as I’d like to but open to help in whatever capacity.
Fair understanding of small farm operations and their challenges.
Why openness in ag is important to you
Openness is key to innovations, the ability to be exposed, dive deep, toy with tools and concepts is what allows for integration and uses of tech into our lives at scale.
It allows for a more empowered and democratized approach to adoption to the benefits of the many.
Agriculture as a core activity for communities to strive. Openness can be a powerful tool for farms and communities to face the challenges of our times.
Greetings from downstate, @piege! 
If you haven’t already come across them, you might be interested in Farm Hack, which @lizb is currently working to reboot:
And there’s a community call happening today at noon (Eastern), if you want to say hello there and this reaches you in time (starting just a little over an hour from when I’m posting).
I was planning on joining the call. I will also look into farmhack. thanks!
