The final will be held before American businesspeople at the Berkeley University in Berkeley, California, where SmartVineyard will compete with twenty-plus startups from across the globe.

Users of SmartVineyard can optimize the spraying of vineyards. It is a plant protection system that operates with precision thatis broken down to a minute – Csaba Árendás, CEO and owner of QuantisLabs, has explained to Népszabadság.

Traditionally the entire area of a vine plantation is sprayed with the same plant protecting liquid at a time but the use of the SmartVineyard system renders that activity more efficient. How?

Note that the vineyards (subunits) of a vine plantation are not homogeneous due to the varying topographical characteristics. Vapor content and the wetness of vine leaves can widely vary at distances of just a hundred meters. In other words, microclimates can be different even within relatively small areas.

That is why the diseases of grapes can also vary in type and intensity, which means it is advisable to differentiate spraying in content and quantity. That’s exactly where SmartVineyard steps in, Csaba Árendás explains. Such precautionary measures can improve the quality of wines because only good grapes can produce good wines.

To activate the system, high-precision sensors need to be installed between vineyards for each unit of five to eight hectares in size. The sensors are powered by solar cells. Each sensor collects data that might contribute to diseases of grape separately. On the basis of mathematical formulas, the sensors calculate the probability of the emergency of diseases of grapes in every minute of the day.

Circumstances in vine plantations can thus be determined for relatively small subunits of plantations, which helps designing counter-measures. The system evaluates the incoming measurement data and, if need be, a message, which is almost real time, is sent to the smart phone of the wine-grower day or night. The message is specific: it includes information about the disease and the status of vineyard concerned. Having received such a report, the viticulturist can decide whether emergency spraying is needed, where exactly it should be done and in what quantity.

SmartVineyard has already been in use in Germany and the Czech Republic, and inquiries have been received from the PR of China and Argentina.

In Hungary renowned wineries have already signed up, including Tamás Gere, József Bock and vineyards of the Pannonhalma Abbey.

Árendás say QuantisLabs has entered the IBC contest to recruit investors so the result there do matter. Although QuantisLabs has already entered other such competitions, it took over a month to compile the requisite documentation. The competition package included a business plan, a prototype of the product and video segments to demonstrate the processes. Most of the components of the package were available even before this contest but they needed improvement and some modification to meet IBC standards.

IBC is a global contest. Intel’s experts selected 24 startup companies for the final from between 500 and 1000 companies in every continent. The very fact that QuantisLabs was chosen to compete in the European final has already generated attention in the firm abroad.

It is inevitable to involve additional external resources, Árendás said, because QuantisLabs has already grown to the upper limit it could achieve without leverage. Given the massive amount of new orders coming in these days, additional capital needs to be involved and the present staff of fourteen needs to be expanded.

Source: Népszabadság

Translated by Budapest Telegraph