Welcome! See other Startups of the Year interviews here. Hey Hackers, Lualtek has been nominated in HackerNoon's annual Startup of the Year awards in Comiso, Italy. Please vote for us here: https://hackernoon.com/startups/europe/europe-sicily-italy Read more about us below to understand why we deserve your vote. Meet Lualtek . A , and , which involves the use of a transversal coverage and the integrated provision of the three main assets: , and . It’s the ideal tool to create sustainable and efficient cultivations; it doesn’t need pre-existing technological configurations and it can be implemented in completely isolated areas. allow to efficiently manage sensors and automations and to maintain the pre-established conditions in a cultivation thanks to the scenarios’ logic. Lualtek is the first solution able to monitor and automate changes in greenhouses and open fields without Internet and electrical supply full package plug-and-play ready to use LoRaWAN network sensors/actuators, artificial intelligence Lualtek’s web app and algorithm The company’s is therefore to provide entrepreneurs with the necessary tools to realize sustainable and efficient cultivation areas. Through data gathering and intelligent data analysis, Lualtek helps the entrepreneur to manage daily operations by guiding his or her choices and gaining trust and loyalty through time. Mission The company’s is to become a reference point in the technological transition of the agricultural sector through concreteness and continuous innovation. The goal is to become an essential partner in the decision-making process and in the management of one’s cultivations: we wish to change agriculture by innovating outdated paradigms and by becoming a real Vision Virtual Agronomist. How We're Disrupting/Improving the Agritech Industry We have made technology accessible to everyone. Our system is sustainable because doesn’t need installation, cables, computers on the field. A modular system that users can organize and implement at any time. Standing Out from The Crowd Current competitors who provide monitoring services use tools and technologies that require their in wiring and installation of sensors and also in Wi-Fi access points and in the configuration of equipment. installation through technicians who are specialized Solutions that don’t use Wi-Fi also have limits causing problems to the functioning of the system binding the positioning of sensors and radio signal, instead of positioning them in areas that consent to the crops’ correct monitoring (for example the analysis of the bord effect in several areas of the greenhouse, temperature analysis at different heights of the cultivation, analysis of the land values and of the environment based on possible slopes in big cultivation, etc.). For data transmission to software, competitors use and it allows the control unit to send data to software that is possibly usable even while moving. linked to distance and radio disturbances, Internet connection which must be available near the cultivated area , allows to overcome all the issues of the existing system, and, along with being in any situation and at any level, it also allows to transmit data and with maximum efficiency up to ten kilometres. Lualtek’s gateways receive the signal and send it in , where , who can now manage it in order to create automations and alerts. LoRaWAN’s protocol, implemented with Lualtek’s system easy to integrate without radio disturbance cloud the progressive web app elaborates data and it shows it to the user Thanks to the installation of the actuators, Lualtek (irrigation, opening and closing of the side roofs, anti-freezing, ecc.) without the need to connect wires to the equipment that needs to be controlled: , simply adding actuators that receive, through LoRaWan protocol, input provided by Lualtek’s algorithm along with the scenarios that the entrepreneur set. allows to automatize anything connected to electricity it integrates itself with the pre-existing electrical system Lualtek’s also allows the entrepreneur to thanks to data collected in one’s own cultivation and in nearby ones, in order to provide relevant advice referring to its situation and the place where the cultivation is. artificial intelligence improve production and foresee the development of illnesses or pathogens Our Predictions/Thoughts on the Agritech Industry in 2023 When we say “ what we mean is the evolution and progress of agriculture that has been made possible thanks to the automatic collection, integration, and analysis of previously isolated data coming from the field, and also from sensors and any other third part. agriculture 4.0.” All the above is qualified by the use of 4.0 industrial technologies, which make it possible to create knowledge and support for the farmer in the decision-making process concerning his or her own business and his or her relationship with other parties that are present in the supply chain. This way, he or she can overcome the boundaries of a single business. The ultimate goal is to increase profitability and economic, environmental and social sustainability. , agriculture 4.0. has continued its in Italy, despite the significant crisis due to Covid-19 pandemic. In the past few years development and growth The Smart AgriFood observatory from Milano’s Politecnico University has estimated that in 2020 the 4.0. agricultural market in Italy reached 1,3 billion euros. , it’s growth hasn’t stopped: agriculture 4.0. has generated a compared to 2020 (also supported by tax incentives granted in order to support investments that were made in 4.0. solutions). At the same time, increased and doubled in 2021 reaching . In 2021 1,6 billion euros income in Italy, with a 23% increase Italian companies’ surfaces that were cultivated with agricultural 4.0 tools 6% of total surface At a worldwide level, an Agritech business of 15 billion dollars was estimated (against 7,8 billion dollars in 2019). Italy is also among the “top ten” for number of start-up companies in the industry and it is currently among the leaders regarding cultivated surfaces. What word defines the state of Agritech in 2023? According to the Smart AgriFood observatory, among the by 4.0. agricultural solutions, the ones that prevail are the ones regarding with 71% of the solutions linked to their analysis (however only in a few cases there are linked to “big data”). technologies implemented data management, Consistently, a strong presence of solutions are found (58%) which are able to gather and transmit data, and also there is a strong presence of systems implementation (19%). Internet of things “on cloud” Lualtek addresses its business to agricultural entrepreneurs who are open to innovation and that feel the need to improve automation and optimize the use of their resources thanks to monitoring, gathering, and intelligent data analysis in order to make their own cultivations sustainable and efficient while improving their work conditions (by reducing intellectual and manual working hours). Hence, the company places itself at a level and the reference market can be defined as a when it comes to its target (the value of the offer, the distribution channels and the relationships must be Tailor-made following very “few” clients’ needs) but these solutions can also be spread out to other agricultural sectors. B2B niche Considering the object of agricultural industries’ production, the 4.0. the agricultural market can be divided in the following macro-segments: Farming, Forestry, Livestock Monitoring, Fish Farm Monitoring, and Smart Green House. Lualtek provides a vertical service dedicated mainly to the monitoring and automation of and , regardless the specific type of culture. This way, the company establishes itself as the In particular, Lualtek offers two types of technological solutions and it integrates them with each other: on one hand Lualtek provides (IoT sensors) that monitor crops and lands, and on the other hand it develops a ” that feeds itself with data delivered from the first solution. greenhouses (smart greenhouse) open field crops (farming) main actor in the development of “internet of farming”. “remote monitoring systems” “decision support system (DSS) The enabled technologies used by Lualtek are: Data & analytics, internet of things, ICT systems on Cloud and software platforms. Why we decided to participate in HackerNoon's Startup of the Year awards We’d like to share our project with other hackers in the world that could help us to improve our ideas and our technology! Final Thoughts We’d like to change agriculture innovating decades-old obsolete paradigms, and we are doing in Sicily. Lualtek is nominated as Startup of the Year in Comiso, Italy. Vote for us today!
