The team UpFish, a startup created in a partnership between students from the Faculty of Mechanical Engineering (FEM) at Unicamp and the Bachelor of Neuroscience at the Federal University of ABC, was one of the winners of the Brazilian stage of the Imagine Cup. The competition, promoted annually by Microsoft, is a one of the largest in the world in the field of technology innovation. The two finalist teams in Brazil, selected from 199 competitors, will participate in the global stage of the competition that will take place at Microsoft's headquarters in Seattle, USA, between the 23rd and 26th of July. The winner of the global stage of the Imagine Cup will win 100 thousand dollars and training with Satya Nadella, CEO of the company.
UpFish operates in the agribusiness sector, in the aquaculture market (the cultivation of fish, shrimp and other aquatic organisms for human consumption). According to one of its creators, Alfredo Cavalcante Neto, a final year student of Control and Automation Engineering at FEM, this is the fastest growing animal protein market on the planet, as it uses a reduced production space, emits less carbon dioxide and uses less water. However, he explains that creating the ideal environment for this cultivation requires advanced technological solutions, of which Latin America is still lacking. “UpFish’s mission is to empower rural producers through technology,” says Cavalcante.
The product, still in the development phase, consists of hardware and software, which will work in three stages. “First the equipment’s sensors are placed in the water; then the data is sent to the cloud and processed in our software; and then, based on our analyses, the producer is helped to correct the water quality”, explains Cavalcante. “The techniques we use allow us to optimize the use of feed and reduce the mortality rate, generating savings in all operational costs in a range of 15 to 35%,” he says.
