Smart Droplets Wageningen Hackathon: AI for Smart Pesticide Management

Smart Droplets partner, Wageningen University & Research, invites students, researchers, and professionals to participate in an innovative hackathon focused on advancing sustainable agriculture through Artificial Intelligence.

Join us for the Smart Droplets: Wageningen Hackathon – AI for Smart Pesticide Management, where you will have the opportunity to develop and refine cutting-edge solutions. This event is a key part of our mission to promote smarter, more efficient resource use in farming.

Event Mission: Advancing AI for Sustainable Pesticide Application

Participants will tackle a significant real-world challenge: combating apple scab (Venturia inaequalis) in commercial apple production. Your mission is to develop an innovative spraying policy by training a reinforcement learning (RL) agent or an intelligent conditional agent using the A-scab disease simulator. Success involves balancing disease risk with sustainable pesticide use, measured by a specific reward function (full details in our GitHub technical guide). This hackathon offers a unique chance to apply advanced AI concepts from the EU-funded Smart Droplets project to a pressing agricultural issue.

Hackathon Overview: Key Information 

Dates & Duration

• Event Period: Friday, June 13th, 2025 – Friday, June 20th, 2025

Format: Hybrid Event (In-Person & Online)

• We are pleased to offer a hybrid format to ensure broad participation.
  

In-Person Kick-Off Event:

• Date & Time: Friday, June 13th, 2025, commencing at 13:00 CEST.
• Venue: Lumen 1, Wageningen University & Research, Netherlands. (Venue details: Lumen Building Information). We encourage local participants to join us for the official launch, networking, and on-site support.
• Please note for in-person attendees:

• The primary room, Lumen 1, has a capacity of 24 people, with additional space available in the adjacent indoor garden.
• When registering, please indicate if you plan to attend in person (look for the relevant field in the registration form).
• Attendees should bring their own laptops. Online compute resources (e.g., Colab, Kaggle) can be utilised.

Kick-Off Agenda (June 13th, Lumen 1):

Online Participation:

• The kick-off event can also be joined online via the following link: Meeting link (Meeting ID: 368 220 453 540 Passcode: ZK2VC3KX)
• Participants submit their solutions online throughout the week-long event. The main challenge will unfold online. Participants will submit their solutions via a dedicated online platform. Further details will be announced to all registered participants shortly. 

Who Should Participate?

We welcome individuals with a passion for technology and agriculture, including:

• Students (MSc, PhD) in Computer Science, Data Science, Artificial Intelligence, Agricultural Sciences, Engineering, and related disciplines.
• Researchers with an interest in agri-tech, machine learning, and sustainable development.
• Professionals and Developers looking to apply their AI expertise to impactful agricultural challenges.
• Anyone with experience or keen interest in reinforcement learning and its applications.

Benefits of Participating

By joining this hackathon, you will:

• Address a Real-World Agricultural Challenge
  Contribute to the Smart Droplets project’s objectives for more sustainable farming practices.
• Develop Practical, In-Demand Skills
  Go beyond theory! Gain direct hands-on experience with AI and reinforcement learning by working with Ascabgym, our custom Gymnasium-style environment. This simulates real-world apple scab disease dynamics using data from Smart Droplets project pilots, allowing you to integrate popular RL libraries (e.g., Stable-Baselines3, RLlib, CleanRL). Explore the environment in detail via our GitHub technical guide.
• Expand Your Network & Engage
  Connect with a vibrant community of fellow innovators. Gain direct insights from leading AI and Agri-Tech experts at Wageningen University & Research, and interact with key members of the Smart Droplets consortium.
• Win Recognition & Prizes
  Showcase your groundbreaking solutions! The most innovative and impactful entries will be rewarded with valuable gift card prizes. The awards will be: €75 for the winner, €50 for the runner-up, and €25 for the most original submission.
• Get Exclusive Hackathon Swag
  Join us for the in-person kick-off in Wageningen and receive a complimentary, custom-designed Smart Droplets Hackathon T-shirt!

Technical Foundation & Your Toolkit

Get ready to dive into the core of the challenge with our comprehensive Jupyter Notebook – this is your primary technical guide! While it will be formally shared with all registered participants at the June 13th kick-off, you can get a head start and explore its contents now on GitHub.
This notebook details the Ascabgym environment, setup requirements, provides baseline code for both RL and conditional agents, and outlines all participation rules.
➡️ Explore the Technical Notebook on GitHub: https://github.com/WUR-AI/A-scab/blob/hackathon/hackathon/general_hackathon_notebook.ipynb

Please Note These Key Rules:

• This is an individual challenge; all submissions must reflect individual work.
• Success depends on using only the provided Ascabgym environment, data, and features. No external data sources are permitted.
• Specific observational features (“Risk” and “Pesticide”) must not be used by your agent for decision-making.
• The complete and definitive set of rules is detailed in the GitHub notebook and adherence is mandatory.

Solution Submission: Information regarding the online platform for submitting your agent and accessing the live leaderboard will be shared with all registered participants by Tuesday, May 27th.

Registration: Join the Challenge!

We invite you to be part of this exciting event. Registration is now open!

➡️ Register for the Hackathon Here: https://forms.gle/qfZCUWRwouVThHaa7

Further Information

Registered participants will receive all key communications, including timely reminders to consult the Jupyter Notebook on GitHub (your primary guide for all technical details, setup, and rules). Updates on the online submission platform (by May 27th) and other important information will also be shared directly. For specific questions regarding the Wageningen Hackathon, please contact the organizers at Wageningen University & Research: Michiel Kallenberg (), Hilmy Baja (), or Zehao Lu ().

We look forward to your participation and the innovative solutions you will bring to the Smart Droplets Wageningen Hackathon!

The Smart Droplets Project Team