The “Agrotech 2025 Smart Agriculture Technologies Hackathon Competition” was organized in cooperation with Kapsül Technology Platform, Social Innovation Agency, and Konya Chamber of Commerce Smart Technologies Center under the coordination of Mevlana Development Agency, which continues its activities in the TR52 Konya-Karaman Region under the coordination of the T.R. Ministry of Industry and Technology.

The competition program, held at Konya Metropolitan Municipality Kapsül Technology Platform, where accommodation, food services, equipment, and mentoring support were provided, and in which 11 project teams participated for 36 hours, aims to encourage the search for technological solutions for Konya's agricultural capacity, activate young entrepreneurship in the region, and contribute to the dissemination of digital transformation in agriculture.

Evaluating the program organized by their institution, Mevlana Development Agency Secretary General Dr. İhsan Bostancı said, “We are going through a period where innovation, creativity, and digital transformation based on knowledge and technology are felt in every geography and at every level of the world. It is an undeniable fact of our time that these concepts basically lie behind socio-economic development and growth in almost every field, from industry to trade, from logistics to health, from tourism to education. It can be easily followed through the transformation in agricultural technologies that the countless opportunities and capabilities offered by the digital revolution have found a very wide application area in the agricultural sector as well. The main goal of agricultural practices, defined by concepts such as smart agriculture, precision agriculture, or digital agriculture, is to solve many problems seen in plant and animal production through the use of new digital technology products within the framework of sustainability and environmental protection awareness. Along with these practices, the use of countless hardware and techniques such as sensors, detectors, cloud-based information and communication technologies, artificial intelligence and machine learning, robotic automation, IOT, unmanned aerial vehicles, satellite-based positioning and navigation systems is increasing day by day in the field of agriculture and animal husbandry, as in other fields. With the increasing use of these technologies; we all closely follow that productivity and added value in agricultural production increase, savings are achieved in agricultural inputs and energy consumption without reducing yield, farmers' income levels improve, and more contributions are made to combating climate change and drought by reducing damage to the environment and natural resources. In the future, the development of new technologies in agriculture and their wider use will increase productivity in agricultural production, enable more effective use of resources, and make significant contributions to the sustainability of agriculture, which is becoming an increasingly important problem, especially in our region. When looking at the land and water resources of Konya and Karaman provinces, which are the duty area of our Agency, it is seen that the Konya Karaman Region exhibits a distinctive structure from other regions in terms of agriculture, with its characteristic of being one of the geographies where Turkey's agricultural activities are most intense. A significant part of the Region, which has a surface area of approximately 50,000 km2 and is larger than many European countries, consists of rural areas, and 30% of the region's population lives in these rural areas. Nearly half of the region's surface area consists of agricultural lands, and this area corresponds to approximately 9% of the total agricultural lands in our country. The region, which is so fortunate in terms of land assets, is not equally lucky in terms of water assets. Only 3% of our country's usable water resources are located in our region. Despite the large land assets, such limited water resources increase the pressure on water resources and pose a significant risk to the sustainability of agriculture. This risk requires sensitive behavior in water use and benefiting from precision agriculture technologies. On the other hand, the absence of water, which is the most basic input of agriculture, or its availability only at high costs due to energy expenses, weakens the economic competitiveness of agriculture in the region. This also necessitates optimization in other inputs such as fertilizers, pesticides, and fuel. Therefore, it is extremely essential to integrate precision agriculture technologies into the region's agriculture in order to transform the agricultural sector, one of the most important sectors of the region, into a climate-smart, environmentally more sustainable, more productive in terms of production, and ultimately more competitive structure on a national and international scale in terms of regional development. The fact that our Region ranks first in our country in the production of agricultural machinery as well as agricultural activities has made the development of smart agricultural technologies and the manufacturing of mechanization based on them one of the priorities of our Agency. As Mevlana Development Agency, we have focused our entrepreneurship efforts on smart agriculture technologies since 2024, and we are carrying out a wide variety of activities with our relevant institutions and organizations on this subject. With our Hackathon competition, in cooperation with Kapsül Technology Platform, Social Innovation Agency, and Konya Chamber of Commerce Smart Technologies Center, we aimed to strengthen innovation-oriented entrepreneurship in agricultural technologies and to contribute to the growth and development by supporting technology-based firms. It is our greatest wish that this project idea competition will form the basis for entrepreneurship activities in the agricultural field with the knowledge, skills, and abilities to be gained in agriculture-oriented technology entrepreneurship and create a multiplier effect, thus paving the way for new entrepreneurship activities. I would like to especially express my belief that valuable project ideas for the agriculture and animal husbandry sector of our region and country will emerge within the scope of the competition, and I thank Kapsül Teknoloji Platformu, Social Innovation Agency, and Konya Chamber of Commerce Smart Technologies Center, our jury members, and everyone who contributed to the organization of the Hackathon, and I wish the competition to be beneficial,” he said.

The jury members of the Hackathon, where many project ideas such as sustainable agriculture and water management, control systems for deep water wells, agricultural employment, agricultural e-commerce program, prevention of water waste, agricultural unmanned aerial vehicle, mobile farmer assistant program, artificial intelligence supported seed planting system, smart agriculture platform program competed, were; Konya Food and Agriculture University Vice Rector Prof. Dr. Kıvanç Bilecen, Ministry of Agriculture and Forestry General Directorate of Agricultural Reform Head of Agricultural Technologies and Mechanization Department Mustafa Gezici, KTO Karatay University Head of Electrical and Electronics Engineering Department and AKİTEK Director Dr. Saim Ervural, Yusuf Akdemir from Konya Metropolitan Municipality District Services Department, Farmlabs Agricultural Technologies and R&D Inc. CEO Hasan İmge, and SEOART Inc. Founder Oktay Çomak.

As a result of the evaluations made by the jury members; Ulak project team won first place, Agrokontrol project team won second place, and Kızılelma Teknoloji project team won third place. In addition, Toprakplus and Agroinnovators project teams were also deemed worthy of an honorable mention.

At the end of the competition, various awards were given to the project teams that ranked.