Faarms - Forecast And Automated Resource Management System

I had the opportunity today to attend the Sydney Commercialisation Australia briefing.  

(As a quick aside I do so love attending events hosted by NSW Industry & Innovation; their office reminds me of why I’m banging my entrepreneurial head against this particular wall, rather than one, say, in Cambridgeshire or Palo Alto. There is something about overlooking Sydney Harbour from the 47th floor on a perfect summer day, that no money can buy.)

Back to the event: CA is the new federal system of grants to help boost innovation in Australia. $196m over 4 years, which is not to be scoffed at, but not exactly in the upper echelons of countries investing in Tech. Oh, and this isn’t only for tech start-ups either, although to be fair, that is the low hanging fruit for innovation right now.

$196m over 4 years = $39m per year. With Market Commercialisation grants of up to $2m, there’ll only be about 20 or so companies each year getting a guernsey. That’s not many, not when you consider how many companies follow Anthill Magazine, are listed on ASSOB, registered with iPitchAU, or as Microsoft Bizspark partners (i.e. More than 500). To say this will be fiercely competitive is to understate the case somewhat. There were certainly many more than 20 companies represented just for NSW.

Faarms? Well, we’ve applied of course. Or at least, completed the “pre-application” process, which consists of completing a form, being assessed for eligibility to apply in a call with AusIndustry, and if you pass muster, being sent an application form. We passed muster. So the next step is to find “matching” funding, whilst neatly not being able to raise all the funding (If you can raise funding, you become ineligible for any CA grant). Actually, given the current investment landscape in Australia, this isn’t really too far off the mark anyway. There’s a lot to be said for an Angel ramping up leverage of an investment with a matching grant.

We also learned about the NSW I&I “Pathway’s” grant. This was new to me, so worth a quick check. At the very least it seems there’s a grant to help raise finance.

The biggest value from the day though, was networking with more and more start-ups – from skin replacement technologies to online reading and music solutions for kids – and despite the 8 months I’ve spent networking in this industry, there were a number of colleagues conspicuous by their absence. Hmmm….

The long and the short of it? There is no lack of Innovation, skill, talent, ideas, even execution, in Australia. A little investment will go a long way.

On Saturday evening we held our very first Faarms Annual Christmas Party. I believe that it’s always a great idea to begin as you intend to continue, and we intend to continue with a culture of Celebration and Fun!!

Many of our clients, mentors, partners and supporters came along for an evening of feasting. As per our value of “working together,” or, in web 2.0 speak, “crowd sourcing” everyone enjoyed cooking for themselves on the Mongolian BBQ, followed by 3 of the largest Pavlova’s I’ve seen.

Some of the highlights included our first Awards Ceremony, including prizes:

• A “Ship’s wheel” to Gary Dorey, from Burfords, our Accountant for “Steering us in the right direction”
• A “Telescope” to Luis Ortega for “Continuing to see the vision”
• A “Compass” to David Burela for “Staying the course”

A fun night was had by all – there were inquiries about strength, virility and vegetarianism; passionate debates about innovation and evil empires; but mostly just a celebration of our achievements with those who helped us get there.

We’re looking forward to 2010, the year of the launch!

The last 4 months for Faarms has been intense. We’ve been working on raising funds, due diligence on our Roadmap, Research, and Development Project Plans, presenting at Conferences, and attending the MEGA Entrepreneurial Masterclass Program.

MEGA is an 18 week program, where individuals or teams (or individuals making new teams) are mentored in the art and science of starting a new venture. Rather than being led by an educational program, although universities and vocational providers are involved, MEGA is mentored by industry experts. Those who’ve started, enabled, or funded, new tech ventures themselves.

It’s the “rough and dirty street smarts”, meets the “bright-eyed, bushy tailed stargazers.” Hard work? Absolutely. Fun? For sure. Valuable? Inestimably!

But in this last 4 months of work, Faarms has come a long way. You’ll remember we were invited to host an “Innovation Island” stand at Tech23. That experience opened doors, introduced us to invaluable contacts, and allowed us to learn from other successful start-ups the fine art of pitching. Both how to do it right, and how to get it wrong.

At MEGA we were split across two states. In Victoria we decided not to enter the main competition, to ensure that we didn’t have an unfair advantage, two picks at the cherry, so to speak. Nevertheless, we got an “Honourable Mention.”

It was in NSW where we really did well: We received an “honourable mention” in the Judges Awards, i.e. in the Top 3, however, we also won the “Audience Award”, and the “Peer Award.” Both of these last awards are cash prizes totalling $5,000. But they meant so much more than that.

The “Audience Award” was special, especially considering we presented last, at 5pm on a Friday, after 12 other teams, at the end of a 3hr30 session. Besides the cash it shows we met the audience needs, which ultimately, is the purpose of any presentation.

The “Peer Award” was equally special. To be voted as the best, by your Peers, is a real validation of the Team’s efforts over the last couple of months. Sweet!

I’ve uploaded our winning presentation, along with the Audio, to Slideshare. Check it out and please feel free to send your feedback.

I’m personally overwhelmed by the team. There were sleepless nights, committed devotion, and personal sacrifice. And all this for no pay, just the promise that we’re building a valuable technology. A world changing company!

Save water, save the world…

I would like to announce the launch of a new Cloud Computing community website!

www.AllYourClouds.com

This is a new community website which focuses on having the answers for all your clouds.

Got a question about Amazon EC2, Azure, Google app engine, Go-grid, rackspace, etc? Need to know how to modify your code? Wondering how to migrate?
Just post the question and someone in the community will answer it for you.

The best part about it, is that the site uses OpenID, so there is no need to sign up. Just click to log in with your existing credentials (Google, wordpress, blogger, etc. etc.)

Wednesday before last, all 13 of the MEGA participants did a brief 2 minute pitch of their idea, prior to working with mentors on their IM’s. I managed to capture all of the videos, have uploaded them, and link to them here for your viewing pleasure.

They are password protected to protect the confidentiality of our ideas, please DM me on Twitter or email me for the password.

Team	Pitch
Faarms	http://www.vimeo.com/7466557
Vice Versa Reality	http://www.vimeo.com/7466898
Twin Cities	http://www.vimeo.com/7506637
Mobeseek	http://www.vimeo.com/7506428
I Hate Shopping	http://www.vimeo.com/7506159
Strine	http://www.vimeo.com/7507412
Big Richard	http://www.vimeo.com/7507117
Arcadia	http://www.vimeo.com/7506895
Nibble	http://www.vimeo.com/7518588
Global Mobile	http://www.vimeo.com/7518301
Chance Too	http://www.vimeo.com/7518039
Hopshopper	http://www.vimeo.com/7505889
GrowSME	http://www.vimeo.com/7504641

Team	Critique
Faarms	http://www.vimeo.com/7466752
Vice Versa Reality	http://www.vimeo.com/7510418
Twin Cities	http://www.vimeo.com/7516639
Mobeseek	http://www.vimeo.com/7606008
I Hate Shopping	http://www.vimeo.com/7517079
Strine	http://www.vimeo.com/7512921
Big Richard	http://www.vimeo.com/7510626
Arcadia	http://www.vimeo.com/7515899
Nibble	http://www.vimeo.com/7512592
Global Mobile	http://www.vimeo.com/7511047
Chance Too	http://www.vimeo.com/7510861
Hopshopper	http://www.vimeo.com/7512291
GrowSME	http://www.vimeo.com/7516245

 

And of course Tim Parson’s 2 Minutes of Power

Enjoy.

I saw an article on Lifehacker, which talked about a project called http://our.windowfarms.org/

Window Farms focuses on helping households create their own “Micro farms” by utilising window space. The hydroponic system can churn out a salad per week.

The tutorials take you through the process of measuring your window, calculating how many ‘pods’ to chain together, how to create the hydroponic solution, selecting pumps, etc.

A good place to start learning is with a basic reservoir system window farm, this article has a PDF explaining the entire process (http://our.windowfarms.org/2009/07/30/how-to-build-a-reservoir-system-window-farm/), but I recommend exploring all of http://our.windowfarms.org/ to see what other ideas are there.

If you have spare space and some free time, why not try constructing one yourself, not having a backyard isn’t an excuse any more!

The March 2009 release of the Virtual Earth control for Silverlight (now known as the bing map control) was a great release. Up until then, projects like Deep Earth were trying to provide us with a way to use deep zoom + the virtual earth tiling to allow us to build Silverlight apps. Now Microsoft have given us an official control to play with.

One of the big downsides of the official control was the lack of databinding. You still had to add / remove your pushpins & shapes manually just like you would with the AJAX version. There is code available on the Microsoft website that adds dependency properties to the Bing Maps control which expose ItemsCollection, ready for you to databind to. If you combine this with some custom datatemplates, you are able to databind directly to the map as you would expect.

Step 1. Install the Bing Maps control

The CTP of the control is available from Microsoft connect https://connect.microsoft.com/silverlightmapcontrolctp

Step 2. Download the databinding enabler

You just need to download this single .cs file and include it in your project http://code.msdn.microsoft.com/VESLBindingProps

Step 3. Add the Bing maps control to your .xaml page

Add the virtual earth namespace for the control, the ve namespace for the dependency properties, and then the grid. It should look something like this

<UserControl x:Class="SDDNTestRun.MainPage"
    xmlns="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml/presentation"
    xmlns:x="http://schemas.microsoft.com/winfx/2006/xaml"
    xmlns:d="http://schemas.microsoft.com/expression/blend/2008"
    xmlns:mc="http://schemas.openxmlformats.org/markup-compatibility/2006"
    xmlns:VirtualEarth="clr-namespace:Microsoft.VirtualEarth.MapControl;assembly=Microsoft.VirtualEarth.MapControl"
    xmlns:ve="clr-namespace:Synergist.VE"
    mc:Ignorable="d" d:DesignWidth="640" d:DesignHeight="480">
    <Grid x:Name="LayoutRoot" >
        <VirtualEarth:Map x:Name="MyMap"
                CopyrightVisibility="Collapsed" LogoVisibility="Collapsed" Mode="Aerial">
        </VirtualEarth:Map>
    </Grid>
</UserControl>

Step 4. Add the data template for shapes and the map layer

This data template to databind polyshapes is fairly easy. You just need to set the polyshape style (thickness, colour, etc.) and then databind the points to the locations collection

<DataTemplate x:Key="MapShape">
    <VirtualEarth:MapPolygon Fill="Orange" Stroke="Green" StrokeThickness="2" Opacity="0.4" Locations="{Binding}" />
</DataTemplate>

And here is how you add the layer to the map

<VirtualEarth:Map x:Name="MyMap"
    CopyrightVisibility="Collapsed" LogoVisibility="Collapsed" Mode="Aerial">
    <VirtualEarth:MapLayer x:Name="ShapeLayer"
        ve:Properties.ItemsSource="{Binding}"
        ve:Properties.ItemTemplate="{StaticResource MapShape}" />
</VirtualEarth:Map>

Step 5. Add some data to the layer

This is the fun bit, figure out what the coordinates for your shape are and create a collection for it. Myself, i’m going to use the site of the Microsoft office here in Melbourne. I’m just going to do this in the page constructor in the code behind

MyMap.Center = new Location(-37.8222600730785, 144.962552763317);
MyMap.ZoomLevel = 17;

var shapeList = new ObservableCollection<LocationCollection>
{
new LocationCollection
    {
        new Location(-37.8217176782418, 144.961662269924),
        new Location(-37.8214041044085, 144.962391830776),
        new Location(-37.8222346484096, 144.963314510677),
        new Location(-37.8228194135791, 144.962638594005),
        new Location(-37.8223617716666, 144.961887575481),
        new Location(-37.8220397256568, 144.962005592678),
    }
};
ShapeLayer.DataContext = shapeList;

Step 6. Hit run and see your databinding in action!

Because we are databinding to an observable list, we can just add new items to it and watch the new shapes appear. It is also possible to add extra points to an existing shape, and see it update live on the map.

If you want to add an extra shape, add this to a click event to see the databinding happening interactively

shapeLists.Add(new LocationCollection()
{
    new Location(-37.8207645163828, 144.961630711604),
    new Location(-37.8200356576319, 144.96164144044),
    new Location(-37.8197136014726, 144.96321857934),
    new Location(-37.8206882408042, 144.962092051554)
});

Step 7. Pushpins

Pushpins are a little more involved. Here i have created a “Point of Interest” class, that has the location and extra details. Here i’m just going to use the location property to databind to. The good thing is that you can use any control as your pushpin. In the included sample my PushPin control expands out when you hover, and collapses when you move off it.

<DataTemplate x:Key="MicrosoftPushPin">
    <Controls:PushPin VirtualEarth:MapLayer.MapPosition="{Binding Loc}"
        VirtualEarth:MapLayer.MapPositionMethod="Center"  />
</DataTemplate>

public class POI
{
    public string Loc { get; set; }
    public string Description { get; set; }
}

//In the class constructor
PushPinLayer.DataContext = new ObservableCollection<POI>
{
   new POI() { Loc = "-37.8222600730785, 144.962552763317" }
};

Sample app

In case you just want to see it working, I’ve included the demo I built live at the Melbourne Silverlight Desiginer & Developer Network. Good luck!

http://cid-fc3a2c38819e3e29.skydrive.live.com/self.aspx/Blog/VirtualEarthBindingDemo.zip

SlatteryIT is hosting an event about passion, innovation, and technology in business, called Tech23 later this month. This is sponsored by NSW Industry and Innovation and Australian Technology Showcase, and will feature the movers and shakers of the Australian IT Industry.

Tech23 is all about innovation. The event showcases the “top 23” companies, who get to deliver a 4 minute pitch in front of a number of influential judges. However, it’s not billed as a “pitch-fest,” but rather an event celebrating entrepreneurship and innovation.

Whilst Faarms is not “one of the 23,” (we did apply but didn’t make the cut) we have been selected to the “Innovation Island” where we’ll be demonstrating, publicly for the first time, our solution prototype.

Of course we’re excited, full of trepidation, but overall honoured to be selected to demonstrate on Innovation Island. Hopefully, we’ll see you there.

When: Tuesday, 27th October, 2009

Time: 8.30am – 5.30pm (followed by drinks and networking)

Where: the Auditorium, 37 Reservoir Street, Surry Hills

Cost: $250 + GST; $150 + GST (Special rate for Entrepreneurs, Members of ATS, ANZA Tech, AIMIA and employees of Govt/R&D orgs)

You can register here

A group of us have been working long and hard to get FAARMS up and running, and today I’m pleased to announce the birth of our website at faarms.com.

FAARMS or Forecast and Automated Resource Management System is a solution to help farmers in Australia to conserve water, save on production costs, and improve crop yield. It is also the first true Software + Services solution of this type in the world.

For more news on our progress keep checking back on the site.