The Great Pork Hackathon—Part 1: Shipping takes place March 24-26, 2021 OAK BROOK, Ill.—Farm Foundation , an accelerator of practical solutions for agriculture, and the Open Ag Technology and Systems (OATS) Center at Purdue University are hosting The Great Pork Hackathon Series—Part 1: Shipping, March 24-26, 2021, in conjunction with OATSCON21. Software developers who can help build apps, tools and integrations, and pork industry stakeholders who can provide advice, ideas and direction are encouraged to participate in this free event.

“This event is a great opportunity for coders interested in agriculture to build their reputations as great developers while also helping to solve a real problem with open source software,” said Aaron Ault, senior research engineer for Purdue OATS.

This is the first of a three-part hackathon series intended to solve problems for the pork industry through creating lasting code that will improve data flow and processes through open source interoperability. Part 1: Shipping will focus on modeling an Advance Ship Notification (ASN) for pigs via the Trellis API Framework as a two-way, real-time communication channel coordinating a farmer shipping pigs, a trucker hauling pigs and a processor receiving pigs. More information can be found on the event website, where resources for developers will also be posted as the event approaches.

The Great Pork Hackathon Series is the result of work undertaken by Farm Foundation, Purdue OATS and other partners to identify pain points for people on the ground in the pork industry regarding open sharing of data across the full supply chain.

“Barriers to data interoperability aren’t unique to pork,” said Martha King, vice president of programs and projects for Farm Foundation. “We are grateful that stakeholders from the pork industry stepped up to work with us and OATS to give us a great starting point to determine the best ways to create practical solutions for making data more shareable and useful in that space. Our ultimate goal is create a blueprint to improve data interoperability in all sectors of agriculture.”

The event is being held virtually and is sponsored by the National Pork Board, Centricity and other partners. Registration can be completed here.