Hackathon in SAS^® Viya^®

Amesto Nextbridge

Topic of the Challenge:

Use ML to maximize bees’ access to food & thereby securing humans access to food

Bees are the world's number one pollinator of food crops and are responsible for pollination of nearly 75% of all plant species directly used for human food. In the last decades there have been a worldwide decline in the number of bee colonies. The decline in bees with its subsequent impact on our food production and supply will results in a significant economically loss for humans.

One major reason for this population decline is limited access to food due to lack of forage due to monoculture farming. When a forger bee has located a good patch of flowers, she comes back to the hive and communicates their location with a waggle dance to her nestmates. Essentially, the dance can be decrypted by examining the direction and duration of the waggling. Unemployed nestmates may follow the dancer’s movements and then search for the advertised spots in the field. If the commute becomes too tedious, the cost benefit analysis of the bees may suggest these flowers are a no go. To aid the bees in their hardship of food gathering, beekeepers could move the hive closer to their identified food source.

For SAS sustainability Hackathon 2020 we will develop a system capable of automatically detecting, decoding and mapping communication dances in real-time using SAS® Viya®. The result will be displayed on a graphical interface, thereby allowing beekeepers to identify the optimal location for the hive while still in the field. For this hackathon we have partner up both with a commercial actor, Beefutures, and Academia to maximize the impact of this project and take us a small step closer to a sustainable economy.