U of I inventors explore farm needs at ag expo

Matthew Swenson has a product. He also has a patent on that product.

To learn how marketable his product is, without telling what it is, Swenson recently went undercover — sort of.

Swenson, an associate professor of engineering, was among a group of U of I researchers with patented products, or inventions in the process of seeking a patent, to attend the World Ag Expo in Tulare, California. He visited the expo to chat with product manufacturers, fellow inventors, developers and just regular visitors to the annual event that resembles a giant state fair.

Swenson and his fellow U of I professors are affiliates of the National Science Foundation Invention Corps, or I-Corps, program, an entrepreneurial training program that prepares scientists and engineers to find markets for their patented NSF-funded research products.

What Swenson and fellow professors, and some of their students, were doing at the expo is called “customer discovery.”

It is an investigative mission and a step on the path to commercialization.

The World Ag Expo is the largest annual outdoor agricultural exposition, boasting over 1,200 exhibitors and an annual attendance of more than 100,000: it was a good place to start.

“To determine if there is a potential market for the product we’ve invented, we’re basically wandering around the show talking to as many people in the field to understand whether or not they have pain points that the product we’ve developed potentially addresses,” Swenson said.

The professors with patents weren’t showing their inventions, pitching or even talking about the products they developed.

“We were just getting people in the field to talk about their experiences, to ascertain whether or not we have a solution that could help them without ever telling them about the solution,” he said.

Archibald Harner, U of I’s assistant vice president for research and director of NSF I-Corps Hub for the region said it’s important for the university to send researchers to events like the expo to learn about market trends and needs. Their products are intended to benefit agricultural producers directly by making operations more efficient and cost effective.  

“Most scientists are trained in research and discovery, not in market analysis or business development,” Harner said. “Without guidance on how to identify a customer base or scale a prototype, many inventions would simply remain as patents on a shelf rather than becoming products that benefit the public.”

The I-Corps program requires professors to carry out their customer discovery requirements said Mary Everett, associate director of the Center for Intelligent Industrial Robotics at U of I-Coeur d’Alene.  

Her group’s invention, called Sensor Collection and Remote Environment Care Reasoning Operation (SCARECRO), is a data collection station that is placed in a farm field — like a scarecrow — and fitted with a series of sensors to detect growing conditions such as soil moisture, temperature and humidity. Accessed remotely, growers can monitor crops and fields from a distance.

“We talked to farmers and technology providers about how technology is used in the agricultural space — what it’s good for, where it’s being used, what people would like to see, and where the industry is going,” Everett said. “We plan to use the insights gained to help improve the wireless sensor network technology we’re developing.”

Davis Onyeoguzoro, a doctoral computer science student from U of I in Coeur d’Alene who is on the SCARECRO team, attended the expo to assist in customer discovery.

“I learned what farmers actually need for their farms,” Onyeoguzoro said. “Most of the companies were trying to solve a water problem, and the second thing was how a government’s regulations affect farmers and organizations.”

Everett and her team have already employed the SCARECRO in a vineyard in Virginia and an agricultural operation in Sandpoint.

“We’re interested in how it can be continuously improved and refined,” she said. “We are also looking at how to make the technology easier to set up and interact with for farmers interesting in precision agriculture.”

In the past 20 years more than 130 patents and plant variety protection certificates — to certify plant varieties, including potato and wheat types — have been filed on behalf of University of Idaho. Although plant varieties took a front seat in the early part of these two decades, in the past five years technology patents have surged, said Harner.

“Since 2022 there has been a distinct shift toward computer science, robotics and advanced medical devices,” he said. “There is a consistent trend of partnership with the Idaho National Laboratory (INL), specifically in nuclear reactor safety, flow meters and cyber-physical state awareness.”

Not only did students and professors learn what farmers needed at the expo, but the trip gave them a chance to stretch their legs.

“It’s actually good every once in a while, to step outside,” Onyeoguzoro said. “To touch the grass, talk to humans, not just computers.”

Thirty-eight U of I teams have completed the I-Corps program since 2023. Attending the expo as an NSF I-Corps affiliate was a valuable and necessary step for researchers to learn if their products would fill a necessary market niche, Swenson said.

“The research and invention part is already done,” Swenson said. “The question is do we want to put more effort into trying to go to market with this. So, these conversations are really informing whether we have something that’s worth moving forward with or not.”