Hendrix Genetics challenge

door | 12 september 2019

The WUR Life Sciences hackathon on the 25 & 26th of October is a 32-hour long event to ignite data- and tech-driven collaborations across boundaries. Students, tech entrepreneurs, researchers, and domain experts work jointly on targeted challenges side by side with representatives of leading Dutch agribusinesses. In this blogpost Hendrix Genetics presents the challenge they invite you to.

 

Predicting animal performance to breed for the future

Christel Geurts is a true data science fan. She is the spokesperson of the Hendrix Genetics challenge. “It is exciting to be able to work with data straight from real farms. Working with animals is much more tangible than the things data science is often about, such as financial products.”

The Hendrix Genetics challenge is about discovering whether laying hens show certain traits under specific conditions. If successful, it will enable a better match between genotypes and production location or type of housing. Controlling the climate inside hen houses, such as temperature, humidity, CO2 and light, is not new. What is new, is that the data on the actual production conditions, which may well be different from the planning, is now available, as climate computers at farms increasingly have data loggers or IoT connections. Adding this data-flow is like closing a feedback-cycle; potentially very important. We are now testing the use of these data for the first time.

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Christel: “Surely we will start with exploring the data, then trying a few things by plotting and scaling. We might be able to set up and train a model. Our team could use Python programmers and anyone who likes to puzzle with data.” And you better aim sharply, as Christel will, for in her spare time she shoots arrows as an archery enthusiast.

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