Deere finds talent at Groundbreakers

John Deere’s new innovation hub in Austin, Texas, recently held a first-of-its-kind GroundBreakers competition.

“We continue to search for new and interesting ideas that will deliver value to our customers, even if we’re not sure yet of exactly how that might look,” said Michele Kaiser, a business development manager for John Deere’s Intelligent Solutions Group (ISG) who leads the startup collaborator program.

The winner of the event was Albedo, an Austin-based company, that specializes in producing high resolution satellite imagery.

The company uses its very-low-earth-orbit (VLEO) satellites to create thermal imagery at the highest resolution commercially available.

Topher Haddad, co-founder and CEO of Albedo, said the company’s technology can play a variety of roles in helping decrease manual operations in precision agriculture and construction.

“The resolution of Albedo’s imagery will enable applications that have been limited by lower resolution satellites or operational limitations of imagery collected from planes,” said Haddad.

“The breadth of commercial applications for Albedo’s imagery spans markets, including precision agriculture, property insurance, utilities vegetation management, construction and real estate, pipeline monitoring, urban planning, and many others,” said Haddad.

Select members of the global startup community were invited to the event in Austin to see whose idea would earn them an invitation to the 2023 cohort of John Deere’s startup collaborator program.

The program, launched in 2019, finds those companies whose technology could add the most value for Deere customers. Over the course of the year-long program, Deere tests these technologies with customers and dealers.

“We must be forward thinking in our innovation and not afraid to explore new territory,” said Kaiser.