00:00Not bothered by the punishing midday heat, an artificial intelligence-infused wheeled robot powered by the sun carefully combs a cotton field in California.
00:17As farms across the United States face a shortage of laborers and weeds grow resistant to herbicides, startup iGen says its robotic solution, named Element, can save farmers money, help the environment and keep harmful chemicals out of food.
00:34Element, the robot, resembles a large table on wheels, solar panels on top, metal arms equipped with small blades that reach down to hole between crop plants.
00:45iGen co-founder and chief executive officer Kenny Lee talks about the groundbreaking technology that could change the world of agriculture.
00:54iGen, our mission is to regenerate Earth with robotics and AI.
00:58If you look at some of the biggest global challenges in the world, agriculture is often overlooked.
01:04And me and my co-founder and the team that we've assembled here, we're working on the pillar of society, which is the crops, the food, the clothes that we wear.
01:16Lee says with Element, they have combined the old practice of stick and blade with robotics and AI to deliver an effective solution to the farmers.
01:25I've never heard of any farmer that says, I want to use chemicals more than they have to use because it's an input cost, right?
01:34You just have to spend money to use more of it. If they could use less, they will use less.
01:38The way that we're addressing the weeding problem is going back to the old age technology of using a stick with a blade at the end of it, which we call a hoe.
01:49And so we're combining the new robotics and AI with the old technology of a stick and a blade, putting it together and then delivering a solution to the farmers.
02:02iGen has robots running in tomato, cotton and sugar beet fields and touts the technology's ability to weed without damaging the crops.
02:11Lee explains about the use of solar energy to run the robot, making Element a must-have farming help.
02:18What's very different and unique about us is that we've constrained our technology with the energy density of what the sun is able to provide.
02:29The same energy source that's able to grow the plants, we want to be able to use that to power the robots.
02:35So we do have batteries in the robot, but it does not require any swapping out the batteries or having to go to a fixed position for recharge.
02:48Weeds are becoming immune to herbicides, but a shortage of laborers often leaves chemicals as the only viable option, says co-founder and chief technology officer Richard Worden.
02:58So instead of saying, hey, we're going to ban these chemicals, what we want to do is provide an alternative that's lower cost than the existing solution.
03:08So it ends up not becoming a political issue.
03:10If you can just say we have a better solution that's more affordable for possibly like the first time compared to chemicals.
03:17And that is also a win for the health and for the environment.
03:22The technology caught the attention of Amazon Web Services, the e-commerce giant's cloud computing unit.
03:29iGen was chosen for AWS's Compute for Climate Fellowship program that provides AI tools, data center power and technical help for startups tackling environmental woes.
03:41We, you know, companies like iGen, they may be small now, but they're going to, we believe that they're going to be the industry giants of the future.
03:52So I think of like Ford and the Model T or Edison, the light bulb.
03:57Kenny and iGen are going to be, you know, industry giants of agriculture in the future.
04:03We're going to have their robots weeding farms all over the world.
04:07The robots made by the 25% startup based in the city of Redmond outside Seattle are priced at $50,000.
04:16The company is focused on winning over politically conservative farmers with a climate friendly option that relies on the sun instead of costly diesel fuel that powers heavy machinery.
