2020 Syngenta Crop Challenge in Analytics Winner

A team from Iowa State University has been selected as the winner of the 2020 Syngenta Crop Challenge in Analytics.
2020 Syngenta Crop Challenge in Analytics Winner
Syngenta and the Analytics Society of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) recently recognized a team from Iowa State University as the winner of the 2020 Syngenta Crop Challenge in Analytics.* The competition encourages cross-discipline collaboration to discover new ways to use agriculture data to inform seed breeding research and development.

Learn more about the team from @IowaStateU that was selected as the winner of the 2020 Syngenta Crop Challenge in Analytics.

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This year’s competition invited experts in data analytics, mathematics and statistics to use real-world data to construct a model that can predict the performance of crossing any two inbred corn hybrid lines.

The winning team — which included Javad Ansarifar, Faezeh Akhavizadegan and Lizhi Wang — was awarded a $5,000 prize for its submission, “Yield Performance of Plant Breeding Prediction With Interaction Based Algorithm.”

The Syngenta Crop Challenge has been a fascinating venue to accelerate innovation in plant science.

Javad Ansarifar
Winning Team Member, Syngenta Crop Challenge
Iowa State University
“The Syngenta Crop Challenge has been a fascinating venue to accelerate innovation in plant science,” Ansarifar says. “Making the right crosses is crucial in plant breeding to continuously improve crop performance. This work is part of our research effort in designing explainable artificial intelligence in agriculture.”

The advanced analytics that Syngenta honors in this annual competition have the potential to positively impact millions of lives. “The need for continued innovation in agriculture is urgent, and data analytics play an important role in helping us meet the needs of a growing population,” says Gregory Doonan, head of advanced analytics at Syngenta and Crop Challenge judge. “We are committed to bringing innovation to farmers faster to help improve grower profitability and increase the sustainability of agriculture.”

*Syngenta supports but is not a sponsor of the INFORMS challenge. Entrants must read and agree to terms and conditions of the challenge, found with the registration materials.