The PineApple Project

The Challenge, should you choose to accept it:  All pineapple aficionados, papaya enthusiasts and mango fanatics are invited to help develop a set of tools to match groups and persons in rural areas to potential tropical crops that are appropriate to cultivate in their specific region by using existing agricultural, climate and topography data. These resources include a website, mobile app, and SMS capability that would allow users to receive a planting recommendation based on their location.

​This isn’t our first rodeo!

• The Pineapple Project is a continuation of a problem that was hacked at the April 2012 International Space Apps Challenge, where the initial framework for the beta tools was designed. View this video describing the Pineapple Project Space Apps Challenge outcomes to learn more.
• After winning several regional awards and the Global Most Disruptive Award at the International Space Apps Challenge, the challenge was continued at the June 2012 Random Hack of Kindness, where it won a cross-hack-a-thon award.
• With your help, we hope to participate in another successful codeathon where we can all share what we know and don’t know (this challenge is hard!), getting us one step closer to creating a usable resource.

Next Steps:

• In order to initiate product pilot testing, our solutions need to be refined and centralized into working prototypes
• We also need to expand and improve our dataset by working alongside our fabulous sister project Grower’s Nation

How you can help:

• We need to finish integrating and developing our website, SMS tool and smartphone app.
• The website that was initiated (http://www.pinapple.org/ ) is an awesome start and looks really great, but needs some more work before it can be piloted.
  • We would really like the precipitation and soil variables to automatically populate.

§   Bonus points if we can figure out how to pull soil info from http://www.totoagriculture.org/SoilStats.aspx

• We also need to add pages and content to our website describing how to use and download the SMS Discovery Tool and Android Smartphone App, provide background and contact information, and point to our sister project, Grower’s Nation where users can contribute to the crop database.
• Right now several crops are shown after the website is deployed. We’d like to correct the tool so that only crops that can be successfully grown in the area being evaluated are revealed. An improved dataset has been generated for Hacking for Huger. The spreadsheet will be posted to our Pineapple Project HackPad on 09/12/12.
• In addition to automatically detecting location and populating the climate variables, we would like the end user to be able to manually input or correct this information

• We’d also like to modify the look and function of our smartphone app so that it looks like pinapple.org and is hosted it on the website.
• Once complete, the SMS Discovery App will need to be synched with our other tools.

We Need YOUR help!

Specifically, we are seeking:

• App developers with mapping and layering skills
• Climate and big data experts, especially persons who have experience with soil data
• Anyone who has experience with Tropical Crops or knows someone who knows someone with experience using data related to tropical crops and growing requirements
• Storytellers, Technology Evangelists and Social Media Ningas who can help us better organize the cross-hacking, pineapple-loving community we have convened over the last 6 months (root2market.org) in order to support pinapple.org and to help us better capture our past, present & potential reach, interest & need
  • We’d love for these people to serve as Hacking for Hunger historians and document participant stories, lessons learned and successes
• Bi-lingual participants who can begin translating web and app content into Spanish and French
• Persons to help devise a survey/ capture mechanism for feedback when we begin pilot testing
• Participants who understand how to setup SMS
• Developers with experience using Ruby on Rails
• Anyone willing to learn & laugh, it’s going to be a challenging weekend!

Ask Questions and Get Involved!

The Pineapple Project challenge owner, Samantha Snabes, will be online from Austin, TX, throughout the weekend with past Pineapple Project participants from RHoK and the International Space Apps Challenge to assist you in getting involved.  Feel free to contact Samantha directly at samantha.l.snabes@nasa.gov, Twitter @samanthasnabes, or Skype samantha.snabes.

What to Expect:

• To facilitate communication, we will be using a Skype group chat for IM.  Add samantha.snabes on Skype and request an invite to join the discussion
• A hackpad has been setup at https://hackpad.com/z1WzJktvkMP#Pineapple-Project-Hacking-for-Hunger. This is where we will try to organize links to Google Docs, our task list and other important tidbits, including access to our GitHub and answers to your questions. Directions to get started will be available on 09/12/12.
• In addition to working on a tricky challenge for a great cause, we hope you will make new friends and contacts. Feel free to join the Pineapple Project Community Facebook Page before the event and tell us about yourself and expectations! 

Team Lead:

Samantha Snabes: As a challenge seeker and continuous learner, Samantha is passionate about human space exploration and social impact. Currently, she serves as the Social Entrepreneur In Residence for the NASA Open Government Initiative.   Her professional and extracurricular experiences include marketing, biotechnology, social innovation, tissue culture, small business start-up & acquisition, product engineering, emergency response, communications & strategy, public speaking, microfinance, and agriculture & animal husbandry.