We’re proud to share that Somerville students Evan Garg (2025, Engineering) and Reyna Bulchandani (2025, Maths and CompSci), were among the winners of the recent Hackathon run by Oxford Edge.
The team, composed of Evan, Reyna, and Timothy Torubarov (Jesus College), won the OVHcloud Frontier Builder Prize at the Food Security in the Global South Hackathon run by Oxford Edge, in collaboration with CIMMYT and EnSpire Oxford.
Evan, Reyna and Timothy receiving their prize
The competition involved tackling one of the world’s most urgent challenges: building smarter, more resilient food systems across the Global South.
The team built an app called CROPIQ, which helps small scale farmers in Kenya plant the right crops at the right time using machine learning and stock market style alpha models. It creates crop portfolios based on demand, climate resilience, and nutritional value while also integrating farming sensors, sponsorships, and partnerships into the app.
The students then had to pitch their venture to an expert judging panel. The team received excellent feedback, with comments including “the most memorable pitch today” and “We are shocked by how much you were able to accomplish”. Judges were impressed by the team’s ambition, as well as the quality of the “technically advanced” prototype that they created.
The CROPIQ team won the most prizes out of all the teams, including €10,000 worth of OVHCloud Credits and VIP OxTechWeek tickets.
Evan commented that taking part in the competition was “an amazing opportunity, where we learnt so much about developing intelligent apps, profitable companies and tackling security problems in the food system.”