Bangladeshi students win global award for AI-powered farming drone
Bangladeshi team earns gold at Indonesia’s World Youth Invention and Innovation Award with drone using machine learning to forecast crop yields
DHAKA, Bangladesh (MNTV) — A student team from American International University-Bangladesh (AIUB) has won international recognition for an artificial-intelligence farming tool that estimates rice yields weeks before harvest, offering climate-stressed growers clearer planning signals for storage, sales and credit.
The group earned a Gold Medal in the Technology category and the IYSA Semi Grand Award at the World Youth Invention and Innovation Award (WYIIA) 2025 in Surabaya, Indonesia.
The event, run by the Indonesian Young Scientist Association (IYSA), a nonprofit youth-science organizer, drew 355 teams from 16 countries in mid-October, with entries spanning technology, environment, education, physics and life sciences.
Team members Rayan Alam (leader), Hasibul Hasan and Md Mehedi Hasan Ratul built a custom drone that captures high-resolution images over rice plots. A machine-learning model—trained by the students—detects and counts rice panicles in the images to produce early yield estimates. Results feed into a secure web dashboard where farmers can log in, compare growth stages across fields, and plan inputs, warehousing and market timing.
Bangladesh is one of the world’s largest rice producers, and erratic monsoons have increased the value of early, field-level forecasts. By replacing manual sampling and guesswork with computer-vision counts, the AIUB system aims to cut uncertainty for smallholders, improve price discovery and reduce post-harvest losses, the team said.
The project was supervised by Dr. Ebad Zahir, associate professor in AIUB’s Department of Electrical and Electronic Engineering, who advised on system design and validation. Judges in Surabaya praised the submission for combining off-the-shelf hardware with original software to deliver a practical, low-cost tool that can be scaled across crops and regions.
WYIIA 2025 drew delegations from more than a dozen countries — including Canada, South Korea, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, the Philippines, Iran, Türkiye, Romania, Turkmenistan, Kazakhstan, Mexico and host Indonesia — highlighting the global breadth of youth-led research and innovation.
Beyond the prize, the students plan to expand training data and field-test the model across multiple rice varieties and planting densities. They also intend to integrate satellite weather layers and soil-moisture readings to refine predictions.
If adopted at scale, the approach could help cooperatives and local governments forecast aggregate supply earlier in the season, smoothing price volatility while improving food-security planning.
AIUB said the win underscores Bangladesh’s rising profile in student-led AI and robotics and the promise of data-driven agriculture to raise yields sustainably without pushing costs onto small farmers.
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