Prior to founding Koidra, Kenneth Tran had worked extensively at Microsoft Research on real-world reinforcement learning research with applications in data center energy optimization and controlled environment agriculture. Koidra is proud to highlight our founder’s earlier accomplishments here.
The journey from Microsoft Research to Koidra

Prior to founding Koidra, Kenneth Tran had worked extensively at Microsoft Research on real-world reinforcement…
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Indoor vertical farming in Asia and beyond: Digging deep in data - Asia News Center
When it comes to farming, Ken Tran digs deep - not in dirt, but in data. He doesn't drive a tractor and he doesn't pull a plow. But he is helping to sow the seeds of a new type of agriculture - one that is nurtured by machine learning and artificial intelligence.
https://news.microsoft.com/apac/features/indoor-vertical-farming-digging-deep-data/
Microsoft News (02/2018). Kenneth started using AI to solve digital agriculture and sustainable food production in late 2017.
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Microsoft researchers beat Tencent and Intel in autonomous greenhouse competition
Members of Microsoft Research, together with students from Dutch and Danish universities, have won a cucumber-growing competition held in autonomous greenhouses at Wageningen University and Research in Holland. Team Sonoma, as it's known, beat out competitors from Tencent, Intel, and human horticulture experts and was the only team to grow more than 50 kilograms of cucumbers per square meter, according to Wageningen University officials.
https://venturebeat.com/2018/12/14/microsoft-researchers-beat-tencent-and-intel-in-autonomous-greenhouse-competition/

VentureBeat (12/2018). In late 2018, Kenneth led his Sonoma team to win the international Autonomous Greenhouse Challenge. Via this challenge, they - for the first time - demonstrated that AI could grow better than human experts in all categories: yield, resource usage, and profit.
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Competition win a steppingstone in the greater journey to create sustainable farming - Microsoft Research
The cucumber plants, their leaves wide and green and veiny, stood tall in neat rows, basking in the Netherland sunlight shining through the glass panes of their greenhouses. Hopes were high for the plants-a bountiful crop in just four months using as few resources as possible.
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/blog/competition-win-a-steppingstone-in-the-greater-journey-to-create-sustainable-farming/

Microsoft Research Blog (12/2018). In this article, Kenneth explained the technical approach that his team used to win the autonomous greenhouse challenge.
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Microsoft Research's Autonomous Greenhouse Is Early Stage But 'Commerce Ready'
Microsoft Research (MSR) has high hopes for digital farming. As revealed earlier this year at the 2019 PrecisionAg VISION Conference, the FarmBeats project from the tech giant's research arm is targeting large-scale farming through components including its Azure cloud-computing service as well as data transmission through unallocated spaces of television frequencies.
https://www.precisionag.com/digital-farming/microsoft-researchs-autonomous-greenhouse-is-early-stage-but-commerce-ready/

Precision Ag's (10/2019).
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Nhân tài Việt trẻ đang ứng dụng AI đa dạng thế này đây: Trồng dưa leo năng suất vượt trội, chẩn đoán bệnh qua X-quang phổi và giúp... máy nói chuyện với người
Tuần qua, tại TPHCM đã diễn ra Sự kiện VietAI Summit 2018 - diễn đàn thường niên AI (trí tuệ nhân tạo) được tổ chức bởi VietAI (Tổ chức Trí tuệ nhân tạo Việt). Tại đây, nhiều dự án nghiên cứu và ứng dụng AI trong nhiều lĩnh vực khác nhau được giới thiệu.
https://cafebiz.vn/nhan-tai-viet-tre-dang-ung-dung-ai-da-dang-the-nay-day-trong-dua-leo-nang-suat-vuot-troi-chan-doan-benh-qua-x-quang-phoi-va-giup-may-noi-chuyen-voi-nguoi-20181224122840666.chn

CafeBiz (12/2018). Trồng dưa leo tự động trong nhà kính, với năng suất vượt trội, hơn cả các chuyên gia nông nghiệp Hà Lan.