It’s hard to believe we’re already entering the final quarter of 2021! We’ve been busier than ever this summer as we continue to build upon our momentum from our most successful almond pollination season earlier this year. We’ve added several new faces to the team and we’ve made significant improvements to our technology. We’ve also focused on generating new partnerships and building relationships with growers in new crop markets that rely on honeybee pollination.
Only 4 months left until bees begin to arrive in the almonds! Our almond pollination schedule is filling up fast. If you or someone you know grows or pollinates almonds, contact us today to get your hives graded with Verifli.
New hires
We hired one new full-time staff and three new interns this summer. We’re currently seeking a full-time Mobile Application Developer, and next month we’ll begin hiring operations interns to support product distribution for the February 2022 almond pollination season. Please reach out if you think anyone you know may be interested in these roles.
Tom McClellan
Jr. Software Engineer
We added Tom to our software team in May. With a specialty in
front-end development, Tom's tasked with improving the Verifli dashboard.
In addition to hiring Tom to our full-time team, we hired the following interns this summer:
Vinicius Ambrosi, Data Science Intern
Matthew McGee, Software Engineering Intern
Terrell Cornell, Software Engineering Intern
Yuying Su, Software Engineering Intern
Pilot tests
Gaining traction in new crop markets has been a major focus this year, and we’ve enjoyed quite a bit of success. Over the next few months, Verifli will be grading hives in three new countries (New Zealand, Australia and Colombia) and four new crops (berries, avocados, oil seeds and vegetable seeds). Here are a few highlights:
Thanks to funding from NSF, we piloted Verifli with Syngenta in June to measure the strength of hives pollinating their sunflower seed production fields in California.
We collaborated with bee researchers at Michigan State University to evaluate Verifli as a hive grading tool for blueberry growers. After achieving promising results in the initial trial, they invited us back to perform more rigorous testing, which kicks off this week.
We’re working with organizations in 3 new countries to test Verifli in their operations. These trials have provided an excellent opportunity to refine our Verifli user training program. As if language barriers and time zone differences didn’t present enough of a challenge, our Ops team has worked hard to adapt the training program from in-person to remote video calls.
Partnerships
Another major focus of ours this year involves developing strategic partnerships to accelerate various parts of the business, including penetration to new markets and improving the Verifli model and user experience. We’ve gotten the ball rolling with several interested partners, which we’ll keep private until the details have been ironed out and agreements have been signed.
One partnership we’re excited to highlight is our collaboration with Clark Atlanta University. Thanks again to funding from the National Science Foundation, CAU will provide faculty and students from the Cyber-Physical Systems Department to assist the Data Science team on improvements to Verifli.
Final thoughts
We’ve got plenty of work to keep us busy in the final months of 2021. For the first time since COVID began, you’ll be able to find us at in-person conferences this fall and winter. We’ll also be announcing some new Verifli features and publishing new educational content like videos and white papers. Stay tuned as we gear up for Verifli’s fourth almond pollination season!