Today was a more relaxing day! We began our day by traveling to Utrecht, which is the city that Sophia currently lives in. This city was really beautiful, and I was really looking forward to seeing another side of the Netherlands! When we arrived in Utrecht, we made our way to the Aurea Imaging company. 

This is a small company that creates technologies to aid farmers around the world. The purpose of their technology is to aid farmers with the monitoring of their plants. To be more specific, they use artificial intelligence through drones, sensors, and other mapping technologies to scan the fields of these farmers to identify different aspects of the plants. These farmers are typically looking to monitor growth, flowering, and production of these plants through an efficient management system that helps the farmers to save time when it comes to working on these plants. This management system involved a few main categories: harvest, crop protection, irrigation management, blossom thinning, growth regulation, and fertilizer application. Aurea Imaging’s technology scans the fields and turns it into a visual map that identifies the specific areas that the farmers are looking to address. The main goal for the farmers’ use of this technology is to identify how they can obtain a higher yield of crops. 

This technology was really interesting to learn about because I felt that it has a lot of potential. At the moment, only the larger companies are utilizing this technology because of its high price, it’s not affordable for smaller farms. One day, this company hopes to be able to branch out to those smaller farms to build their client base, but at the moment, this isn’t possible because of the cost of the technology. However, the presenter informed us that what sets Aurea Imaging apart from other companies is that they are Dutch. And in the Netherlands, because of this, they have loyalty from their customers who also work in the Netherlands, and this has been a significant source of business for their company. 

After the presentation, we toured the building that Aurea Imaging works in. This building was really interesting to see, as it contains several different start-up companies, with that being the purpose of the building – to provide a location for these start-ups to reside. After a delicious lunch in this building’s cafeteria, Sophia gave us a tour around central Utrecht! I really enjoyed walking around Utrecht, the city felt quieter than Amsterdam and Rotterdam and it seemed to have less tourists. We got to see a church, a library, and a mall, and we even stopped for some delicious gelato! After Sophia’s tour, I walked around Utrecht with a small group and we checked out some of the smaller shops that we had walked past. It was a very enjoyable day in Utrecht, I’m so grateful that we’ve gotten to explore so many different areas of the Netherlands!