Today we trekked to Utrecht where we visited a company called Aurea Imaging, which is a small tech startup that provides intelligence specialty for fruit farmers to more efficiently grow their fruits, including things like blossom maps for Precision Orchard Management, which was a concept I had never heard of before. They use drone technology to gather the necessary information and they outsource both the actual drones (from companies like DJI and eBee) and the drone pilots depending on proximity to the specific client’s location. By properly utilizing the supply chain, Aurea is able to lower their input costs while still providing quality service by allowing suppliers to provide specialized equipment rather than trying to make a lesser product for more money and effort in house.
Basically, how the blossom mapping works is the drone scans the whole orchard and evaluates each individual tree by blossom density and creates a prescription map that programs certain equipment to either spray certain trees with herbicides (called spot spraying) or to prune their roots according to their needs rather than giving them blanket treatments because like humans, different trees need different things. This is not only very efficient for farmers because it saves them a lot of manual processes by moving them to automated processes, but it also is more profitable for them in the end because they end up with an increased yield and higher quality fruit in less time. The technology used to provide these prescription maps also offers a lot of valuable information that can be easily kept track of, like which fruits were sprayed with herbicides versus not. This is especially useful for planning and forecasting for future harvest seasons, but also for more easily matching customers to their desired product.
The office building and environment itself seemed to also really reflect the creative atmosphere that I would expect an innovative tech company to have, but it was also very organically designed and not at all pretentious, which I thought was quite interesting. There was a lot of greenery featured in the office space and a surprising amount of amenities; there was a 24 hour gym, yoga/meditation room, massage room, and a counseling center. I think this was only surprising from an American perspective because it seems that a big part of Dutch culture is to take care of your personal needs and prioritize work-life balance whereas American company cultures are often more work oriented.
After our company visit, we were taken on a walking tour of Utrecht by one of our program guides. It’s honestly such a beautiful city with so many cute shops and local businesses. Certain streets had a bit of an Italian town feel to it and it was much less tourist heavy and bustling than Amsterdam. There was also some really good ice cream that Frank and Dr. Bursic so generously bought for us all that I completely forgot all about my feet and legs being sore.
Unfortunately though, our day was far from over at this point. Me and a couple of girls stayed back in Utrecht to explore a bit further. We visited a few local stores and bought some gifts for our families. All was well until it wasn’t. Yes, we had yet another mishap with public transportation. First, we couldn’t find the train station, so we had to get some help from a very nice Bulgarian woman who showed us the way and we got to the platform just in time for the train’s departure. Shortly after, an announcement was made that our train won’t be going any further so we frantically got off and found the next one, which had all the overflow from our train, so as you can imagine, it was very crowded (definitely not for the claustrophobic American who likes her personal space). Finally, we got off that train, got on a tram, and walked the last leg back to our hostel. It was a very exhausting day to say the least, but at least we had good ice cream.
