{"slug": "through-google-funded-initiative-uga-students-use-ai-technology-community-to", "title": "Through Google-funded initiative, UGA students use AI technology, community engagement to support Georgia farmers", "summary": "University of Georgia students, funded by a Google grant, developed an AI-powered platform called FieldLog to help Georgia farmers reduce paperwork and compliance reporting. The platform, which uses voice recording and integrates weather, GPS, and regulatory data, is being tested on farms across South Georgia. The project emerged from student-led interviews that revealed farmers spend up to 30 hours weekly on administrative tasks and have concerns about data privacy.", "body_md": "For many Georgia farmers, the workday doesn’t end when they leave the field. After long hours of planting, spraying and harvesting crops, many still spend evenings completing paperwork, compliance reports and operational recordkeeping.\n\nOn a recent morning, University of Georgia student Bradley Smith traveled to the UGA Tifton campus and sat alongside farmers and agricultural professionals, helping them navigate an artificial intelligence-powered digital platform that she and her fellow students created in Athens to address this challenge.\n\nThe platform, called FieldLog, originated through a Google-funded initiative to develop AI engagement opportunities that equip students and future entrepreneurs with the essential skills needed to grow and innovate. The funding allowed the [UGA Small Business Development Center](https://georgiasbdc.org/) to pair innovation with student learning through the [Student Industry Fellows Program](https://el.uga.edu/students/student-industry-fellows-program/), a student development program that is also a part of [UGA’s Innovation District](https://innovation.uga.edu/).\n\nSmith is part of the fourth SIFP team working on this project. She is leading the deployment and testing phase of the project this summer, working alongside University of Georgia Cooperative Extension Precision Ag Specialist Lauren Lazaro and farmers across South Georgia. The goal is to place FieldLog on five to 10 farms and track its use over approximately two months, gathering feedback about functionality, usability and value.\n\n“We’re trying to figure out what farmers want, what’s difficult for them and where the holes in agricultural technology are right now,” said Smith, a rising fourth-year student majoring in supply chain management. “It was really helpful to see that we’re hitting some of those gaps with FieldLog.”\n\nThe process began in fall 2025 with a lot of listening.\n\nThe first SIFP team traveled across Georgia and interviewed farmers about their daily challenges, business operations and perceptions of technology. Those conversations revealed a significant burden created by paperwork, compliance reporting and recordkeeping. Some growers estimated spending nearly 30 hours each week on administrative tasks after already working long days in the field.\n\nStudents also learned that many farmers were wary of artificial intelligence and concerned about data privacy.\n\nThose insights shaped the direction of the project.\n\nFor recent graduate Katie Field, the project represented the intersection of two experiences that helped shape her time at UGA. A former Public Service and Outreach Student Scholar, Field first worked with the SBDC as an intern, gaining exposure to the organization’s work supporting entrepreneurs and small businesses across Georgia. Later, as a member of SIFP, she joined the first phase of the FieldLog project, helping collect the research that supported the platform’s development.\n\n“I think it is all service at the end of the day,” said Field, who majored in management information systems while earning her master’s degree in business analytics. “We talk a lot about human-centered design, and at the core of that is empathy. It’s not just about building technology or creating a product. It’s about understanding the people you’re trying to help and making sure what you create actually has an impact.”\n\nAfter focusing on the needs they heard directly from farmers, the next student team moved to technology development. The result was FieldLog, which allows farmers to verbally record activities in the field on their phone while organizing compliance and operational records. By integrating information such as weather, GPS and regulatory requirements, the platform is designed to reduce paperwork and simplify recordkeeping.\n\n“The best decision we made was letting the students lead,” said Kyle Hensel, director of continuing education for the SBDC. “They listened, adapted and developed solutions the way professional consultants do every day.”\n\nWorking alongside professionals from the SBDC, UGA Extension and the UGA Innovation District, students also learned firsthand how the university’s land-grant mission translates into support for communities across Georgia.\n\n“They walk away hearing what our impact is and what a real difference UGA makes, and that’s something they don’t fully understand until they experience it,” Hensel said.\n\nTesting will continue through the summer before students return in the fall to refine the platform using feedback gathered from participating farms. Depending on the results, FieldLog could expand to additional farms, become a tool supported through Extension programming or evolve into a broader commercialization opportunity. So far, 15 students across four SIFP teams have worked on the project, with another team set to resume work in the fall. These students represent 11 different majors across multiple schools and colleges at UGA.\n\nAndrew Potter, UGA’s director of experiential learning who oversees SIFP, sees those possibilities as secondary to the broader impact the project has already had on students.\n\nMany students entered the project with little knowledge of UGA’s public service role in supporting small businesses or of agriculture’s role in the state but left with a deeper understanding of its importance to communities and Georgia’s economy.\n\nFor Potter, that perspective is the project’s greatest outcome.\n\n“They’re seeing an entire ecosystem that millions depend on,” he said. “That’s the real magic of this project.”", "url": "https://wpnews.pro/news/through-google-funded-initiative-uga-students-use-ai-technology-community-to", "canonical_source": "https://news.uga.edu/google-funded-fieldlog-platform/", "published_at": "2026-07-14 14:10:02+00:00", "updated_at": "2026-07-14 14:25:32.200401+00:00", "lang": "en", "topics": ["artificial-intelligence", "ai-products", "ai-tools", "ai-ethics"], "entities": ["University of Georgia", "Google", "FieldLog", "UGA Small Business Development Center", "Student Industry Fellows Program", "UGA Innovation District", "Lauren Lazaro", "Bradley Smith"], "alternates": {"html": "https://wpnews.pro/news/through-google-funded-initiative-uga-students-use-ai-technology-community-to", "markdown": "https://wpnews.pro/news/through-google-funded-initiative-uga-students-use-ai-technology-community-to.md", "text": "https://wpnews.pro/news/through-google-funded-initiative-uga-students-use-ai-technology-community-to.txt", "jsonld": "https://wpnews.pro/news/through-google-funded-initiative-uga-students-use-ai-technology-community-to.jsonld"}}