November 25, 2020

Soos Technology wins US$1 million agri-tech prize for chicken sex-change tech

Isreali-based start-up Soos Technology won the US$1 million grand prize from global food and agriculture business competition Grow-NY for its AI-driven software to change the sex of chicken embryos from male to female, The Jerusalem Post reported.

The software is able to control the incubation process of chicken embryos, allows it to change sex and solving the poultry industry issue of culling male chicks. 

The AI-software developed by Soos can control an incubation cell's humidity, temperature, CO2 levels, and sound vibrations, and can be customised to affect the chick's sex development process.

Out of the 15 billion chicks produced in commercial hatcheries, about 7.5 billion are males that do not have commercial use and are destroyed after they hatch. Animal rights organisations have criticised the cruel methods used by farmers to kill the male chicks.

Besides the animal welfare aspect, the chick culling also uses more incubation space, production capacity, energy, and water that can better utilised in the poultry production process.  

Yael Alter, CEO of Soos Technology, said they will use the prize money to create research and engineering jobs, as well as build the NY Poultry Research Hub to connect academic research with poultry startups and corporates, so as to commercialise validated research.

The competition was administered by Cornell University and funded by New York state.

- The Jerusalem Post