Jeonbuk National University (JBNU) College of Veterinary Medicine students won the grand prize in both the Idea Planning and Product/Service Development categories at the 11th 'Public Data + AI for Agriculture and Rural Areas Startup Competition' recently hosted by the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs.

In the competition, the 'Hanbet AI' team, which included JBNU College of Veterinary Medicine first-year professional student Jeon Woo-ho and first-year pre-veterinary student Kwon Ji-eun, received the Minister's Award from the Ministry of Agriculture, Food and Rural Affairs and a prize of KRW 3.5 million for the Idea Planning category. The 'zyra' team, composed of first-year professional student Choi Do-hyeon and alumnus Kim Han-ul, also won the Minister's Award and a prize of KRW 7 million for the Product/Service Development category.

The 'Hanbet AI' team proposed the 'Donbang Coughing AI Monitoring and Early Warning System,' which uses artificial intelligence to learn and analyze pig coughing sounds. The system analyzes the propagation direction of coughing sounds and ventilation direction within pig barns, and calculates risk by incorporating livestock disease outbreak information within a 30 km radius. When the risk level exceeds a preset threshold, the system automatically transmits the coughing audio and an alert to the attending veterinarian to assist with early detection and rapid response to livestock disease.

The 'zyra' team, which won the Product/Service Development category, developed an 'AI-Based Livestock Epidemic Pre-emptive Biosecurity Navigation' service. Based on domestic variant gene samples, it diagnoses porcine respiratory and reproductive diseases and integrates disease occurrence records, farm locations, and weather information to diagnose and predict in real time the risk of disease spread among farms nationwide. The service was highly rated for enabling livestock farmers to identify warning signs in advance and establish biosecurity strategies rather than merely responding after an outbreak.

Student Choi Do-hyeon said, 'The most meaningful aspect of this achievement is that we applied the veterinary knowledge we gained at the university to public data and artificial intelligence technology to address practical problems in the livestock sector. We will continue to develop this into a startup item with high on-site applicability for livestock infectious diseases, which affect farm losses and the wider regional livestock industry.'