Part 4/11:
The innovators behind these robots, a company named Dogtooth, hail from diverse backgrounds. Co-founder Duncan, with a background in machine learning and computer vision, conceived the idea while relaxing on a beach in Morocco. Observing the country’s widespread litter problem, Duncan realized that identifying trash via camera and computer vision had essentially become a solved challenge, sparking the idea to develop low-cost robots that could crawl beaches and pick up litter.
This insight gradually led his team to apply similar principles in agriculture. Instead of litter, their robots now target strawberries. The transition illustrates how innovative thinking can pivot from environmental cleanup to addressing agricultural labor shortages.