Hon’ble Vice-Chancellor Dr. Z. P. Patel received prestigious National Level Digital Transformation Award for the development and use of “Agricultural Experiment Monitoring System-ZP (AEMS-ZP)” on December 13, 2024 at Guwahati, Assam in the 15th Edition of Digital Transformation Conclave and Awards. This incredible achievement was celebrated at an event organized by ilouge Media, hosted by the Department of Information Technology, Government of Assam, and co-hosted by DITEC, with the support of GovConnect — a platform designed to foster collaboration and knowledge exchange for digital evolution across industries.

The Digital Transformation Awards recognize groundbreaking achievements in the digital landscape that create meaningful impacts across sectors, and we are honored to be recognized for our innovative work in agri-tech.

This software is a brainchild of Dr. Z. P. Patel and prepared by the IT team of NAU, Navsari for the monitoring, easy documentation and report preparation of any research work performed by any scientist. This is limited access software and highly transformative for the University research as it simplifies planning of an experiment, execution it in the field or laboratory, collection of field or laboratory raw data, uploading research photos, and real time monitoring of the experiment by authorities from their desktop. It also helps in analysis of the collected data and interpretation of the results. Individual data are saved. After final save, data cannot be edited/modified preventing their manipulation which makes it more authentic. Further, its report can be either saved with unique id number and barcode in the pdf form or print can be taken as and when required. If any correction is suggested in any of the research subcommittee meeting, these can be recorded in the software. Accordingly, user can rectify these after getting access from authorities and IT department which can also be recorded and monitored. This helps in improved decision making. Individual raw data can be used for any of the scientific purpose or in the future can be linked with AI based tool for analysis, interpretation and inference of result.

Presently there are 1715 experiments recorded in the software of which 1458 are active experiments being documented and monitoring by the developed software. Total closed experiments are 257.

This award highlights NAU's commitment to advancing agricultural research and digital innovation, paving the way for a more sustainable and tech-driven future for agriculture.