Agtech comes to the city with Dover’s Robotic Community Garden

What do farmers and techies have in common?

Actually, more than you might think.

One of Delaware’s primary industries is agriculture, especially south of the Canal. Still, most urban Delawareans aren’t aware of the amount of complex technology it uses these days, including robotic harvesting, drone mapping and GPS-navigated farm machines. The demand for agtech jobs in Delaware (and beyond) is increasing, but the exposure to agtech is limited, especially for inner-city communities like the one in Dover served by Cyber Streets.

Enter the Robotic Community Garden.

With the help of the Inner City Cultural League and Camden Vice Mayor Tracy Torres, Cyber Streets is placing scalable agtech in the hands of city youth.

“We always tell our communities that endless opportunity is out there, but unless we find a way to place it in their hands and enable them to truly experience it in every location possible, they may never truly experience how important and exciting it is,” said Robb Bentley, founder and president of Cyber Streets. “We often accomplish our efforts with an engaging and empowering conversation followed by a detailed email with a specific custom roadmap for the free tools and resources they desire. Fortunately, now AgTech can be included in that critical and empowering conversation as well.”

Torres, who is also the owner of Artt Studio 4 Hair in Camden, hosted a fundraising event to support the Robotic Community Garden, and raised enough in two hours to complete the funding Cyber Streets needed to secure the project.

“The first day I met Jason [Stewart, VP of Cyber Streets], I knew I wanted to help him or work with him in some way,” said Torres. “Helping kids understand, no matter their financial upbringing, that they can be successful is so important to me. I did not grow up with money but I have never let that hold me back.“

“This new Robotic Community Garden is the perfect symbol of our community’s collective efforts,” said Bentley.  “We ensure everything that we put into the community also provides them the capability to sustainably give back to the community.”