In this episode of the podcast, Thomas Slattery interviews Ewen Wardman, CEO and co-founder of iLivestock, a company that provides software and hardware solutions to simplify and streamline the data capture process for livestock farmers all over the world. 

Ewan shares the inspiration behind the creation of iLivestock, which came about while he worked for a tag company that installed a large-scale RFID system on a pig farm in China. He noticed that the farmers there were using their smartphones to take pictures of EID tags and jotting down notes beside them. This led him to think of creating an app that could streamline the process.

Ewen emphasizes the importance of spending time on farms and understanding the problems faced by farmers before launching a product. He shares how, in the early days of iLivestock, he and his team would spend up to a week on a farm just to apprentice with the farmers, so they could fully comprehend and address the challenges of their potential users.

The conversation then turns to the various products that iLivestock offers, including hardware such as a bluetooth enabling weigh head that connects with load bars, as well as software that allows farmers to keep track of their livestock’s health and performance. 

Ewen stresses the importance of data capture for sustainability and environmental compliance, and how his company’s platform can be used to help farmers meet these goals.