DIPPER Lab at KNUST hosted a delegation from the University of Tennessee as part of efforts to build a strategic framework for innovation and collaboration. The visit is aimed at strengthening partnerships that connect universities, attract investment into university-led research, and promote collaboration among academia, industry and development partners.
The delegation, led by the Director of Technology Transfer and Innovation at Tennessee State University, Mr. Robert Turner, engaged researchers at the lab to understand DIPPER Lab’s operational model, with particular interest in FarmSense, a soil and farm monitoring solution developed by DIPPER Lab and SESI Technologies.
He reiterated “the lab’s commitment to translating research into deployable technologies and explained ongoing efforts to retool the lab to support local production capacity and prototype development, reducing reliance on manufacturing outside the country”.
The visitors were taken through key operational and collaboration models, including DIPPER Lab’s and SESI Technologies’ FarmSense.
He explained that “the company emerged from Mr. Isaac Sesi, CEO of Sesi Technologies final-year engineering project focused on developing a device to measure grain moisture content”.
According to him, “the moisture meter developed through the project is now in use across Ghana and has also been adopted outside the country”.
Building on this foundation, it was later expanded into soil and agronomy solutions.
Dr. Bessah said the team began research into reducing the cost, time and labour involved in conventional soil testing by developing tools that measure soil parameters directly on farms.
The visit concluded with discussions on future collaboration, technology transfer, and opportunities to scale the lab's research outputs into practical solutions. Additionally, the lab's role in supporting the development and fine-tuning of solutions from collaborators was explored.
