LittleKebun

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Prototype Homescreen Interface

Inspiration

Food security is an issue that has become more pertinent recently. With increasingly unpredictable weather conditions leading to lower crop yields, many countries have found themselves vulnerable to global food supply fluctuations. Singapore, too, is especially at risk due to a high reliance on food imports, prompting the government to push for more food resilience policies. Nevertheless, these policies, such as the ‘30 by 30’ goal to produce 30% of Singapore’s food locally by 2030, have been facing headwinds due to low public interest in locally grown food.

Therefore, our project aims to take a bottom-up approach to the problem and promote an area that many feel too intimidated to venture into - home gardening. NParks has long advocated for growing edibles (through the ‘Gardening with Edibles’ initiative), but gardening is often complex, and the effort needed for research, maintenance and troubleshooting may overwhelm beginners.

This is where our LLM-based desktop application, LittleKebun , comes into play. LittleKebun is an application with a built-in AI chatbot that guides Singaporeans on every step of their journey in home gardening. Our vision is to create a one-stop resource to make home gardening easier for both beginners and regular planters. It is our hope that, through home gardening, residents can learn to appreciate the value of fresh, locally-grown food and gain a stake in Singapore’s food security.

Features

Our application has a few key features: An AI chatbot to help you with any questions you might have about your plants, a calendar of important milestones in your gardening journey, and a database of plant resources.

KK is an AI Kangkung buddy who believes that everyone can be a part of Singapore's journey towards food security by growing their own vegetables at home. He is a cute little desktop pet who answers your queries, helps you track tasks and gives you suggestions for planting!

Firstly, you can chat with KK whenever you have any concerns. KK is special compared to other chatbots - he is trained on data to suit Singapore’s climate, helping in plant care, pest management and troubleshooting.

Secondly, you can get KK to remind you to complete certain tasks. The calendar of events also reminds you of important dates, such as a recommended harvesting date.

Finally, you can ask KK for healthy recipe recommendations with dishes that use locally-grown vegetables.

The app also supports an achievements system. To motivate you on your journey, you can earn badges from completing certain tasks or leveling up from EXP gained from logging in consistently.

To increase the accessibility of the app, KK can also chat in all 4 official languages.

With Little Kebun and KK, it is our hope that more people can take the first step to start home gardening, so as to learn to appreciate the value of fresh, locally-grown food and gain a stake in Singapore’s food security.