We trust what farmers know

In late 2021, Patipond and Thinnaphat, his high school teammate, began building VannameiVision, an AI system to help sort out weak shrimp larvae, starting from a real problem in shrimp farming.

In 2022 the team entered the project in the Young Scientist Competition (YSC) 2022 and came home without an award. But the competition introduced them to Dr. Kobchai Duangrattanalert and Dr. Chanati Jantrachotechatchawan, who became the team’s advisors.

After that loss, the team went back to work, and in the years that followed the same project won awards at both national and international level.

From 19 to 23 October 2023, Patipond Tiyapunjanit, the founder of AquaWise and then still a student, represented Princess Chulabhorn Science High School Pathumthani at the Thailand-Japan Student Science Fair 2023 (TJ-SSF 2023), a science fair for Thai and Japanese students.

The team presented its research both orally and as a poster. The fair covered five fields: physics, chemistry, biology, mathematics and computer science, along with activities designed to build scientific knowledge and skills.

The most memorable moment came when the team was chosen to represent all 12 Princess Chulabhorn Science High Schools and present a sustainable shrimp farming project to Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn. They presented ways to solve key problems in Thai shrimp farming and in society, and to use technology for both environmental and economic sustainability.

Away from the presentations, what he enjoyed most was making many Japanese friends. Over three days of activities, students from the two countries worked on science projects together, shared cultural perspectives and formed friendships that link the two countries.

The event gave him practice presenting and communicating on an international stage, and showed him how powerful cross-border collaboration can be in science. He thanks the organizers, Princess Chulabhorn Science High School Loei, and all the participants.

The team’s VannameiVision project started from a hard problem: spotting weak shrimp larvae takes effort, skill and expertise. So the team developed a way to use AI to help pick out the weak larvae.

The paper “VannameiVision: An Optimized Probabilistic Deep Learning for Susceptible Shrimp Larvae Detection” was selected from more than 150 papers submitted worldwide for an oral presentation at the 3rd International Conference on Emerging Smart Technologies and Applications (eSmarTA 2023), held in Yemen on 10 and 11 October 2023. It was published in IEEE Xplore and is indexed in Scopus.

The research combines probabilistic deep learning with transfer learning and deep metric learning using a triplet loss function, then rigorously compares several models with 5-fold cross-validation. It found that combining transfer learning with deep metric learning clearly improved the system.

The DenseNet121 model performed better with the proposed techniques, reaching 92% accuracy, 87% sensitivity and 97% specificity. After fine-tuning, the model also worked on a dataset it had never seen, with over 90% accuracy even when the background color and texture changed.

The team has made the research code and sample data open source on GitHub, for anyone to download at github.com/patipond-tiy/vannameivision.

In 2023, Patipond stepped back to look at the bigger picture. He believed that work which began as a shrimp larvae project could do more than win competitions, so he talked with the team, and Dr. Kobchai Duangrattanalert and Dr. Chanati Jantrachotechatchawan, the team’s advisors since YSC, decided to join.

In October 2023, AquaWise started in Bangkok with 3 co-founders: Patipond as CEO, Dr. Kobchai as CTO and Dr. Chanati as CSO.

At the same time, the team was taking the VannameiVision research to academic conferences and science fairs: the IEEE eSmarTA 2023 conference and TJ-SSF 2023 that same month, followed by TYSF 2023 the month after.

Dr. Chanati has been a researcher at Siriraj Hospital, Mahidol University, since November 2020, and won a gold medal with the world’s top score at the International Biology Olympiad (IBO) in 2006.

Dr. Kobchai earned a bachelor’s degree in biology from the University of York (2010 to 2013) and a PhD in genetics from The University of Manchester (2013 to 2018). His PhD studied how yeast adapts to stress, and along the way he built gcatR, an open-source tool that lets anyone analyze growth curves without writing code.

Patipond once wrote that the two of them “pour their souls into our vision every day,” and when AquaWise was featured in TechCrunch in 2025, he thanked “our PhD scientists who believed in a 19-year-old’s vision.”

From 16 to 18 November 2023, Patipond and Thinnaphat’s VannameiVision team took part in the 19th Thailand Young Scientist Festival (TYSF), a national science competition for students from across Thailand, organized by the National Science Museum (NSM) and the Science Society of Thailand. The competition has several categories, including applied science, biological science and physical science.

The team won out of more than 1,300 projects from across the country, taking a Gold Medal and the Best of the Best award in the Applied Science category, which goes to the highest-quality research projects that show a deep understanding of scientific principles and apply them to real problems.

What made the day even more special was receiving a Royal Plaque from Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn. This honor goes only to the students with the most outstanding work in the competition, and it is a moment the team will always remember.

VannameiVision came from a real problem in shrimp farming. Low-quality larvae lead to disease outbreaks and much lower yields, while traditional larvae quality checks take a long time, need expertise and use expensive equipment. So the team designed an end-to-end process for assessing larvae quality that needs only a smartphone and a template the team designed themselves.

The team thanks their teachers and advisors, families, friends and the TYSF organizers. The award made them want to keep using research to solve real problems, and they have a message for young scientists: never stop wondering, never stop asking questions.

From 29 January to 2 February 2024, Patipond and Thinnaphat’s VannameiVision team presented their AI research for aquaculture at the KVIS Invitational Science Fair (KVIS-ISF) 2024, which brought together young scientists from 16 countries, including the UK, Singapore and Korea.

The team won two awards: the PTT Award for Best Research of the Year, and 1st runner-up in the presentation category. Both were presented by PTT Public Company Limited together with the KVIS-ISF organizers.

Besides presenting to an audience from many countries, the team joined discussions on science and technology, took part in cultural exchange activities and field trips, and got to know young scientists from around the world.

The team thanks their advisors, the KVIS-ISF organizers and PTT for the opportunity.

From 11 to 17 May 2024, Patipond and Thinnaphat’s VannameiVision team represented Thailand at the Regeneron International Science and Engineering Fair (ISEF) 2024 in Los Angeles, USA. ISEF is the world’s largest pre-college science competition, nicknamed “the Olympics of science fairs.” That year nearly 1,700 finalists from 67 countries and territories (figures from Society for Science, the organizer) set up booths showing work ranging from cancer research to environmental solutions.

The team won two awards. The first was the 1st place Special Award from the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), the world’s largest educational and scientific computing society, given for pioneering, practical work in artificial intelligence. It was the first time in 16 years that a Thai team had won it. The second was a 3rd place Grand Award in Robotics and Intelligent Machines, for a new way to identify weak shrimp larvae from complex data.

Outside the competition, many nights in the dorms turned into unplanned brainstorming sessions. The team saw for themselves that science crosses language and cultural lines. They learned that communication matters as much as scientific knowledge, that international collaboration is key to solving complex problems, and that persistence and love for the work are essential ingredients.

On 14 May 2024, while in Los Angeles, the team met the Consul-General of Thailand in Los Angeles, who took a sincere interest in the project and in the path of young Thai scientists. They talked about science and technology education in Thailand and possible future collaboration. The consulate staff spoke about Thai-US relations and the role of science in international cooperation, and offered encouragement and advice on building on the ISEF experience.

The Consul-General’s words that the team still remembers: “You are not just scientists; you are ambassadors of Thailand’s potential in the global scientific community.” The team walked out proud, and more connected to their Thai heritage than ever, even thousands of miles from home.

In July 2024, Patipond Tiyapunjanit shared the news that he had received a long-term scholarship up to the doctoral level from the 26th cohort of the Junior Science Talent Project (JSTP) by the National Science and Technology Development Agency (NSTDA). The scholarship covers his studies from a bachelor’s degree through a PhD, so he can study and work in science and technology without worrying about the cost.

JSTP supports young people with special talent in science and technology, with long-term funding for study and research, mentoring from experienced scientists and technologists, science camps, research projects, international conferences, and programs designed around each person. About 10 students a year are selected for this long-term support.

Getting the scholarship meant getting through a nerve-racking interview first. Then came the good news, and a place in the warm JSTP family, a bond he believes will last a lifetime.

Many people asked him whether taking the scholarship meant giving up on business. His answer was a clear no. His aim to be an entrepreneur has not changed, and the scholarship will help him connect research to real-world use.

In August 2024, we shared the news that Patipond and Thinnaphat’s VannameiVision project had won the Prime Minister’s Science Project Award 2024 in Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence.

VannameiVision is an AI system the team spent more than two years building to analyze and assess the quality of shrimp post-larvae, a key challenge in Thai shrimp farming. It counts and measures hundreds of post-larvae at once, with a size error of less than 0.1 millimeters. The team built it to help farmers lower their risk and farm more efficiently.

The team wanted small-scale farmers who had never had access to tools like this to be able to use it, and hoped the work could help revive Thailand’s shrimp export industry, which has faced challenges for years.

The award built on what came before it: winning the 19th TYSF among more than 1,300 projects nationwide; representing Thailand at Regeneron ISEF 2024 in Los Angeles; the ACM Special Award, first place, the first for a Thai team in 16 years; and the third-place Grand Award in Robotics and Intelligent Machines.

The team thanked their teammates, advisors, families and everyone who believed in the work, and had a message for young inventors: your ideas really can change the world, so keep going.

In late 2024, Patipond and co-founder Dr. Chanati represented AquaWise at Agri-Food Tech Expo Asia (AFTEA) 2024 in Singapore. At the time, we were building a system to monitor water quality on aquaculture farms with AI and satellite imagery.

The highlight of the event was the announcement of the Singapore Aquaculture Plan (SAP), the Singapore government’s plan to make aquaculture a pillar of food security by bringing in technology and growing production sustainably. Seeing Singapore put itself at the front of this field made us more confident in our direction.

At the event we talked with people from several parts of the industry: The Fish Farmer, one of Singapore’s largest sea-based farms, about using AI monitoring on their farm; GK AQUA from Malaysia, where we spoke with the CTO about connecting satellite monitoring to their shrimp farming software; and Trendline from Singapore, where we spoke with the CEO about scaling aquaculture innovation and investing in agrifood tech.

We also spoke with the Thai Union Group team about SPACE-F, a Thai food tech startup incubator that runs a no-equity accelerator program, and with the CEO of Zewa Feed from India about sustainable aquafeed, which at the time focused on ornamental fish.

These were all early conversations that we hoped could grow into partnerships in the future.

Patipond received an award from the AI in Aquaculture project, presented by Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn. For a young entrepreneur, it was an important milestone, and it strengthened his resolve to keep working for the aquaculture industry.

At the event he spoke with several of Thailand’s science leaders: Prof. Dr. Soottiporn Chittmittrapap, Prof. Dr. Supot Hannongbua, Dr. Kallaya Sritunyalucksana-Dangtip and Prof. Dr. Anchalee Tassanakajon. The conversations went beyond research, to startup business ideas and much more.

Prof. Soottiporn introduced Patipond to the idea of change theory and explained how he uses it to set the direction of the country’s research. Prof. Supot described the current state of science in Thailand, with its challenges and the opportunities ahead.

Another memorable moment was learning about the work of Dr. Kallaya and Prof. Dr. Anchalee, who both received the 2024 Outstanding Scientist Award for their aquaculture research. Only two people received the award that year.

Because of security measures in the royal palace grounds, participants’ phones were held for the day, so he took no photos of his own. The experience and the lessons from it have stayed with him.

Around Songkran 2025, we shared the news that AquaWise had joined Google Cloud Earth KATALYST, a three-month program supporting startups from across Southeast Asia that create environmental impact. It was Google Cloud’s first startup program of its kind in the region, and Google plans to expand it so that more innovators can access Google Maps and Earth Engine.

From February to June 2025, Patipond was AquaWise’s Business Lead in the program, working with teams from Google and Kasikornbank. At the time, we were using satellite imagery, cloud computing and AI to build water quality monitoring and early warning tools for aquaculture farms. Google supported the team with $25,000 in Google Cloud credits through the Google for Startups Cloud Program.

Beacon Venture Capital was the program’s main partner. Kasikornbank gave the startups booths, prize money and a stage, and the knowledge partners were Navagis, which gave geospatial advice, New Energy Nexus and Third Derivative. The program was full of masterclasses and group discussions that even the program leads at Google said they would miss.

The program closed in Bangkok at the Earth Jump Conference. Kasikornbank and Beacon VC named AquaWise one of the program’s 5 standout teams, with prize money of 20,000 baht per team, and invited us to present on the event’s main stage in front of about 2,000 people. Patipond admits that before going on, his heart was pounding and he was shaking: it was his first time on a stage that big, and he felt very small. The funny part is that the name “AquaWise” meant we had to go first, which made the nerves even worse.

What kept him steady was the encouragement of friends in the program, whom he calls the Earth KATALYST family. He was only 18 at the time and felt like everyone’s little brother. Knowing the older founders were cheering for him gave him the courage to step onto the biggest stage of his life. He also thanked Dr. Kobchai and Dr. Chanati, who give themselves to the team’s vision every day, and his family, who have always believed in him.

In May 2025, we shared the news that the AquaWise team had won the Popular Vote award at the TED Youth Startup Championship. We thanked our dedicated team and our mentor, who made that day possible.

The award opened a fast track to a 1.5 million baht grant that would help us bring affordable water quality monitoring tools to more Thai farmers.

In October 2025, AquaWise received a 1.5 million baht grant from TEDFUND, supported by the Ministry of Higher Education, Science, Research and Innovation. It is a grant with no equity taken in return (about $42,000), for our proof of concept.

At the time, we planned to use it to speed up our research on AI and satellite imagery for water quality monitoring, expand our farm pilots, and bring water quality monitoring technology to farmers in Southeast Asia sooner. We thank TEDFUND and the Ministry for supporting Thai aquaculture innovation that responds to climate change.

AquaWise was selected as one of 100 startups at SITE 2025, the largest innovation expo in Southeast Asia, and it was a week the team remembers well.

What made it special was our team: Dr. Kobchai Duangrattanalert, Dr. Chanati Jantrachotechatchawan and two more teammates. As Patipond wrote, great ideas need great people to become reality.

At the event we met startup leaders and feed suppliers. At the time, we were building a water quality monitoring system based on satellite imagery that needs no equipment installed in the pond.

In late August 2025, we announced that AquaWise had been selected for TechCrunch Startup Battlefield 200, one of 200 early-stage startups chosen from thousands of applications worldwide, to take part in TechCrunch Disrupt 2025 in San Francisco from 27 to 29 October 2025. Dropbox, Cloudflare, Mint and Trello came through the same stage.

What we brought at the time was AI and satellite imagery technology for monitoring water quality on aquaculture farms. Patipond thanked the team, our scientific advisors at BIOTEC, and the Google team for both technical advice and infrastructure, as well as Beacon VC, Kasikornbank and Navagis, who worked with us in the Earth KATALYST program.

Before the event, TechCrunch published a story on AquaWise by Rebecca Szkutak, titled “Aquawise will show off its AI-driven water-quality tech at TechCrunch Disrupt 2025.” We thanked her for helping share our vision: making food security a basic right for all of humanity, not a privilege.

At the same time, we also thanked the PhD scientists on our team who believed in the vision of a 19-year-old, our supporters at Google Cloud and BIOTEC-NSTDA, and every farmer who trusted us.

From 23 to 27 March 2026, AquaWise took part in AquaInnovate 2 in Bangkok, a week-long event that brought together entrepreneurs, scientists and industry leaders to speed up nature-based solutions and climate innovation for aquaculture in the Asia-Pacific region. It was organized by NACA and FutureFish, with support from Canada’s IDRC.

On the fourth day, a “Shark Tank” style innovation session at The Food School let innovators pitch to business leaders and investors. Twelve startup and entrepreneur teams from Thailand, Vietnam, India, the Philippines and Fiji pitched, and Patipond was one of the presenters, pitching AquaWise.

In May 2026, Princess Chulabhorn Science High School Pathumthani, Patipond’s old school, invited him back as a speaker, because he had led the Thai team that won first place in the ACM Special Award at ISEF 2024.

He spent weeks unsure whether to give the talk, because what he wanted to share was not the project itself, not the medals and not the technical side. It was how a student with nothing to show yet can get people to want to back them.

He opened with a photo of the team holding the medal and asked what people saw. Most said “success.” Then he showed the same moment in a wider shot, with dozens of mentors, teachers and family standing behind them. None of those prizes were won by the team alone.

His mentors later told him they chose the team for its passion, not because it was the smartest. He then walked through three more things a student can offer that no adult can buy. Respect for an adult’s time. Effort, doing the work before asking for help. Engagement: ask, follow up and close the loop.

He closed with what he wishes he had understood at fourteen: we may never fully repay the people who invested in us when we had nothing to give back, so at the very least, remember them. “Forget what you gave, remember what you received.”

From June to July 2026, Patipond Tiyapunjanit represented Thailand at the 4th Tsinghua Global Youth Dialogue (TGYD 2026), organized by Tsinghua University and the Asian Universities Alliance (AUA), as a youth delegate and invited speaker. He was selected from more than 5,100 applicants from 163 countries. Over 14 days in 3 cities, Hangzhou, Shanghai and Beijing, he came to share the work of AquaWise and its vision for AI in aquaculture.

In Hangzhou, the group saw how the city builds and backs tech companies, and visited Qingshan Village and West Lake. He said it felt like standing several years ahead of the present.

In Shanghai, the group visited a cybersecurity park and talked with district leaders. His favorite part was a 6-hour AI hackathon that turned rough ideas into AI prototypes for the Sustainable Development Goals (AI4SDG). His team built AI for climate action and, to their own surprise, came away with the Wildest Imagination Award.

In Beijing, the group heard from leaders and fellow delegates and toured Xiaomi’s electric vehicle factory and the Zhongguancun innovation center. He was one of 3 young people chosen to present in the Global AI Sparks segment at AI Party Night in Zhongguancun Science City, giving a 5-minute keynote on AquaWise and using AI to detect anomalies in aquaculture, in front of technology experts and investors.

He was also one of 2 speakers on the AI & the Global South panel at Tsinghua University, talking about using AI to close data gaps and help smallholder farmers in developing countries. He was one of 4 delegates interviewed by CGTN (China Global Television Network) about the future of AI in aquaculture and narrowing the technology gap.

But what he says he will remember most is not the stages but the people: a friend’s advice to keep asking and keep chasing opportunities, because the worst anyone can say is no; a friend using AI to solve real problems in Uzbekistan’s government, who changed how he thinks about the purpose of AI; a friend who introduced him to Hong Kong’s startup scene; a friend who showed him around West Lake; and his roommate for most of the trip, who showed him around Tsinghua and Beijing and taught him more Mandarin than he expected.

He came back with new friendships, harder questions than he left with, and a belief shared with his new friends that our generation has a duty to build things that reach the people technology usually misses.

On 24 July 2026, Patipond returned to Princess Chulabhorn Science High School Pathumthani to receive a royal decoration: the Most Admirable Order of the Direkgunabhorn, Fifth Class.

This decoration is conferred on people who have brought recognition to the country. This time it came from the research the team took to ISEF 2024 in the United States, the world’s largest research and innovation competition for young people, where it won 1st place from ACM, the association that gives the Turing Award, often compared to a Nobel Prize for computing. The team competed against 1,699 young representatives from 67 countries.

The research built an AI model that assesses the quality of shrimp larvae from photos taken on a mobile phone. The key challenge: shrimp larvae are so small that their health cannot be checked one by one before they are photographed, so the data used to train the AI has biological limits from the start. The team devised a new method using advanced mathematics and statistics to build an accurate model even with limited data.

Patipond thanked the school, his teachers and everyone who gave him the chance to do research while still a student, as well as his teammate Thinnaphat, Dr. Kobchai, Dr. Chanati, Dr. Natthinee and his family. He said that after the competition the team saw the industry’s bigger problems and wanted to build something that truly changes people’s lives, not something that stays in the lab. That was the beginning of AquaWise.

In July 2026, Chulalongkorn University featured Patipond’s story in another article. In mid-August, the team sat down for several hours with the university’s Corporate Communications team, looking back from AquaWise’s earliest days to what it is building next.

The story ran from years of trial and error with different research projects, changing direction several times, to studying the shrimp industry, building technology, competing in many contests and earning recognition in Thailand and internationally. In one sense, all of this helped prove that what the team is building is academically and technically possible.

But the further they went, the clearer it became that winning awards does not mean they have created real value for people. It has not yet proven that farmers will make better decisions, or that farms will actually lower their risk and costs. That is what AquaWise has to prove next, by working side by side with farmers and people in the industry.

On 13 August 2026, the AquaWise team met with R.Mitrchai Farm and planned together to start using the system for real in the first phase. Thanks to Patrick Lee (“Ek”), owner and manager of R.Mitrchai Farm, who has supported and advised the team all along.

In the first phase, the team will bring the system into the farm’s real daily work, keep records in an organized way, follow results over time, and learn together where technology should help to create the most value.

In late August, the team went back to the farm in Phetchaburi to hear about problems from the people who do the work, watch how the work is done and understand what the farm’s key problems are. The team believes building technology should start from understanding the problem clearly, not from technology that already exists. Thanks to Ek and Ajarn Somchai for opening their farm so the team could learn and develop alongside them.

On 1 September 2026, AquaWise opened a trial of the shrimp market map, a tool that shows factories’ purchase plans on a map so farmers can search and compare the information when planning, before deciding whether to keep growing or get ready to harvest.

Farmers choose the province where their farm is, whiteleg or black tiger shrimp, and the size as a count of shrimp per kilogram. They can then see which factories plan to buy that size, whether they buy all year or to order, how far away each factory is and roughly how long it takes to get there, how the number of factories changes if they keep growing until the shrimp are bigger, and save the factories they are interested in to call before harvest day.

The data covers 2026 purchase plans from 24 factories, with historical data from 2023. These are “purchase plans”, not real-time prices or buying status. Farmers should always contact the factory to confirm prices and terms before deciding. Try it at aquawise.ai/market

Thanks to Ajarn Vinij Tansakul for sharing this dataset, to Sathasap Viriyanantavanich for presenting the data at the forum “A Way Out for the Thai Shrimp Industry” held by the Faculty of Natural Resources, Prince of Songkla University, on 13 August 2026, and to the Thai Frozen Foods Association for compiling the data.

On 6 September 2026, Patipond gave another interview to CGTN, China’s main international broadcaster, about AI, aquaculture, technology collaboration between Thailand and China, and the role of young people in technology.

He said AI is moving very fast, but the hardest part is still not building the technology. It is making the technology fit into people’s real lives and work. For AquaWise, that means spending time on shrimp farms, understanding how farmers make decisions, and building tools around how they actually work, without expecting farmers to change everything just to use AI.

He also said China and Thailand have complementary strengths. China is strong in AI, engineering, hardware and scaling technology, while Thailand has strengths in agriculture, aquaculture, healthcare, biomedical research and biotechnology. The two could build much more together by moving from technology transfer to real co-development.

For young people, he sees this as one of the most exciting times to build something new. So the important question is not only “What can we build?” but “Which problems are worth solving?”

Today AquaWise runs its pilot mainly with farmers in Phetchaburi, and also learns from shrimp farms in Chachoengsao, Samut Sakhon and other provinces.

What we make is Nong Nam, a farm record assistant that lives in LINE, built by sitting with farmers and listening to them describe the work on their farms.

The team is now preparing tools and new things to launch and share at an event in Surat Thani on 6 October 2026.