It’s October 17th and unless you’ve been living under a rock you probably know what that means. Recreational cannabis is now officially legal across Canada and in light of this we decided to look at some of the ways tech companies are playing a role in the new industry. Today we’ll be looking at cannabis and machine learning, dating apps for marijuana smokers, and an app that helps you choose and use it appropriately.
First up, machine learning: A Montreal-based company is bringing artificial intelligence and machine learning to cannabis. Motorleaf has an AI platform called Agronomist.ai that is helping greenhouses manage the growth of their cannabis plants. It also works with other commercial greenhouses that grow produce like tomatoes. Co-founder Alastair Monk told the Montreal Gazzette that greenhouses often pre-sell their produce, which makes having accurate predictions important, but the current process, in addition to being labour intensive, has an error rate of between 20 and 30 per cent. Motorleaf helps predict the amount of product that a grower is going to have at any given time by collecting data from sensors, cameras and using computer vision algorithms.
Next, everyone wants to find love and marijuana smokers are no different, a new Canadian dating app wants to connect pot lovers. CannaMatch.ca offers dating profiles similar to other dating sites but it adds a few twists like preferred method of cannabis consumption. A site representative told CityNews that users don’t have to smoke to use the site, just be open to dating someone who does. This is not the only cannabis dating site out there, High There! Is a social networking site out of Florida that has been called the “tinder for tokers” which hopes to expand its services into Canada.
Finally, legalization means that some people who have never smoked cannabis before might try it out, but sometimes it can be hard to understand the different strains, methods and even how it will affect you. Well a Toronto-based software company is here to help you out. StrainPrint is an app that can users track their smoking sessions and by using analytics it helps tell what strains of cannabis and what methods of consumption works best for each individual person. The Canadian startup was founded in 2016 and has been using its technology to help medical marijuana users use cannabis more effectively. Earlier this week it announced a new online space, StrainPrint Community that help Canadians with education, content and real-time support around legalization.