L&T Finance Ltd., one of the leading Non-Banking Financial Companies in the country, announced the launch of the ‘LTF Pearl Anniversary Challenge,’ a hackathon focused on developing innovative models to enhance credit assessments for farmers across India. The challenge aims to leverage data science and Artificial Intelligence to better predict farmer incomes, enabling fairer and more accessible lending practices.
The challenge invites AI and data science professionals or students to create models using a rich dataset encompassing weather monitoring, soil quality data, crop yield information, commodity price dynamics, land records, and other relevant information. The initiative’s mission is to drive innovation in LTF’s credit assessment by building upon the existing advanced statistical, machine learning, and Generative AI techniques, ultimately empowering the farming community.
Mr. Sudipta Roy, Managing Director & CEO at LTF, said, “We are committed to broadening financial inclusion, especially for the underserved farming population of the country. Farmers often face challenges in accessing credit at fair prices due to limited credit tracks, making them vulnerable to predatory lending. As a leading tractor financier in the country, LTF employs state-of-the-art models that leverage statistical and machine learning models to assess the creditworthiness of our farmers. However, we believe that with significant technological advancements taking place across the world, there’s always room for more enhancements. The ‘LTF Pearl Anniversary Challenge,’ which was unveiled at RAISE’ 24, a premier AI event in the BFSI sector, is a call to the data science community to take up an interesting challenge of unlocking the full potential of our data assets and developing cutting-edge solutions that open doors of credit for deserving farmers across the country. We encourage participants to explore and integrate alternative public or private data sources to further enhance their models.”
Dr. Debarag Banerjee, Chief AI and Data Officer at LTF, said, “Through the ‘LTF Pearl Anniversary Challenge,’ we are inviting the brightest minds to collaborate on a real-world use case to develop practical and impactful innovative models that will bring tangible social impact to the farmer community at large. This is a rare opportunity for AI and data science professionals or students to actively shape the future of farmer finance by working alongside LTF to make a real difference.”
LTF is seeking innovative economic models to transform farmer credit scoring. The Company is providing access to its data and is encouraging the use of alternative data sources to eliminate unwarranted loan rejections for deserving farmers.
The winning solution will be evaluated based on the Mean Absolute Percentage Error of predicted farmer income on unseen data. The top-performing teams and individuals will be awarded Gold, Silver, and Bronze Medals, along with cash prizes, details of which are available on the Pearl Challenge website.
In addition to monetary prizes, winners may also be offered job opportunities at LTF and will have the chance to contribute to impactful financial solutions within the agricultural sector. Participants can form teams to collaborate on their submissions. There is no fee to enter the competition.
Team registration closes on April 14, 2025, followed by the solution submission deadline on May 14, 2025. The winners will be announced on August 1, 2025.