Founder and CEO of Property Management and Automation company PreeLabs Limited, Yekini Wallen-Bryan, says his company wants to change the farming industry.

Speaking on Taking Stock with Kalilah Reynolds, Wallen-Bryan explained that his company provides property owners with the tools to supervise and manage various systems, remotely.

Founded in 2016, Pree Labs is a technology-based property management company that allows owners to monitor how much energy or water is used daily.

According to Wallen-Bryan, the company started from a pitch competition he entered while attending university.

“I had built a prototype of something to help with energy management. The prototype allowed you to see, from your smartphone, how much energy you were using. It also allowed you to turn on and off appliances from your phone. And this was before the wave of smart plugs became standard, it was still a relatively new technology at that time,” he explained.

He said the team quickly learned that the technology could also be used to monitor water levels, crop irrigation and surveil properties. 

“Because it’s all data. We collect it, automate it and allow people to see what’s happening in their environment in real-time from anywhere in the world,” Wallen-Bryan said.

“You might get a light bill one day and you don’t understand why it’s so high. So, we can introduce devices that allow you to collect data at an appliance level,” he added.

“You can see how much AC you’re using, how much power your water heater is using and how much that contributes to your overall energy consumption,” the CEO said.

Wallen-Bryan said his company is using this technology to assist Jamaican farmers to maximise their crop yields.

“Our smart farm product line allows people to understand and manage what is happening on their farms from anywhere,” he said.

“For example, you want to make sure that your crop receives a certain amount of water and if it rains you don’t want to be giving your crops the same amount of water every day,” he said.

“We have systems that monitor rainfall, humidity, soil moisture; most of the things that affect crop productivity and we give farmers the tools to act on it. So, we allow farmers to not only make smarter decisions by giving them information about the things that actually affect farming output and yield but all giving them the means to act on it” he added.

The tech entrepreneur said his company’s goal is to automate systems and processes to help Jamaican businesses be more productive and efficient.  

He also said that PreeLabs will be launching a new product line that will help reduce praedial larceny in Jamaica.

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