Permia Sensing, an agriculture company leveraging AI technology and specializing in palm trees, has been honored as a winner of the UAE FoodTech Challenge 2026 during Abu Dhabi Sustainability Week. The company, which operates a team in Sri Lanka, employs AI, bioacoustic sensing, and aerial imaging to enhance yields and protect crops like coconut, oil palm, and dates.
The organizers of the event praised Permia’s innovative use of AI, bioacoustic sensors, and drone imaging to monitor the health of trees, highlighting its large-scale deployment in Sri Lanka. “At Permia, we focus on sensing that works in the real world, at scale, in harsh environments, with messy data and imperfect connectivity,” stated Dr. Hasitha Wegiriya, CTO and Co-founder of Permia Sensing.
As one of the four winning companies, Permia Sensing will receive 500,000 US dollars, contributing to a total prize package of 2 million dollars. This award also includes support to pilot and scale solutions across the UAE and other priority markets in the Global South. “The prize helps us move faster on implementation, more field trials, faster iteration, stronger on-the-ground support, and partnerships that turn insights into action,” Wegiriya added. “The goal is straightforward: make food production more resilient, more efficient, and ultimately more affordable, without pretending one size fits all.”
Permia Sensing’s operations in Sri Lanka have been instrumental in transforming local research and field experience into practical, exportable technology tailored for the realities of the Global South. The company manages approximately 10,000 hectares of coconut and oil palm plantations on the island, creating jobs in agronomy, field operations, drone and sensor deployment, data annotation, and machine learning. This initiative supports the development of a modern agricultural technology workforce locally.
Looking ahead, Permia Sensing plans to expand internationally, with growth targeted in India, West Asia, West Africa, and Southeast Asia. Two of the company’s co-founders are Sri Lankan, and its efforts in the region underscore the challenges faced by farming systems in the Global South, including climate volatility, water constraints, and fragile supply chains.
(Colombo/Jan16/2026)
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