Professor Kripa Varanasi Receives UN WIPO Global Award
The United Nations World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Global Award was given in recognition of Varanasi's company’s agrochemical spraying patent portfolio
Professor Kripa Varanasi, Maher A. Elmasri Professor of Mechanical Engineering, has received the United Nations World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Global Award for his start-up AgZen, which he founded with his former PhD student Vishnu Jayaprakash SM '19, PhD '22. The award recognizes the company’s efficient agrochemical spraying patent portfolio.
"This journey started for me back in 2009, when I was giving a talk at USDA and learned just how inefficient agricultural spraying really was — a problem that's persisted for nearly a century,” Varanasi explains. He found he was curious to understand why drops are not retained by leaves even when they are loaded with surfactants. Over a decade of study in his labs at MIT, his team identified solutions that worked in pilot studies in farms.
"Globally, $2-3 trillion of crop value is protected by more than 75 billion dollars in pesticide spend every year, and still 20 to 40 percent of the yield is lost to pests. More than a billion drops are sprayed per acre, but until now, no one truly knew where those droplets end up.”
AgZen’s flagship product, RealCoverage, removes that century-old blindfold from agricultural spraying. "By combining advances in interfacial science, fluid dynamics, physics-informed AI, computer vision, and real-time sensing, we have created a new class of Physical AI for agriculture,” he says. "For the first time, spraying can be quantified not simply in gallons per acre, but in droplets per leaf and micro-ounces per square millimeter of leaf."
RealCoverage is now deployed on more than a million acres, a 15-fold increase in a single season, creating value across the entire agriculture industry from chemical companies to OEMs to growers. Users saw 30 to 50 percent chemical savings alongside increased yields. For reference, 6 percent savings is about a $1B savings for farmers.
"We are making every drop count to drive measurable yield gains while lowering costs for farmers without compromising pest control. Conditions in the field change constantly, and RealCoverage closes the loop on spraying, removing nearly a century of guesswork. It gives us intelligence on every droplet on every leaf, and the ability to control that outcome — which is transformative for crop protection.”
The WIPO Global Awards, led by the United Nations agency for Innovation and Creativity, honor outstanding small and medium-sized enterprises (SMEs) and startups that strategically use intellectual property (IP) to scale their businesses and create a positive societal impact. Jayaprakash, now CEO of AgZen, received a "special mention" for Best Youth Entrepreneur 2026.
