2024 RBC Innovation Award Winner Dr. Shari van de Pol Is Turning Cows into Code

By Khera Alexander

Many people think that dairy farming and app development seem like an unusual combination. For Dr. Shari van de Pol, a computer engineer, veterinarian, and founder of the award-winning agtech company CATTLEytics, blending these two fields was a no-brainer.

“When you start to design, and you start to make things that you like, you create something that nobody else can make,” she says. “That’s when some of the magic happens.”

Before creating an industry-disrupting platform, Shari initially studied computer engineering at McMaster University. After working at a small engineering startup, she landed at IBM and spent almost a decade working in software development.

Not feeling entirely fulfilled, Shari knew she wanted to make changes in her career. Interested in spending time doing things she felt connected to, her childhood passion for animals led her back to school to become a veterinarian.

“When I was younger, I was really interested in everything connected to animals and connected to nature,” she says. “Doing anything tied to agriculture, the problems are very human, and even when they’re animal problems, it is so interesting.”

In 2014, Shari created her first company, offering consulting services related to technology and veterinary medicine for clients like TELUS Agriculture. Her consultancy evaluated the challenges her clients faced and what tools and technology would be helpful in addressing them.

After consulting for seven years, Shari’s firsthand observations supporting clients in the field inspired her to build CATTLEytics.

During her dairy farm visits, she couldn’t help but notice inefficiencies in how operations were managed, especially when it came to understanding milk production patterns.

“I was going to dairies as a vet, but I still had my engineering mindset, and I was looking at their numbers,” she says. “There are a lot of factors, but it becomes really complicated to know if what you’re doing on the farm actually impacts how much milk those cows are making.”

After realizing that something as simple as feeding cows silage too early could cost a farmer $30,000 in lost milk production, she knew data could be the solution. Shari started data modelling that could predict milk production with impressive accuracy, helping farmers see how their decisions could lead to significant financial losses over a period of time. In addition to simplifying data and making it digestible for any dairy farmer, Shari also set out to build a task management system that helped streamline operations.

“A farmer could have a staff of 16 with no real tools out there for specifically dairy, using WhatsApp to communicate in their team,” she says. “It can be annoying to scroll through to figure out if something was done.”

Since launching in earnest in 2023, CATTLEytics has quickly transformed the agricultural industry. With features like creating a digital twin of the farm for easy tracking, streamlining team communication and scheduling, and using analytics and modelling to improve operations, environmental impact, and profitability, the platform already manages data for over 200,000 cows across North America.

Many users of CATTLEytics have seen a significant difference after using the platform. From understanding their daily methane outputs to identifying the areas of their businesses that can subtly lead to money loss, CATTLEytics is already making the lives of their customers much easier.

“In the analytics piece of it, some of our clients, within months of working with us, found millions of dollars in losses,” she says. “As a society, I think we have a duty to provide them with the best tooling possible.”

Despite working in a niche and often overlooked space, Shari and CATTLEytics quickly attracted national attention. One major moment of recognition was her win at the RBC Canadian Women Entrepreneur Awards in the Innovation category.

When reflecting on her win, Shari notes that it is much bigger than herself.

“By highlighting businesses like mine, it’s putting a spotlight on the people who work in it, and how hardworking dairy farmers are,” she says.

“That message has to get out there, and we’re part of that story now, and I’m honoured to be part of that story. Winning the RBC Canadian Women Entrepreneur Award was huge for our company, and it was a springboard for so many other great things.”

Post-win, CATTLEytics has been featured on Dragons’ Den, and Shari has received multiple accolades from agricultural innovation exhibits in both Canada and the U.S.

Amid the rapid growth her company is experiencing, Shari shares a few words of advice for others thinking of entrepreneurship or making a change in their careers.

“I worked as an engineer in a really typical job. I went from a developer to leading a team, but I could have just stayed there. It’s really hard to switch, but my life would not have been the way it is if I had just stayed down that path,” she says.

“For anybody who’s given years of their life to something that doesn’t really connect, changing lanes can be really good.”