Aleda Roth is the Burlington Industries Distinguished Professor of Supply Chain Management at Clemson University. Before joining Clemson, Aleda held the W.P. Carey Endowed Chaired Professorship in Supply Chain Management at Arizona State University’s W.P. Carey School of Business. While at the University of North CarolinaChapel Hill, she held the Mary Farley Lee Distinguished Professorship of Operations, Technology, and Innovation Management. Aleda is an internationally recognized empirical scholar and thought leader in manufacturing and service operations strategy.
Alex is the Program Director & Partner at IndieBio, where he invests and works with scientific entrepreneurs using biology to solve problems in human and planetary health. Notable food & agtech investments include Memphis Meats, Clara Foods, Endless West, Finless Foods, NotCo, Terramino, BeeFlow, and Geltor. Alex holds a PharmD and has a background across preventive medicine, global health, and startups. He’s passionate about transforming our health system’s approach to nutrition, mental, and behavioral health, as well using biology to create sustainable technology to benefit people and the planet
Amy Wu is Founder & Chief Content Director of From Farm to Incubators. She is also a veteran journalist with significant international reporting and teaching experience, having worked at Time magazine, the Rochester Democrat & Chronicle, for the USA Today Network; and has written for The New York Times, HuffPost and Wall Street Journal. She spent six years working in Hong Kong, widely reporting within the Asia-Pacific region including Shanghai and Singapore. She earned her master’s degree in journalism from Columbia University, and speaks fluent Mandarin Chinese.
Anastasia is an aeronautical engineer completing her PhD in autonomous drone navigation. She has experience ranging from projects with the NASA robots onboard International Space Station to managing 370 person team for UEFA. Anastasia is a 2017 Amelia Earhart Fellow recognised for her commitment to advancing the application of aerospace engineering. Most recently Anastasia has been named 2018 Women Creating Change by NSW/ACT (Australian Capital Territory and NSW) Young Achiever Award.
Andre has more than 10 years of international research experience in agricultural water management and irrigation engineering. He has an MSc in land and water resources management from the International Agronomic Mediterranean Institute of Bari (IAMB) and a PhD in irrigation engineering from the politecnico di Bari (Italy). At Cranfield University (UK), he worked on numerous projects related to agricultural water management and climate change impact analysis.
Andrew leads the Product Management team for Granular Business, and is responsible for developing and executing the product roadmap. Before joining Granular, Andrew founded and managed a specialty crop farm in Northern California. He deeply understands the challenges and opportunities that stem from managing and scaling a farm business, and brings that firsthand experience to the team as they develop software. Andrew holds a BA in Literature from UCLA, and an MBA from the University of California, Berkeley.
Anthony was raised in the Salinas Valley. His father, Floyd, founded Mission Packing Co. in 1972 which later became Misonero Vegetables. A year round grower, packer and shipper of fresh vegetables and organic salads, farming in CA and AZ. He began farming organically in 1990 and helped many local ranches transition from conventional to certified organic operations. He has worked in the agriculture chemical industry for the past 10 years, specifically providing solutions to sustainable farming operations. Most recently , he has joined the sustainable solutions business unit with Valent.
Baptiste Tellier is a Senior Vice President at Fall Line Capital, LLC. Fall Line is a private equity firm focused on investments in US farmland and AgTech. Prior to Fall Line, Baptiste managed the implementation of a best practices program across over 200 farmers for Nestle in France. Baptiste has direct agronomy experience on three continents and has an MS in Agronomy and a BS in Agricultural Engineering from AgroParisTech University.
Benjamin Doyle is the VP of Major Accounts at Senet, Inc. Senet is a LoRaWAN cloud-platform provider for the Internet of Things. In addition to Senet, Ben has over 20 years of high-tech experience in sales, marketing, operations and I.T. Outside of work, Ben is deeply committed to increasing mental health education and access for children in NH through his participation in the non-profit Chasing Jade Horizons. Ben has a B.A. in Government from Colby College and received his M.B.A. from Plymouth State University. You can find Ben on Twitter at @benjamincdoyle and LinkedIn http://www.linkedin.com/in/bdoyle
Bill is the "REAL" Captain Kirk, US Air Force Gulf War Veteran, CEO & Co-founder of Weather Trends International. He has a contagious passion for YEAR-AHEAD weather forecasting technology with year-ahead predictive sales analytics for over a 100 Fortune 500 clients and the Ag industry using a statistical 24 climate cycle approach. Bill has helped the company win 14 technology awards including 5th Most Promising Company in America on Forbes Magazine’s list & was recently ranked #17 on Owler’s list of 167,000 independently ranked CEOs.
Brian Magnusson is the Vice President of Technology & Innovation at Lindsay Corporation. In this role, Brian is responsible for Lindsay’s ag technology portfolio, including the FieldNET® brand of remote irrigation management solutions, as well as, Lindsay’s portfolio of IIoT (Industrial Internet of Things) solutions, including the Elecsys brand of remote monitoring and control solutions for the oil and gas, rail, and industrial lighting markets. Brian joined Lindsay in 2015 from CNH Industrial, where he most recently served as the Global Director of Portfolio Management. Brian previously spent several years at Bain & Company, a leading global management consulting firm.
Carley is a green business strategist and consultant. She specializes in a holistic approach to leadership that maximizes her clients’ creativity, cognitive function, and enhanced team dynamics thereby achieving their planet-positive impact and success. Her background includes a PhD in Chemistry from UC Santa Cruz, and postdoctoral studies in Physics which led to the development of the plant-optimized greenhouse solar power company Soliculture. In her role as Director of Business Development, she met with hundreds of farmers, coordinated commercial greenhouse plant trials, and discovered her passion for regenerative agriculture.
Chris Chimenti is an Urban Farming and Customer Success professional who for the last decade has worked as a volunteer co-manager of Alemany Farm, San Francisco’s largest urban farm, which produces over 24,000 pounds of organic fruits and vegetables annually. As a Customer Success professional he has over a decade of experience working for early stage tech start-ups and Google, with a focus on leadership and account management in the mobile, advertising and marketing industries. He can be contacted at christopher.chimenti@gmail.com or on Linkedin.
Chris MacDonald develops precision agricultural methods for organic producers and regulated cannabis cultivators to increase product quality and margins in controlled environment settings using assay-balanced probiotic organic soil. A former Environmental Scientist and regulatory rule writer for the United States Environmental Protection Agency, his background includes a joint degree in Law and Environmental Policy from Vermont Law School. Chris is certified in Soil Food Web microscopy, compost and compost tea development, having studied under soil microbiologist Dr. Elaine Ingham.
The name Clark T. Bell has become synonymous with nanotechnology in agriculture. In 2014, Clark co-founded Aqua-Yield® - a liquid fertilizer company using patented nanotechnology delivery systems. As Aqua-Yield's Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Bell oversees the day-to-day management, sales & distribution and product development. The company has won numerous awards for its growth, research and positive impact on the environment. Mr. Bell is the Past-President of the Utah Nursery and Landscape Association.
Danny has been working in Specialty Crop Farming for over 10 years. Two years ago Danny joined the Bowles Farming Company Team as the Vice President of Technology. Danny is responsible for researching and integrating technologies that have benefit to the Farm. He focuses much of his attention on how technology is going to change how decisions are made and how the processes behind those decisions are executed. Cultivating crops is what Danny focused on in the early part of his career, but today he is also very focused on cultivating the success of those around him.
David is the government relations and member services representative for Cooperative Network’s dairy, mutual insurance, and telecommunications cooperatives. After graduating from the University of Wisconsin–Platteville with a degree in agricultural economics, he became vice president and herdsman for Wardland Inc. David has served in leadership roles with the Jefferson County Farm Bureau, Wisconsin Milk Marketing Board, and Jefferson County Farmco Cooperative.
Douglas is a recognized leader in the design of disruptive technology innovation strategies and solutions. Doug is passionate about applying emerging technologies to create “societal innovation” solutions with broad commercial application, bringing visionary thinking to actionable strategy. As an innovation evangelist and entrepreneur, he constantly scans the environment, uncovering and interpreting trends for new technology applications, and opportunities to create societal innovation. He is recognized for his pioneering research on digital technologies, RFID, M2M, and Internet of Things.
Felroy Dsouza is an Entrepreneur, Mentor, Speaker, Author, Philanthropist’s and Advocate of environmental sustenance having a Bachelor’s degree in Mechanical Engineering and Master’s Degrees in Business Management, Supply Chain Management, Engineering Design and Project Management. Felroy specializes in Corporate Entrepreneurship, New Business Ventures and Startups, Financial Management, Frugal Innovation and Value Investment for not for profit organizations. Felroy’s professional experience is varied and diverse which includes pharmaceutical, heavy Engineering companies, Agritech and FMCG companies.
Gabriela Burian is the Global Director for Sustainable Agriculture at Bayer US - Crop Science. She represents Bayer as the Liaison Delegate with the World Business Council for Sustainable Development (WBCSD). She serves as strategic advisor for the WBCSD food and agriculture initiative in the Americas and is co-founder and co-chair of Climate Smart Agriculture program. Gabriela is also responsible for overseeing Bayer’s global sustainable agriculture strategies with key environmental non-profit organizations such as The Nature Conservancy (TNC) and Conservation International (CI).
Henry is a sustainability strategist focused on urban agriculture, water issues, and emerging technologies. He is Founder of the popular blog Agritecture.com and a Co-Founder of the Association for Vertical Farming (AVF). Three years ago, Henry launched his company Agritecture Consulting (formerly Blue Planet Consulting), a boutique global urban agriculture advising firm where he helps entrepreneurs with vertical farming feasibility studies, recruiting, and systems design. Henry was awarded top 40 under 40 in food policy by the NYC Food Policy Center and top 10 influencers by Produce Grower Magazine in 2017.
Ian has over 30 years of experience in international finance and operations covering the consumer products, healthcare IT and pharmaceutical industries. Throughout his career, Ian has developed broad expertise in driving and supporting business growth in emerging international markets and a proven track record of adding value to growing organizations through improved systems, operational efficiencies, restructuring and acquisitions. Having joined Delicato Vineyards 6 years ago, Ian is enjoying the challenges of helping the Company mange through the rapid growth that has been achieved and all of the challenges that it brings.
JH Ag Consulting has developed relationships with government agencies, public utilities and certification organizations to improve their capability to provide valuable incentives and grants growers can use to finance efficiency projects. JH Ag Consulting is available to help any member of the ag community looking to have a better understanding of their irrigation system performance and those who are looking to reduce farming costs. Owner, Jacob Hernandez, is a graduate of Cal Poly, San Luis Obispo, holds an active license as a Certified Crop Advisor and is a USDA/NRCS Technical Service Provider and member of PG&E’s TradePro Alliance
Jamie has been at a number of biotech startups over the last decade, as well as large companies working closely with startups. He co-founded Boost Biomes to continue his efforts to bring together novel technologies and amazing people to solve big problems - in this case, food security and sustainability. He previously founded Pareto Biotechnologies, a synthetic biology company, to enable bioproduction of an undervalued class of chemicals. He secured initial funding to launch the company and closed the company’s proof of concept partnership. Prior to Pareto, Jamie joined Total, the French energy company, to commercialize alternative energies.
Jeff Nunes has been studying and practicing alternative farming techniques for over 25 years. Not only is he known for being a specialist in crops that yield oil, as well as, pulp, herd, fiber, and seed for industrial and agricultural purposes. He also known for advocating the importance of biotechnology and bio intelligence. Using alternative farming techniques, Jeff and a team of companies work together, to use advanced technology to accumulate data needed to increase the beneficial bacteria and fungi to elevate the absorption of Elements and Minerals that would boost production in Orchards and field crops.
Jeff Dahlberg is the Director of the University of California, Agricultural and Natural Resources, Kearney Agricultural Research and Extension (KARE) Center and is an international expert on sorghum germplasm and research. He has worked and published in the fields of renewable fuels, sorghum genetics and germplasm, and nutrition. Dr. Dahlberg is a founding member and Past-President of the Whole Grains Council. His current position entails leadership and direction of the largest Research Extension Center in the UC-ANR system, with oversight of 330 acres of research land that hosts over 75 research projects on 49 different crops.
Jeremy Groeteke is the U.S. Digital Ag Lead at Corteva Agrisciences the Agricultural Division of DowDuPont. Jeremy leads U.S. Pioneer and Crop protection digital projects that are agronomy and product-oriented and link directly to differentiating these brands. Jeremy serves as the U.S. connect point to all stakeholders in the Digital Ag space – including Predictive Ag (R&D), Data Science and Informatics (DSI), Granular, Global Commercial Effectiveness, Core IT, and U.S. Marcomm. Jeremy joined Pioneer in 2007, has held various roles in research, agronomy, and sales working on key initiatives including Optimum AQUAmax, Pioneer GrowingPoint Agronomy, DuPont Drought Research Council, Sustainability initiatives, and Digital Strategy.
Jim is responsible for establishing a new grow division within Sananbio U.S. for plant-made pharmaceuticals (the isolation of key proteins for use in antibiotics and vaccines). He also engages with government agriculture entities (USDA) and credible horticulture universities on behalf of Sananbio U.S. North American facilities and grow operations. Jim was the former General Manager of the landmark grow operation, Urban Produce, a commercial indoor vertical farm located in Irvine, CA. Jim was involved in all areas of production, sales and operations since company inception in 2014. Jim has hosted several international conferences and written extensively on the subject of indoor vertical farming for the online magazine, Urban Ag News.
Jon Baer is Managing Partner of Threshold Ventures and a recovering venture capitalist who loves working with companies around the world. He was a general partner at a Sand Hill Road venture fund and the founder and CEO of two venture backed companies. He now spends his time teaching, mentoring, and advising early-stage companies at leading accelerators and universities as well as serving on several boards. Jon is expert at training startups, mentors and early stage investors around the world in Silicon Valley best practices. He believes that startups require tough love; and need to focus on money, metrics, and milestones. Jon teaches startup CEOs to say less, because less is more. Jon’s LinkedIn profile is www.linkedin.com/in/jonbaersiliconvalley and can be reached at jbaer@thresholdventures.com.
Dr. Luck is an Associate Professor and Extension Specialist for Precision Agriculture. His responsibilities include developing extension and research programs regarding the application of precision agriculture technologies in crop production as well as teaching in this area. His current research is focused on demonstrating agricultural data management strategies and technology applications for improving crop production efficiency. He works with interdisciplinary teams to evaluate technologies including crop canopy sensors for nitrogen application, advanced pesticide application systems, multi-hybrid planters, and grain harvest systems.
Dr. Kruse is the CTO for PlantResponse Biotech, a company focused on providing products and solutions that enhance plant innate immunity, abiotic stress tolerance and plant nutrient use efficiency. John is an agronomist by academic training, earning his doctorate from the University of Georgia in soil fertility and fertilizers. He served as Assistant Professor for the LSU AgCenter as a crop specialist, and then joined Koch Agronomic Services, serving as a Research Agronomist in nitrogen use efficiency and the biologicals sector. John joined PlantResponse just over a year ago, with responsibilities that include coordinating the company’s R&D efforts, field trial programing, intellectual property strategies, and strategic planning.
John is a Salinas, California native. He raised market swine for both his local 4-H and FFA chapters from 2000-09. In 2008, his friends started their own organic farms, his first direct experience in vegetable cultivation. He was exposed to every stage of the process, from land preparation to post-harvest. He rediscovered his passion for farming in 2013, starting classes at Hartnell College in their Agricultural Production program, starting his own farm, and ultimately transferring to Cal Poly Pomona. He is an aspiring soil chemist, hoping to conduct research in increasing humic content in various soils.
Justin co-founded AgriWebb from a five generation family history of Australian beef and sheep farming. He now is responsible for international expansion of AgriWebb's farm management software. A serial entrepreneur, Justin previously founded 3 investment management companies with successful exits to Macquarie & Westpac Banks. Justin has also served as Division Head and Director for BlackRock and a Senior Portfolio Manager for Macquarie. Justin earned an honours degree in Economics from Harvard University and an MBA from Oxford University where he was the OBA Scholar.
iKarl is CEO and co-founder of meteoblue, with previous 25 years of experience in international agri-business, as project and unit leader in development, product management, marketing, business development and information services. Karl has worked for GTZ, DED, Ciba, Novartis and Syngenta. He has lived and worked in Germany, Switzerland, United States, Brasil, Thailand, and China, and other places. Karl holds a PhD in agronomy from the University of Göttingen. In addition, he teaches courses on International Business Strategy, Marketing and Innovation Management at the University of Cooperative Education Baden-Württemberg, Germany.
Karl Kerksiek is an Associate in Finistere’s Silicon Valley office where he leads the firm’s focus on agricultural applications of new finance and supply chain technologies. His investment interests include new technologies in lending, credit evaluation, derivatives, insurance, trading, online markets, crowd-sourcing, traceability, and blockchain. Prior to Finistere, Karl was a Principal at the Mitchell Madison Group where he led teams in the US and Asia. He brings a decade of management consulting experience using data science to advise C-suite executives on strategic and operational challenges in consumer & enterprise software, financial services, healthcare, manufacturing, and information technology.
Driven by a passionate belief in the power of science and the desire to create meaningful change in the world, Karsten Temme, Ph.D., has founded two companies focused on increasing farmer productivity. As Pivot Bio CEO and co-founder, Dr. Temme leads a team that is unlocking new ways to provide nitrogen and other key nutrients for cereal crops. Pivot Bio offers an alternative to chemical-based fertilizers in the form of naturally occurring, nitrogen-producing microbes. This biological product will help farmers sustainably fertilize their crops while reducing the global impact of synthetic fertilizer pollution. Dr. Temme founded Xwires in 2002, a company that provided internet access to farmers and enabled them to use digital agriculture resources to enhance their operations.
Kasey is a third generation partner at Bryant Agricultural Enterprise. Her main responsibilities are to develop and review all financials for the operation, manage insurance coverage, input purchasing, and all land partner, dealer, and lender relations. She also oversees all information technology, research plots, and data management across the farm. Bryant Ag is a third generation farm located in South West Ohio. Their annual commodities include corn, soybeans, and soft red winter wheat. Kasey is the co-lead Ohio farmer for the Farmers Feeding the World organization. In addition to the farm, Kasey is a partner in Optimal Outdoor Solutions, LLC.
Kevin has experience in entrepreneurship and commercialisation of new technologies. Kevin designed and executed development projects for US Defence Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA), the National Renewable Energy Lab, the US Department of Energy, and Private Industry, including Ford Motors. While in business school, Kevin co-founded an award winning hardware startup, led it through seed funding before starting AgriWebb. Kevin is a winner of numerous entrepreneurship awards including: National Startup of the Year, IEEE President’s Change the World Foundation Prize, The Skoll Venture Award and The GSVC Intel Innovation Prize.
Mark Dufau is currently the Director of Business Development for AeroVironment. He has been part of three generations of California farmers in Ventura County and is now focusing his efforts on integrating drones into precision agriculture. Prior to joining AeroVironment, Mark spent eight years as a commodities and spice trader before starting two companies in the spice and wine industry over the past fourteen years. Mark graduated with an B.S. In Agricultural and Managerial Economics from the University of California, Davis and has spent his entire career in the agricultural industry.
Mark Young leads the development of a unified technical vision, architecture, and roadmap to help The Climate Corporation deliver an industry-leading digital agriculture platform. Mark previously served as a Director of Mobile Product Excellence at Yahoo, the Chief Technology Officer of Mobile Technology at Zynga, and the Founder and Chief Technology Officer at HipLogic. With more than 20 years of experience in Silicon Valley, and having grown up on a New Jersey farm, Mark offers a unique and balanced perspective on digital agriculture.
Matt cultivates relationships with corporate partners that catalyze growth for Elemental Excelerator’s startups through project deployments, investments, and acquisitions. He also helps the pipeline team attract and select the highest potential startups. Prior to Elemental Excelerator, Matt worked in finance for Advanced Microgrid Solutions (AMS) where he helped the pioneering energy storage company raise $200M in project finance and $34M in corporate equity. Before AMS, he worked in corporate venture capital for Cummins. He also has finance and business development experience with Sunrun and an early stage solar water heating startup
Matthew has 20 years of industry experience focused in grain origination, operations, merchandising and leadership. A graduate of Iowa State University and currently the Sr. VP of Grain for Central Valley Ag Cooperative.
Matt is the technical founder and now Chief Strategy Officer at Agworld. Combining 20+ years experience in the computer & data science industry with 10 years in the Ag industry as well as senior leadership roles, Matt loves to bring the technical, business and industry challenges together and drive creative change. Agworld is now the most used collaborative farm management system in the world and we are passionate about using technology to vastly improve the profitability, scalability, risk and sustainability of growers and their service providers all around the world.
Miranda is a farmer and beekeeper and leads the agriculture program at Sweet Farm Foundation. She is a graduate of the ecological horticulture apprenticeship at the Center for Agroecology at UC Santa Cruz. Following this program, she founded and operated Fat Cabbage Farm, a certified-organic mixed vegetable, strawberry and flower farm in Pescadero, CA. Before pursuing a career in agriculture, Miranda served with the US Peace Corps in Kenya and Malawi as an English teacher and community-based development volunteer.
Nathan grew up on a small farm in central North Dakota. Beyond farming himself, he also grew up around the company and system his father Lanny Faleide created in 1994 and its product called Satshot, which manages, distributes, and analyzes a multitude of different types of imagery products for the agriculture industry. Beyond Nathan’s imagery and farming background, he also worked extensively in the crop insurance industry for 5 years specializing in bringing precision agricultural data and management practices into the crop risk sector. He continues to run and manage the Satshot product along with working with crop insurance and others in the precision agricultural sector of agriculture production.
Paul is VP of Global Marketing, Verdesian Life Sciences. He came to Verdesian from Bayer CropScience, where he was a Channel Marketing Manager. In that role, he was responsible for the development of the U.S. channel strategy, resulting in dramatic improvement in channel partner perception of Bayer. Before that, Beck spent five years at John Deere Water in San Marcos, CA, first as a Strategic Marketing Manager and then as North American Marketing Manager. In addition, he was a Fulbright Scholar in Germany, where he researched the impact of the Euro conversion on international trade.
Peter is responsible for commercial issues, business development and sales. His prime objectives are to successfully commercialise N-Fix and achieve Azotic’s corporate milestones. Peter has extensive experience in pioneering new products into new markets and in working with major companies on a global basis at board level. He has a strategic focus on new technologies for sustainable agriculture. He is highly experienced in pioneering products into new markets. Peter Blezard is a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts. He is a 20 year member of the IoD.
Rice is the Director, Application Technology for AMVAC and he directs the SIMPAS and ULTIMUS development teams. By utilizing prescriptions to precisely apply fungicides, insecticides, micronutrients and nematicides, only to geo-specific areas of need, SIMPAS will enable maximum agronomic performance with minimum environmental exposure. ULTIMUS makes it simple and easy for farmers to downstream purchasers of SIMPAS-treated crops, with auto-created electronic as-applied records that are independent of farmer inputs to record the date, rate, time, and location of products applied to a field where food traceability is important.
Dr. Wyse is a Managing Partner at Spruce Capital Partners, a venture management company. Previously, he was President and COO of Biogreentech at Burrill & Company. He joined Burrill in 1998 and headed the development of the agriculture, food, nutraceuticals, and industrial biotech venture activities. He left Burrill in 2013 and co-founded Spruce Capital Partners with $320 million under management. Dr. Wyse has earned global recognition as one of the top 50 most influential people in the Bioeconomy. He and his team at Spruce Capital Partners are known as some of the most active investors, with deep domain expertise in Biogreentech and Synthetic Biology.
For the past 10 years Roland has been focused on Real Asset investing in Agriculture, Water, Waste and renewable energy. He has applied 25 years of venture and operating expertise in the services and technology sectors, to leveraging investment models which deliver exceptional returns by enhancing and sustainability managing real assets. He is passionate about investing in these fundamental resources that produces significant and sustainable results. Roland helped build out the Agriculture and Water investment teams. And most recently, Ultra Capital, which is solving the problem how to profitably scale investments in small and mid-size infrastructure and real asset projects that accelerate fundamental resource sustainability in agriculture, energy, water and waste.
Sarah was born and raised in the Central Valley of California. She is a graduate of California State University, Stanislaus where she received her Bachelor’s degree in Agriculture- Agricultural Economics. She takes part in multiple leadership rolls including the California Women for Agriculture (CWA). Today CWA’s membership is as diverse as the industry they represent; bankers, lawyers, accountants, marketing professionals, consumers, AND farmers and ranchers. CWA is the most active, all volunteer agricultural organization in the state, and members are actively engaged in public relations, education, and legislative advocacy on behalf of agriculture.
Sarah Light is an Agronomy Advisor with University of California Cooperative Extension. Based in Yuba City, CA, her research and education program focuses on meeting the on-farm needs of field crop growers while protecting our valuable natural resources. Sarah has a dual M.S. in Soil Science and Plant Pathology from Oregon State University and is fluent in Spanish.
Steve Ela is a partner and manages Ela Family Farms and Silver Spruce Orchards - a one-hundred acre, organic, family fruit farm in Hotchkiss, Colorado. He is a fourth generation grower – his family has operated orchards in western Colorado for over 100 years. His family markets fruit via farmers markets, wholesale to specialty food stores, Whole Foods Markets, CSA’s, and processed products. Steve has a Masters in Soil Science from the University of Minnesota, and also serves on the US National Organic Standards Board.
Steve is a strategic executive with background in marketing, data and analytics and broad industry background. His expertise and knowledge ranging from venture-backed enterprises to Fortune 500 companies is valuable when working with clients to develop data solutions that will help achieve their strategic goals. He currently leads Farm Market iD in bringing data-driven marketing and strategic decision making to the agriculture industry. He brings a unique perspective to database marketing in agriculture due to his broad experience in delivering consumer database marketing solutions across many industries.
Todd Berg is the Director of Product Management and Customer Success at the HarvestMark Division of Trimble, Inc. Todd spends his days working with agriculture and food supply chain customers to apply Trimble technologies and products to benefit their businesses and also identifying new opportunities for technology to revolutionize agriculture and the food supply chain. Todd is an expert in traceability and supply chain quality solutions from the field all the way to the end consumer. He is a volunteer on the PMA Science & Technology committee and is helping to drive the development of Blockchain solutions and standards for the fresh food supply chain.
Dr. Venkat Maroju is CEO SourceTrace Systems - a company that has become a global leader in providing software solutions to agriculture and allied sectors. The use of these technological solutions has made the agriculture value chain sustainable, transparent and equitable - thus empowering more than 600K smallholder farmers in developing countries. Venkat had been invited to speak at international conferences such as UN Forum for Business & Human Rights, World Bank, USAID, Global Forum for Innovations in Agriculture (GFIA), ICT4D, TiE StartupCon, Sustainatopia, Agriculture Leadership Summit, Development Dialogue and he also spoke at universities such as MIT & Harvard.
Vincent traces his farming roots back to his grandfather, who first moved to Kauai from Japan to work the sugarcane fields. Born in Honolulu and raised in Asia, Vincent has worked for more than 15 years as an entrepreneur, running three startups. He holds a master’s degree in Global Management from Thunderbird School of Global Management, has studied at Beijing Foreign Studies University, and earned his bachelor’s degree in Environmental Science from Oregon State University. Vincent was named the 2016 Clean Tech/Ag Entrepreneur by the Hawaii Venture Capital Association and a 2016 finalist in the Pacific Business News Business Leadership Awards. He was also named to the Pacific Business News 2016 40 Under 40 cohort, which recognizes outstanding young business professionals in Hawaii.
Value chain & networks analyses and value chain & networks development expert and professor. Active as value chain & networks development coach. Woody stimulates partners to create and develop new value chain concepts and innovative regional cluster development programs. He is able to use a variety of tools and models to structure the awareness, analysing and development steps of value chains & networks. Over the last 27 years Woody developed a broad base of value chain competences and network of expert in the academic, governmental and business world. His experiences are based on more than 200 value chain projects and large value chain development programs in a national and international setting.
Dr. Pan served in various leadership positions at several professional organizations, including the Trustee of Foundation Board, American Society of Biological and Agricultural Engineers; President of Chinese American Food Society; Vice President of Asian Association for Agricultural Engineering; Member of International Research Advisory Panel, King Mongkut's University of Technology Thonburi of Thailand; President of Association of Overseas Chinese Agricultural, Biological and Food Engineers; Vice Chairman of Editorial Board of International Journal of Agricultural and Biological Engineering.
More to be released closer to the workshop.