Achievements of the Ag Innovation Showcase Community

BY AG SHOWCASE • AUGUST 27, 2017 • SPEAKERS, UPDATES

As we approach this year’s Ag Innovation Showcase, we at Larta are proud to launch regular postings that celebrate and acknowledge the achievements of our community.

Here are several community members who will be speaking at this year’s Ag Innovation Showcase that you won’t want to miss: Nicola Kerslake, Pete Nelson, and Vonnie Estes.

The Ag Innovation Showcase will take place in St. Louis, MO at the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center on September 11th-13th, 2017. Visit our website at www.AgShowcase.com

Nicola Kerslake, founder of Newbean Capital, Reno, Nevada and an Ag Innovation Showcase Advisory Committee member will be speaking on “Data and Machine Learning Inside the Bubble”.  Nicola and her colleagues at Newbean Capital focus on filling capital and technical gaps to accelerate the growth of indoor agriculture.  In late 2016, she co-founded an alternate finance business, Contain Inc., to improve access to capital for indoor growers, those farming in hydroponic, aquaponics, and aeroponic systems in warehouses, greenhouses, and containers.  Contain arranged their first lease of indoor agriculture equipment in May 2017. Read more

Pete Nelson, president and executive director of AgLaunch, Memphis Tennessee, will be moderating a disruptive dialogue (panel discussion) on “Soil Health and Input Management”.  Pete and his colleagues launched AgLaunch, as a vehicle to develop programs and investment deals to continue their development of a farmer-centric model for bringing agriculture solutions from innovation to full commercialization.  In Pete’s words: “We believe (that changing the) role for the farmer as a partner in innovation, not just a first customer will change the entire agricultural investment thesis.  (and).. bring forward solutions that more efficiently address real-world agricultural problems.”  Read more

Vonnie Estes, an ag biotech industry veteran, will be joining our closing keynote panel to “Showcase Highlights Trends to Watch”.  Vonnie has held leadership roles at big Ag companies along with startups and venture funds.  She was awarded the 2017 Rosalind Franklin Award for Leadership in Industrial Biotechnology.

As a member of the ag innovation community, if you have a recent achievement you would like to share through our Ag Innovation Showcase blog, we invite you to send them to ckinlaw@larta.org.