Bob is a former Intel Automation Design Engineer revolutionizing how semiconductor manufacturing is performed in “lights out” manufacturing.  Bob was also influential in the creation and production of television shows such as BattleBots and RobotWars through his production company, BotBash.  Later, Bob created 4FX Design working with the USFIRST competition to create technology for the largest STEM education robot competitions in the world.  Recently, Bob has been working with the farming community to develop automation.

Harvest CROO Robotics is a highly collaborative enterprise that was founded by strawberry grower, Gary Wishnatzki, and robotic engineer, Robert Pitzer.  It has brought together growers, investors, and suppliers to achieve their initial goal of development of an autonomous robotic strawberry picker.   Nearly $1 billion is spent annually, in the U.S. to harvest strawberries.  That is the initial target market.  The company is currently completing their Alpha unit.  Harvest CROO’s business model is Robotics as a Service (RaaS) and their financial model is founded on saving growers money.  Harvest CROO Robotics expects to be a leader in agricultural robotics.

Tony Koselka, a co-founder of Vision Robotics Corporation is an award-winning design engineer. He earned two degrees in mechanical engineering from MIT and is a professional engineer. He successfully co-founded and sold his first start-up, CyberGear. He has designed or managed the design of all the mechanical systems including those on the VR Lettuce Thinner and grapevine pruner.

Vision Robotics was formed in 1999 with the goal of developing autonomous robotic solutions based on machine vision. Coupling mature vision algorithms with the output of additional sensors provides a robust base and cost effective approach to robotics. The company entered the agricultural market in 2004. It released its VR Lettuce Thinner in 2012 that collectively have thinned well over 100,000 acres. The company has recently completed weeders based on the thinner technology. The technology enables robots to intelligently and accurately perform myriad tasks including thinning plants and pruning grapevines. Vision Robotics’ experience and creativity make it an excellent partner for companies looking for assistance in developing robots.

Israel Alguindigue is Senior VP, Industrial Analytics, at Uptake where he focuses on implementing analytics programs that improve asset performance, operation and safety for customers.

Israel attended the University of Tennessee where he earned a doctoral degree in engineering sciences with a focus on monitoring and diagnostics (M&D) of complex systems. He has published 100+ articles on M&D, safety, IoT and automation.

 Israel has held past roles at Emerson Electric and GE Transportation.

Uptake is the actionable insights platform, delivering products that produce outcomes to make industry more reliable, productive, safe and secure. Leveraging insights from global customers across eight verticals, including smart cities, energy, rail, agriculture, aviation and more, Uptake’s products apply cross-industry data science to produce high-value, measurable outcomes. Uptake has been recognized as a “Technology Pioneer” by the World Economic Forum and was recently listed in the top 5 of CNBC’s Disruptor 50, an exclusive ranking of private companies transforming the economy.

John T. Heaston is known as “The Guy @ Aquamart,” part of the Nebraska Water Balance Alliance. With a background in applied anthropology, Heaston focuses on environmental, economic, and agricultural issues as they relate to river basin development and watershed management.

He is currently working on numerous projects related to efficient water use on the farm, including multi-scale conservation planning and evaluation, performance-based irrigation conservation for watershed recovery, value-added eco-marketing as a conservation strategy, and the promotion of local leadership development in conservation practice in Nebraska.

Heaston, who also serves as an independent consultant doing business as Heaston Consulting, LLC, is a 1993 graduate of the University of Nebraska at Lincoln anthropology department.  He attended the University of Kentucky and studied applied anthropology.  He is a native of Elm Creek, Nebraska.

The Nebraska Water Balance Alliance (NEWBA) is a non-profit grassroots organization dedicated to supporting the comprehensive and sustainable management of Nebraska’s water resources for its citizens, now and in the future.  In support of that vision, NEWBA is working with ‘on the ground’ tools to target effective water conservation and management in agriculture across Nebraska with its Aquamart Program.

Sakuma did his undergraduate work in mechanical engineering, and started his career in car design in Brazil. While working in Japan he continued his education with a focus on agriculture engineering, in particular to develop better solutions to determine soil fertility. Following graduation from Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology in 2008, Sakuma returned to Brazil to work for equipment manufacturer Máquinas Agrícolas Jacto S/A on innovative solutions for soil and crop fertilization. In 2016 he became a Project Leader at Brazil’s Center of Innovation in Agribusiness (CIAg), where people are working on new solutions for tropical farming.

The last investiment of the Jacto Group is the CIAg (Center of Innovation in Agribusiness). CIAg is supported by Jacto shareholders and Jacto Foundation.

CIAg’s mission is to offer collaborative and integrated solutions for tropical agribusiness, supporting the creation of value and innovation.

Dan is co-founder and CEO of Abundant Robotics, who are driving major leaps in productivity with robots in agriculture.  After growing up in Louisiana and Texas, Dan was drawn to Silicon Valley where he discovered a love of creating and launching new products, starting as an Intel product manager.  Dan soon gravitated to startups and has helped launch and grow successful companies in a variety of domains including semiconductors, enterprise software, mobile hardware, and robotics.  Abundant is the third robotics company Dan has helped launch.  He’s still on a mission to help build the next great technology company.

Dan played varsity football and earned a bachelor’s degree concentrating in Computer Science from Harvard and an MBA from Stanford where he was an Arjay Miller Scholar.  Dan is passionate about sports and an advocate for youth athletics.

Abundant Robotics is on a mission to deliver robotic solutions for the hardest jobs in agriculture.  We are currently developing our first product, a robotic apple harvester.

Allan is a third generation agriculturist from California, working in the crop inputs and services business for over 30 years. He began working for the J.R. Simplot Company in 2002, managing the California region of Simplot Grower Solutions. In 2012, he became the Director of Technology, leading and directing Simplot SmartFarm®, Simplot’s precision agriculture platform. Simplot has provided precision services for over 20 years, harnessing data-driven technologies to help growers maximize farm productivity.

The J. R. Simplot Company, a privately held agribusiness firm headquartered in Boise, Idaho, has an integrated portfolio that includes phosphate mining, fertilizer manufacturing, farming, ranching and cattle production, food processing, food brands, and other enterprises related to agriculture. Simplot’s major operations are located in the U.S., Canada, Mexico, Australia, and China, with products marketed in more than 40 countries worldwide. The company supports 4R Nutrient Stewardship – using the right source of fertilizer at the right rate at the right time and in the right place. This is a cornerstone to Simplot’s mission of Bringing Earth’s Resources to Life. For more information, visit www.simplot.com.

In over 15 years of his career, Matej Štefančič has been involved in IT solutions related to environment and food safety. He is CEO and co-founder of Efos, producer of Trapview automated pest monitoring and forecasting platform. Matej strongly believes that properly applied information technology can significantly improve decision making and consequently enable more sustainable high-quality food production.

Trapview is flagship platform of a Slovenian company Efos specialized in environment and food safety IT solutions. Trapview is the most diverse (30+ different insect species) and widespread (40+ countries) automated pest monitoring and forecasting platform in the world. It is suitable for different crop protection strategies and used across various industries. A unique combination of automatically collected pest related data, artificial intelligence image processing and predictive analytics allows clients to plan and optimize field activities in order to maximize high-quality yields with minimal costs.

Ranveer Chandra is leading an Incubation on IoT Applications at Microsoft Research. His research has shipped as part of multiple Microsoft products, including VirtualWiFi & low power Wi-Fi in Windows since 2009, Energy Profiler in Visual Studio, and the Wireless Controller Protocol for XBOX One.  Ranveer is leading the FarmBeats, battery research, and TV white space projects at Microsoft Research. He has published over 90 research papers, and filed over 100 patents, of which more than 80 have been granted by the USPTO. A winner of many prestigious technology and research awards, including, the MIT Technology Review’s Top Innovators Under 35, Ranveer holds an undergraduate degree in Computer Science from IIT Kharagpur, India and a PhD from Cornell University.

Microsoft Corporation, founded in 1975, is the leading platform and productivity company, supporting a range of software products, services and devices, focused on empowering every person and every organization on the planet to achieve more.

Tom has 55 years working in tree fruit growing, storing, packing and shipping apples, pears and cherries. He has 20 years as production consultant and quality assurance manager and 17 years working for Washington Tree Fruit Research Commission in plant material evaluation and as a resource between the academic community and the tree fruit industry. Tom has had many experiences in examining new technologies and the interface of the production systems of tree fruit from around the world.

North American Plants is a tissue culture based propagation company established in 1995. It is a part of a group nursery companies based in Barcelona, Spain. Agromillora has 12 operating entities around the world most with a tissue culture propagation component. Agromillora supports super high density plantings of apples, pears, cherries, pistachios, olives, almonds, stone fruits, and hazlenuts plus several berries including blueberries, raspberries and blackberries.  Agromillora as a group sells 75 million plants annually. North American plants sells about 15 million plants per year. Tissue culture allows shorter propagation cycles with multiple start times to initiate propagation. Multiple generations of many crops are possible every year. Planting crops with leaves spring summer and fall increases the flexibility of establishing new plantings.