Omar Gomez is the Washington lead at Hectre, the award-winning fruit tech start-up delivering data visibility via computer vision AI early fruit sizing solutions, and digital orchard management apps.

Working closely with fruit industry executives, private equity firms and family-owned fruit businesses, and backed by a degree in Political Economics, Omar represents the new generation of fruit tech leaders assisting industry to adopt technologies that optimize labor and yield, whilst minimizing wastage.

A childhood spent surrounded by the vast fruit farms of the Yakima Valley led to experience in all facets of fruit production and post harvest processes, providing an extensive understanding of the complexities of agriculture.

Having recently welcomed daughter Avery into the world, Omar has added another credential to his resume – that of exhausted and awe-struck first time father!

Hectre were recently named double award winners in the global AgTech Breakthrough Awards and will offer a Series A round later this year.

Nitin is a tech enthusiast with 17 years of experience in digital strategy and innovation as well as execution and management of strategic initiatives for clients across ag tech, finance, supply chain, and healthcare. Using his in-depth expertise in human-centered design and product innovation, he has helped organizations navigate their path from a sticky note all the way through development. He shares a passion for emerging technologies and trends and is relentless in his pursuit to align business outcomes to technology solutions for his stakeholders.

AEM Senior Vice President of Agriculture Services & Forestry Curt Blades joined the Association of Equipment Manufacturers (AEM) in 2017, having worked in agriculture industry in marketing, business development, and leadership roles for the previous twenty years.

As Senior Vice President of Agriculture Services & Forestry, Blades is responsible for the strategic direction of agriculture programs and services for AEM members. In addition, he oversees the organization’s Safety & Product Leadership group—including leading AEM’s sustainability efforts. In these roles, he serves as primary liaison with ag-specific industry organizations, customer groups, and government agencies worldwide.

Blades actively serves on boards of directors for the National FFA Organization, National Agri-Marketing Association Foundation, and Agriculture Council of America.

Blades grew up on his family’s multi-generational farm in Shelbina, Missouri where he developed a passion for serving the agriculture industry. He brings both high-level and on-the-ground perspective to agricultural issues and is a proud alumnus of the University of Missouri.

Tim Hassinger is CEO and President and Chairman of the Board of Directors for IntelinAir, Inc. He brings more than 37 years of experience in the agricultural industry. Prior to being named CEO and President of Intelinair in January 2022, he was the CEO of two other companies – first with Dow AgroSciences, the Indianapolis-based agricultural subsidiary of The Dow Chemical Company, followed by Lindsay Corporation of Omaha, NE.

Mr. Hassinger joined Dow AgroSciences in 1984 where he held several sales, supply chain, marketing, and management roles for more than 33 years. He was named President and CEO of Dow AgroSciences in 2014 and served in that capacity until mid-2017. Prior to becoming President and Chief Executive Officer of Dow AgroSciences, he served as its Global Commercial Leader from 2013 to 2014 and as Vice President for its Crop Protection Global Business Unit from 2009 to 2014. Previously, he served as Vice President for the Dow AgroSciences business in the Europe, Latin America, and Pacific regions from 2007 to 2009. In 2005, he moved to Shanghai, where he served as Regional Commercial Unit Leader for Greater China. From 2017 to 2020, Mr. Hassinger was President and CEO of Lindsay Corporation, a leading global manufacturer and distributor of irrigation and infrastructure equipment and technology.

In addition to Intelinair, Mr. Hassinger currently serves on the Board of Directors of AGDATA. Also, he is a former Board Member for CropLife International, Grocery Manufacturing Association, Indianapolis Chamber of Commerce, and Chairman of the Conner Prairie Museum Board in Central Indiana. He was named National Agri-Marketing Association’s (NAMA) 2021 Agri-Business Leader of the Year. He received a Bachelor of Science degree in agricultural economics from the University of Illinois and grew up on a family farm in Central Illinois.

As Senior Vice President, Innovation and Partnerships, Melanie Nuce leads a team that investigates new technologies, partnerships and business opportunities to increase the relevance and reach of GS1 Standards. Drawing on her extensive background in retail technology, Ms. Nuce oversees the exploration of collaboration opportunities to help businesses leverage emerging technologies including the Internet of Things (IoT), blockchain, artificial intelligence (AI) and computer vision to address multiple business process challenges such as autonomous retail and circular economy.

Dr. Santiago Núñez-Corrales is a Research Scientist at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications, Faculty Affiliate at the Center for Global Studies and Lecturer at the School of Information Sciences, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign. In his research, he develops mathematical and computational methods to unveil statistical physics aspects governing complex multiscale stochastic systems, or strongly coupled, heterogeneous open systems whose description requires events at multiple scales, and whose action is dictated by irreversible thermodynamics. Examples of challenges involving such systems include addressing global pandemics, crafting international diplomacy instruments around nuclear non-proliferation, building predictive theories around the organism as a biological unit of interest, designing safe artificially intelligent agents, and improving human organizations. 

Dr. Núñez-Corrales obtained his Doctorate in Informatics University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign with a minor in Global Studies, and a bachelor’s degree in Computer Engineering from the Costa Rica Institute of Technology. Prior to this, he served as Director General of Research and Technology Development at the Ministry of Science, Technology and Telecommunications in Costa Rica, where he directed the development of the National Plan for Science, Technology and Innovation 2015-2021 across multiple economic sectors. He was responsible for the development of several long-term science and technology foresight exercises, as well as a national investment strategy for disruptive innovation with global reach. Dr. Núñez-Corrales served as the official country liaison for Costa Rica in the Committee on Science and Technology Policy at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and as an advisory member to its Sub-committee on Inclusive Growth. Finally, he has served as consultant for government, academic and industrial organizations on problem solving using digital technology. 

Rob Tiffany is Founder and CEO at Sustainable Logix and the inventor of the Greenhouse Sustainability Platform with a mission to help save the Earth using Connected Intelligence technologies. 

Rob has been featured in Wired, Forbes, Dataconomy, Fierce Wireless, Inc. Magazine, Mobile World Live, and Techonomy. 

Prior to founding Sustainable Logix, Rob served as Vice President and Head of IoT Strategy at Ericsson driving 5G connection management for IoT devices. As Chief Technology Officer at Hitachi, he received the Presidential “Product of the Year” award for designing the Lumada Industrial IoT + Digital Twin platform which landed in Gartner’s “Leaders” Magic Quadrant. Spending most of his career at Microsoft, Rob was Global Technology Lead for the Azure IoT cloud platform and co-authored its reference architecture. Prior to Microsoft, he co-founded NetPerceptor developing one of the industry’s earliest Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) platforms for smartphones. 

A bestselling author and frequent keynote speaker, Rob serves on multiple boards and is routinely ranked as one of the top IoT + Digital Twin experts and influencers in the world by Inc Magazine, Onalytica and others. 

Elia Scudiero is a Research Agronomist at the University of California in Riverside. Elia grew up on a multi-generational family farm in northern Italy. He was awarded a Ph.D. in Crop Science from the University of Padua, Italy, in 2013. Subsequently, he moved to UC Riverside where he leads the Digital Agronomy Laboratory (https://sites.google.com/site/scudieroe/). With over 130 scientific contributions, the Digital Agronomy Lab specializes in near-ground and remote sensing measurements to study multi-scale agro-environmental soil-plant processes to support sustainable agriculture and water management practices. 

As Vice President of Marketing for AquaSpy, Kathleen is helping farmers embrace technology to make their farms more profitable. Kathleen has over two decades of sales and marketing experience in SaaS and managed services for emerging technologies including IoT, CyberSecurity, Privacy, and AI.  

Robin Raskin is the Founder of The Virtual Events Group, a community that explores how we will meet in a tech-first future. A long-time journalist, author, publisher, event producer, and advocate for integrating technology into lifestyle, Raskin was one of the early editors of PC Magazine, and one of the first women in technology publishing. Later she founded FamilyPC, and helped create Yahoo!Tech  as well as other tech-forward publications. She’s the author of 6 books on technology and appeared regularly on CBS and other networks. 

In 2008 she founded Living in Digital Times (LIDT), the producers of a number of conferences and expos at conferences and events worldwide. The company’s trademark events include: The Last Gadget Standing, Digital Health Summit, FashionWare, Fitness Tech Summit, Kids@Play Summit, High Tech Retailing, Wearable Tech Summit and others. The Consumer Technology Association acquired the company in January 2020. Raskin continues to consult for them and other technology clients focusing on metaverse and digital event strategies. She writes a weekly column about the intersection of technology and the economy for Techonomy. 

Raskin plays an active role in high-tech policy issues. She has served on the National Academy of Sciences committee to explore Internet Safety, is a Trustee of the CTA Foundation, and is a director of the Global Industry Council founded under UNESCO. She won a lifetime achievement award from the CTA in 2020.