The VISION Conference

Michael Ott

Founder and CEO

Rantizo

Michael Ott is founder and CEO of Rantizo, a drone spraying company based in Iowa City, IA, started in early 2018 and the first and only legal drone spraying company operating in Iowa, Wisconsin, Nebraska, Minnesota, and Illinois. Before Rantizo, Ott worked in corporate venture capital backed by Monsanto, Novozymes, and Bunge and invented a patented technology that delivers tiny amounts of nitrogen on a rice seed as it grows. He has a Master’s degree in chemistry from the University of Iowa.

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Martha Montoya

President/Founder

AGTools Inc.

Martha Montoya founded award-winning AGTools Inc., a solution using machine learning and artificial intelligence to enable farmers, food supply chain stakeholders, banking, insurance, and other industries to make better decisions, increase profits, avoid waste, and impact climate change. Montoya has more than 25 years of worldwide agricultural and supply chain experience including appointments to the California Board of Agriculture and Food, the board of the National Latino Food Industry, the worldwide board for Women for Walmart, and the executive board of the United States Hispanic Chambers of Commerce.

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Daniel Koppel

Co-Founder and CEO

Prospera Technologies

Daniel Koppel is co-founder and CEO of Prospera, which is helping to define the future of agriculture through data science, computer vision, and AI. Since founding the company in 2014, Daniel has raised $22 million from strategic investors including Cisco and Qualcomm and top venture capital firms such as Bessemer Venture Partners. In 2018 he secured a $40 million partnership with Valmont Industries to develop autonomous growing machines. He holds a B.Sc. in computer science from The Hebrew University.

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George Kantor

Senior Systems Scientist

Carnegie Mellon University’s Robotics Institute

Dr. George Kantor has 20 years of research experience in developing and deploying robotic technologies for real-world applications such as agriculture, mining, and scientific exploration. One of his current projects is using imaging in viticulture crops to provide nondestructive crop yield predictions, crop quality assessments, and pruning weight measurements. His group is exploring similar technologies in apple orchards, specifically pursuing automated apple detection to facilitate harvest from an automated harvest platform that carries human pickers.

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Manoj Karkee

Associate Professor,

Washington State University Center for Precision and Automated Agricultural Systems

Dr. Manoj Karkee leads a research program in sensing, machine vision, and agricultural robotics at Washington State University. He has published widely in such journals as Journal of Field Robotics and Computers and Electronics in Agriculture and has been an invited speaker at numerous national and international conferences. In 2019 he was recognized as “Pioneer in Artificial Intelligence and IoT” by Connected World magazine. His PhD is in Agricultural Engineering and Human Computer Interaction from Iowa State University.

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Dr. Kevin Freiberg

Best-selling Author, Speaker, Advisor

Freibergs.com

With more than one million copies in print, Kevin Freiberg is a worldwide best-selling author and speaker. His books and speeches have shaped the thinking of executives in more than 2,000 companies in 60 industries across the globe. Recognized as one of the “Top 30 Best Minds on Leadership” by Leadership Excellence magazine, Freiberg has appeared on CNBC and CBS Sunday Morning and has been published in business media including the Wall Street Journal, Business Week, the Washington Post, Investor’s Business Daily, and Forbes.com. His clients in the ag sector include AGCO, Bayer CropScience, Simplot, and Wilbur-Ellis.

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Vonnie Estes

Vice President, Technology

Produce Marketing Association

Vonnie Estes’ role at PMA is to bring technology to the produce industry across the supply chain, working with both technology companies and the industry to identify and solve pressing needs. She has held leadership positions at prominent companies including DuPont, Monsanto, and Syngenta along with start-ups and venture funds to identify revolutionary science and bring products to market. Estes has a BS in Horticulture from New Mexico State and a Master’s in Plant Pathology from UC Davis.

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Seana Day

Partner

Better Food Ventures and The Mixing Bowl

Seana Day brings more than 15 years of investment, M&A advisory and technology experience to Better Food Ventures and The Mixing Bowl. She is a regular ag ecosystem contributor and publishes an annual AgTech Landscape highlighting technology in the ag supply chain. Day previously held advisory and investment roles in food and ag including Director of Strategy and Business Development at AgTech Insight and Managing Director at Centerra Capital providing agribusiness investment advisory.

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