Smartfarm & Connected Ag & Food

Connected Ag & Food!

Minnesota is uniquely positioned as an Ag & Food tech provider, given its position in the midwest and the large food and grain brands in the area such as General Mills, Syngenta, and Cargill. Minneapolis is known as, "Mill City," for having developed food milling technology back in the mid-1800s, and that tradition of pushing the edge continues today!

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Why did the chicken cross the digital road? Andrew Ralston (https://www.linkedin.com/in/andrew-ralston-9577751) is a software engineer at Gravie, with a specialization in high volume, highly complex integrated web application architecture and technology leadership. He has served as a software leader in various companies and within IoT, including at PeopleNet. His project investigates measuring chicken behavior in his back yard via various accessible IoT tools.

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Jay Myers (https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaymmyers) is a Technical Product Manager, engineer, speaker, and intrapreneur, focused on data and insights. He has over 15 years implementing software applications and infrastructure, working in small companies and large enterprises. Jay is bringing his knowledge of software and data and a penchant for hardware tinkering to build the Termi platform (http://termi.co), a comprehensive IoT solution that improves the efficacy of rodent mitigation and extermination by using smart, connected devices and their data to determine and predict rodent locations and events.

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Kent Cavender-Bares is the CEO of Rowbot (http://rowbot.com/), an agricultural robot company, with the first machine being a small, self-driving, multi-use platform that travels between rows of corn, removing height constraints imposed by a rapidly growing crop.. Kent's vision for creating the future of robotic farming starts with the needs of both the plant and the farmer. His driving motivation is to make it easy for farmers to use all of their inputs more efficiently. As CEO, he defines Rowbot's solutions, works with investors, manages operations and charts out IP strategy. He holds a B.S. in agricultural and biological engineering from Cornell, a M.S. in environmental engineering from Stanford, and a Ph.D. in environmental engineering from MIT. Prior leadership roles in environmental non-profits. Kent grew up operating and repairing farm equipment.