NZ Farmers heading to Silicon Valley to get an Ag Tech advantage
- By: "Farm Tender" News
- Cropping & Grain News
- Jul 17, 2018
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By Peter Wren-Hilton
Wharf42 is delighted to be working with Callaghan Innovation & our partner, Silicon Valley Forum, to enable New Zealand agritech entrepreneurs meet and engage with Silicon Valley’s vast agritech ecosystem.
Next month, we will be visiting different agritech hubs in the San Francisco Bay area, San Jose, Salinas and Fresno as we connect with innovators, investors and some 70+ other delegates from around the world. On the final day of the week’s program, we are hosting a ‘NZ only’ day where we will have the opportunity to share lessons from New Zealand agritech companies who have already established a formal presence in the US. I believe that this session will provide huge insights and value to the visiting kiwi delegation.
Last month, I spent a week in the Valley attending the Mixing Bowl Food to IT conference in San Francisco and the Forbes Live conference in Salinas. I met a number of the international speakers and delegates who attended Techweek’s ’10 billion mouths’ conference in Tauranga in May and several will be joining the New Zealand delegation in San Jose next month. By building bridges and connecting with such established thought leaders, I believe we will make this one amazing week and for those new to Silicon Valley, a truly inspiring & awesome experience.
One the lessons learnt over the past two years is that briefings for delegates prior to departure will far better prepare them for the Immersion Program. It re-defines the concept of ‘intense’. So on 31 July, I will be joining the team from Callaghan in Hamilton for a full day’s briefing on what to expect and how best to prepare. We will be joined by Steve Saunders, Matt Flowerday & Darryn Keiller, three Silicon Valley AgTech Immersion Program ‘veterans’, who will share their experiences and provide insights into what to expect. ‘The more you put in, the more you will get out’, will I suspect be at their core of their message.
If you have not yet booked a place on the 2018 Silicon Valley AgTech Immersion Program & Conference, it’s still not yet too late to do so. (Although as the saying goes, ‘seats on the bus are selling out fast!’)
You can find some key program details here: https://siliconvalleyforum.com/the-seeds-of-our-future-agtech/ To connect with the New Zealand delegation, you should either email me at peter@wharf42.co.nz or Nicky Molloy at nicky.molloy@callaghaninnovation.govt.nz
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