Start-up Nation Israel meets NRW – How can AI revolutionize agriculture?

Felix Neugart
Managing Director
NRW.Global Business
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Dr Christian Temath
Managing Director
KI.NRW
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Dana Kedar                          
GrowingIL

Dana Kedar brings over a decade of diverse experience spanning across legal, marketing, and innovation management roles. A dynamic professional adept at driving organizational growth and fostering collaborative ecosystems, Dana currently serves as the Director at GrowingIL.

GrowingIL was founded in 2018 to promote the Israeli AgTech ecosystem and industry, strengthen Israels position as an innovation hub, and implement innovation into the local & global markets to address the world food crisis.

Their community provides a platform for global and local parties to connect, collaborate, network, and explore synergies through different tools, events, workshops, and other opportunities. Furthermore, they promote adoption of cutting-edge technologies & practices among the traditional agricultural industry (growers, corporates, and other key players) by offering a tailored process and access to the Israel AgTech ecosystem, based on each organizations needs and strategic goals. Connect on Linkedin

Prof.Dr.-Ing. Ribana Roscher
PhenoRob

Ribana Roscher is a Professor of Data Science for Crop Systems at the University of Bonn, Germany, and heads the same-titled group at the Institute of Bio- and Geosciences at Research Center Jülich, Germany. Until 2022, she was a Junior Professor of Remote Sensing with the University of Bonn. Before she was a Postdoctoral Researcher with the University of Bonn, the Julius-Kühn Institute, Siebeldingen, Germany, Freie Universität Berlin, Germany, and the Humboldt Innovation, Berlin, Germany.

In 2015, she was a Visiting Researcher with the Fields Institute, Toronto, Canada, and in 2018 she was a Visiting Researcher with UCLA Institute for Pure & Applied Mathematics, Los Angeles, USA. Her research focus is pattern recognition and machine learning specifically for applications in agricultural and environmental sciences.

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Ingmar Dorn
Bayer Crop Science

Ingmar Dorn is Vice President for Computational Life Sciences at Bayer Crop Science Small Molecules R&D. His department creates value for the farmer advancing the early crop protection pipeline by development and implementation of innovative data science solutions.

Farmers have always needed solutions to confront ever-present threats to their crops – insects, diseases, and weeds. Today, farmers also need ways to respond to new and evolving challenges like climate change and societal expectations about the food we eat and the health of our planet. Therefore, Bayer introduced CropKey, an entirely new, breakthrough approach to innovation in crop protection chemistry.

Data Science is a core technology at CropKey. The Computational Life Sciences Department provides expertise in machine learning, GenAI, bioinformatics, cheminformatics, (molecular) modeling, and data engineering. Together with our Chemists, Biologists, Biochemists and Agronomists we design long-awaited solutions that reach new levels in precision, safety, sustainability, and efficacy to protect farmers, their crops, food security and our planet tomorrow.

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Iddo Geltner
Co-Founder & CEO
Arruga

Previously, Iddo was VP of Research and Development at Dune Medical Devices. He holds a Ph.D. in Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering from Princeton University.

Arugga is developing autonomous ground robots to treat and monitor greenhouse plants, and solve the toughest challenge faced by growers – labour shortage and cost. We have a 50-unit commercial fleet pollinating greenhouse tomatoes, and we just launched our first multi-purpose robot which also includes plant lowering and pest detection.

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Mor Yegerman
COO & Co-Founder
Viridix

Mor Yegerman is the COO and Co-founder of Viridix, bringing over two decades of R&D experience to the forefront of precision irrigation technology. His leadership at Viridix is characterized by a deep commitment to innovation and sustainability in agriculture. With a background that bridges both software and hardware expertise, Mor has been instrumental in driving Viridix’s mission to optimize irrigation practices, ensuring water conservation and enhancing crop performance on a global scale. His vision for the future of farming combines technology with eco-friendly practices to meet the challenges of modern agriculture head-on.“

Viridix is a leading AgTech company specializing in innovative precision irrigation solutions. It develops and produces advanced irrigation tools based on RooTense® sensors, AI, and data analytics, and holds patents in the national phase. Founded in 2017 and headquartered in Modiin, Israel, Viridix operates in 22 countries globally. The company aims to help growers optimize their irrigation practices to achieve the best performance, ensuring water and fertilizer savings, increased yield, and maintained quality. Viridix is prepared for scaling, with inventory available and a diverse range of crop types under its belt. The company has established itself as a market leader in the dates and table grapes industry in Israel and has a well-established sales infrastructure with 28 active channels​​.

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