ThinkAg NEWS

AgLab on Water Use Efficiency in Agriculture- Focus on Agritech on 30th April

AgLab on Water Use Efficiency in Agriculture- Focus on Agritech was organised jointly by ThinkAg and Villgro Innovations Foundation on 30th April, 2020. The virtual invite-only-event, moderated by Hemendra Mathur, Co-Founder, ThinkAg, had excellent speakers like Kaushal Jaiswal, MD, Rivulis Irrigation India, Dr. Praveen Rao Velchala, Vice Chancellor, Prof. Jayashankar Telangana State Agricultural University & Suhas Joshi, Head, Corporate Social Responsibility, South Asia, Bayer. Agri Innovators viz. Urdhvam Environmental Technologies Pvt.Ltd., Vyoda Pte Ltd, CultYvate, Agrirain Agro & EF Polymer Private Limited also presented their interesting products. The AgLab saw active participation of Prabhat Chaturvedi, CEO, Netafim Agricultural Financing Agency Pvt Ltd (NAFA), Emmanuel V Murray, Senior Advisor, Caspian Impact Investment Adviser, Anand Shriram, DCM Shriram, Dr Sangita Ladha, VP- Marketing & Business Development, Jain Irrigation Systems Ltd., J V Ratnam, VP- Premier Irrigation Adritec Pvt Ltd., Prashant Maniar, Managing Partner, Encito Advisors, Ritu Verma, Co-Founder, ThinkAg, Ram Kaundinya, Co-Founder, ThinkAg, Raman Ahuja, Co-Founder, ThinkAg, etc. The key takeaways from the discussions were- i) Need for a shift from subsidy dependent mentality in micro-irrigation ii) Need for innovative customized financial models /solutions to promote Agritech Innovators iii) Scope of Technology, Innovation & Incubation in Corporate-led initiatives viz. Bayer-led Drought Action Network & the DCM Shriram LTD-Rabobank-Rivulis Irrigation India MoU iv) Collaborations with Corporates can help scale up the Agritech Innovators. We would like to specially thank Srinivas Ramanujam, Maithili Rege & Mehal Poddar from Villgro Innovations Foundation for helping us put everything together to make the AgLab successful.

Organizational Announcement

ThinkAg is increasing its resource deployment. We are pleased to announce that Abhijit Goswami has joined us from 1st April as Manager, Partnerships. He will be responsible for establishing and managing relationships with incubators, innovators, foundations and other ecosystem players. He will be a repository of all the latest happenings in the space of innovation and entrepreneurship in food and agriculture. He will also plan and execute all the events of ThinkAg. Abhijit graduated in agriculture from Assam Agricultural University, Jorhat Campus and followed it up with PGDM from MANAGE, Hyderabad. He comes with a total of 12 plus years of work experience. He may be reached at abhijit@thinkag.in and +91 91584 33555. He will be based at Hyderabad.

TRACECON- 5th March 2020 in New Delhi

India's first traceability conference was organised jointly by SourceTrace and ThinkAg at Le Meriden, New Delhi, India on 5th March, 2020 to discuss and brainstorm on challenges and opportunities in penetration of Tracability technologies and tools along the Food & Agri supply and value chains.. The invite-only-event was attended by nearly 70 relevant stakeholders, both from India and abroad, representing the Food & Agri Retail and Export businesses, Agri Supply Chain players, Government bodies, Policy Experts, Research Institutions, Investors, Agritech startups. Trade bodies, etc. for a focused discussion on traceability. This was the first event of its kind in India, with rising interest in the country. The conference was divided into 5 Panel Discussions- Role of technology in Food safety, Traceability: Solutions and opportunities, Role of technology in boosting Agri Exports, Showcasing early adopters and Funding and financing traceability technology. A whitepaper titled “Traceability in 2020” was also released during the event.