Gearing Up for a Great Week

From the President

Gearing Up for a Great Week

By Brent Kemp, President and CEO

By this time next week, we will be gathered in Austin, Texas, USA, for AgGateway’s North America Annual Meeting and Conference. As of this writing we have more than 150 individuals registered to attend over 40 sessions (excluding any trading partner to trading partner quick connect meetings) over three days. I’m excited for a number of reasons.

1. Ten students are participating in the Gateway to Ag Careers program, sponsored this year by the Ag CIO Roundtable and Syngenta. Over the course of the last three years, we’ve seen growth in both the quantity and quality of students applying to the program which connects them to industry volunteers and leaders. This year was especially competitive, with 20 applications vying for ten slots. Take a minute to introduce yourself to these individuals and add the next generation of agricultural innovators and leaders to your professional network.

2. We get to recognize volunteer leaders who made a difference in the organization this year. In addition to reporting out on the election results and welcoming our incoming board chair, we will highlight the contributions of volunteers from Europe, Latin America, and North America. Our Ron Storms Leadership Award, President’s Award, and Ron Farrell Attitude Award winners will be announced in the Tuesday general session – congratulations in advance to all of you, even if you don’t know who you are yet.Speaking of general sessions, we have some outstanding speakers and topics for you. Monday afternoon we’ll have a panel discussion focusing on the reality of data in the context of environmental and stewardship reporting. Stakeholders across the industry are looking for ways to provide and extract value from the data generated on production practices, and this group discussion moderated by our Executive Vice President Jeremy Wilson will offer some insight into the state of things on the ground.

Tuesday we’ll hear from the Agricultural Industry Electronics Foundation’s General Manager, Norbert Schlingmann, on that group’s progress developing a permissioned interoperability network for equipment and other providers. This is especially relevant to us as many of our common member companies use the ADAPT family of resources to exchange data. Finally, Andrew Selck, partner with Kearney in their Agriculture and Food Practice, will share insights on the ways other industries have designed, deployed, and found value in their own data-centric search for sustainability. I’m sure each of these presentations will offer a perspective on data and interoperability that will inform your own thinking.

There are many more reasons I’m excited to be in Austin with you all: the networking, the energy of vigorous conversations, watching as problems-talk turns to solutions-discovery, and of course the food which our Conference Committee is always doing a great job to get set for us. What’s got you most excited for the 2024 annual meeting?

Thank you to all our annual conference sponsors, and to those of you working hard to plan and execute our meet ups, working group sessions, committee meetings, and education opportunities. AgGateway is truly your organization, and you prove that ownership with each and every session scheduled, and every resource implemented.

See you soon!