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Agritech: How can we adopt automated solutions?
There have been some truly pioneering advances within agritech over the last ten years, through the development and integration of sensors, digitisation, and artificial intelligence. These advances also bring challenges to overcome, including how different technologies and data can be integrated across the production system. As part of the World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit I recently…
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World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit 2021 – State of the industry
I recently attended the World Agri-Tech Innovation Summit 2021, where Thomas J Vilsak, U.S. Secretary of Agriculture, gave the opening remarks. He stated that the U.S. Department of Agriculture’s origins were rooted in science, and he sees that as the path forward for this sector. The Department of Agriculture was formed in 1862 when Abraham Lincoln…
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The Impact of the Pandemic on Art and Culture
The year 2020 has been a time of crisis and innovation for all business areas, especially for the art world. As the virus spread across the globe, cultural institutions were forced to close. The Metropolitan Museum of Art closed on March 13th, ten days before New York went into lockdown. By the time Britain imposed…
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Catalysing Finance for Young Food Entrepreneurs: Independent Dialogue
As part of the United Nations Food Summit 2021, Bettina Marta Prato, Senior Coordinator of SAFIN, chaired a discussion on how to catalyse finance for young food entrepreneurs. SAFIN, the Smallholder and Agri-SME Finance and Investment Network, is comprised of 48 institutions across agricultural finance, who share a commitment to accelerating access to finance for…
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Nicole Junkermann and Real Madrid: the Future of Broadcasting Services in Sport
The rise of technology has transformed the way we are consuming all forms of media, and the sports industry is no exception. A report from Drake Star Partners forecast that the global sports technology sector will reach $31.1billion by 2024. However, in these unprecedented times, the restrictive lockdown measures in place across the world have…
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LEAP Conference 2020: Is lab-grown meat the future?
At the recent Livestock, Environment and People (LEAP) Conference with the University of Oxford, I was very interested to hear about the benefits of lab-grown or cultured meat in a talk by Professor Burkhard Schafer. I also found Professor Schafer’s discussion of some of the issues in bringing cultured meat products to the market highly illuminating. Lab-grown meat can…
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Public attitudes to lab-grown food and other problems
I recently attended the University of Oxford’s Livestock, Environment and People (LEAP) Conference, which included a fascinating panel discussion of attitudes towards lab-grown food, specifically with regard to cultured meat and how the use of such products may be encouraged. An analysis of Twitter responses discussing cultured meat found a polarisation of views on the matter. On one side, there are the…
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Ocado: An AgriBusiness Case Study – Nicole Junkermann
I was fascinated to learn during the Harvard Business School AgriBusiness Seminar that, on September 29, 2020, the market value of U.K.-based grocery ecommerce firm Ocado Group (Ocado) reached $27.5 billion, more than double its value in January and — as noted by the British Press. This surge in share price was a true reflection…
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Investing in Nutrition; the Key to a Healthy Society
Nicole Junkermann is an international investor and entrepreneur, founder of NJF Holdings, an international investment company with interests in venture capital, private equity and real estate. Through venture capital flagship NJF Capital, Nicole oversees a portfolio similar in size to a small venture fund across Europe and the United States, including the high-tech, fintech and…
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Supermarkets: A Drive Towards Sustainability
I heard so many thought-provoking presentations from outstanding academics at the Livestock, Environment and People (LEAP) Conference 2020. One such talk was given by Joanna Trewern from the Centre for Environment & Sustainability, University of Surrey. Her study focused on the intervention in supermarkets for “less and better meat”. She found that retailers have no…