Callum Ross
Sustainability and high-tech
Callum Ross, the founder of RossAi, brings a wealth of experience spanning over 18 years in sustainability, technology, and innovation projects. Callum has worked with various companies like Fisher & Paykel Healthcare and Hawkes Bay’s own Rockit Apples. His unwavering commitment to sustainability is unmatched and implements environmentally friendly solutions in all his projects. He recently served as a trustee for the Environment Centre Hawke’s Bay, demonstrating his passion for the environment.
Callum Eastwood
Responsible robotics design
Callum is Senior Scientist at DairyNZ, where he works among other things on the effective use of new technologies in dairy systems, technological innovation systems, improving co-ordination between farmers and technology developers, design of social research in agriculture, and the integration of data into farm decision making.
Quinn Elstone
Quinn is responsible for a range of Ag products for WaterForce, with a critical area being Valley Irrigation products and associated technologies. He has a long history working in technical and sales roles, supporting the agricultural sector. Today he continues to provide a range of technical design and product solutions supports throughout New Zealand. Quinn will introduce the Valley Irrigation insights technologies
Hamish Penny
Monitoring real-time crop water potential
Hamish is CEO of Croptide, a Hawke’s Bay startup now active across New Zealand, USA and Europe. Using a novel approach to understand the internal status of water within plants, Croptide talks of their technology as “the smartwatch for plants”. Hamish will talk about their journey, and the steps they are taking to launch a new product into a global market. He will also be on hand at the Conference Field Session to show the technology in the vineyard.
Andrew Kersley
Automating vineyard and orchard operations
Andrew is CEO at Smart Machine, a company developing Oxin autonomous vehicles for permanent horticulture. Smart Machines has designed both the autonomous technology and the Oxin platform itself from the ground up. The machines currently servicing vineyards around Blenheim are the third generation of the vehicle. Formed in 2018, Smart Machines’ founding concept was to combine engineering, artificial intelligence, machine learning and robotics to address labour shortages and other challenges within the horticultural sectors.
Guy Coleman
Open Weed Locator
Guy began his weed technology journey in 2018 as a precision weed control scientist in Narrabri, Australia. He notes that a lot of the algorithms and hardware that we are using to identify weeds automatically did not exist back then. Guy released the OpenWeedLocator (OWL), an image-based green-on-brown weed detector for site-specific weed control in fallow, as part of his PhD. The details for making OWL – from the 3D printable components to the algorithms needed – are all freely available online. Using off-the-shelf componentry it can be built for about $400.
Brendan O’Connell
Agritech Panel Chair
Focused on identifying new business opportunities, scaling businesses internationally and the collective power and sustainability of ecosystems, Brendan is CE of Agritech NZ. He has worked on product innovation in different industries including bio-medical, telecom, marine/consumer electronics and agritech in both R&D and business development roles.
“I want to work with businesses building new things who need somebody to help them make sense out of the opportunities, bring people together and join the dots.”
