Ramesh Ramachandran is Senior Vice President - Strategy and Precision Farming at Mahindra and Mahindra’s Farm Equipment Business. His role encompasses both strategy development as well as identifying and incubating new revenue opportunities, both organically and inorganically. With agriculture poised for great change, he is closely involved in leveraging emerging technologies to deliver new product and service solutions for small landholders, a role he finds deeply rewarding. Ramesh has 25 years of experience in innovation, marketing, strategy and P&L management. This includes 9 years with Unilever’s ice cream and Frozen Foods business in a variety of UK and European roles as well as 6 years in the London office of a boutique commercial innovation and venturing consultancy where he helped Fortune 500 and FTSE 100 clients innovate and grow both by creating new brands and businesses from scratch as well as repositioning existing ones. He also has 6 years of early work experience with Shell in India where as part of the India start up team he worked in sales, marketing and business development to set up some of their initial businesses reporting eventually to the MD. Ramesh has an MBA with distinction from INSEAD, an MMS from S.P Jain Institute of Management and Research and a B.Sc. (Hon) from St. Stephen’s College, Delhi University. He likes long distance running and Indian percussion and finds sports and literature sources of enduring inspiration.

Dr. Nessi Benishti holds M.Sc and Ph.D. in Theoretical Physics from Cambridge and Oxford Universities. Before founding Agrio, Nessi co-founded and served as a CTO at Augmedics and was the core technology inventor at Cathworks. Nessi led algorithms development for medical imaging companies and achieved the proof of concept for many medical device startups. Along his career, Nessi won numerous awards (including the Wolf Prize for Excellency in Science) and published several publications in exclusive international journals.

Agrio digitizes crop protection by leveraging and deploying proprietary artificial intelligence and computer vision algorithms.

Devon Long's career is focused on solving one of the defining problems of our time - how to feed an increasing population with decreasing resources, without damaging our planet in the process. She is a technologist by trade, and has specialised in applying technology to enable and incentivise sustainable food production. This includes a range of topics all highly critical for Australian food production, such as traceability, certification, provenance marketing and carbon accounting. At Regrow, she is working to bring on-farm carbon measurement to the Australian & NZ market in a way that supercharges adoption of regenerative agriculture practices.

Master’s degree in “IT Architecture for Financial Markets” at Central School of Electronics, Blockchain Certification from MIT, and an MBA from INSEAD.

Goulnara is an expert of the hedging-risks models of 16 Commodities Exchanges. She is a former Global Lead for Capital Markets software solutions, at renowned software providers as Finastra (LDN) and Calypso Technology (SF).

For more than a decade she was leading, designing and promoting software solutions for the Tier 1 Investment Banks and Financial Exchanges.

Philip Mulvey is part consultant, part contractor, part researcher and part entrepreneur, and has always been a free thinker.

He is a specialist in soil and water chemistry, with over 25 years experience in soil sciences, hydrogeology, water resource assessment, contamination studies, geological mapping and aquifer modeling.

He currently has businesses in environmental soil science, whole-of-farm management, bioremediation, civil earthworks and property development. Through these avenues he has trained numerous scientists in the art of commercial scientific problem-solving.

His critically acclaimed book Ground Breaking is a culmination of his lifelong pursuit to provide practical solutions for agricultural management, enabling the restoration of landscape, climate and community.

Erik Árokszállási, is one of the founder of the TE-FOOD International GmbH, he also the acting CEO of the company. He has more than 20 years of experience in IT design, development and servicing. He was in the forefront of winning and then designing the animal, vegetable and fruits traceability project in Vietnam, France and in the UK. Since 2016 he is heavily involved in blockchain projects especially applying this new network application design to the world of traceability.

Kendell Lang is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Fusion Farms, an innovative hurricane-protected aquaponic and hydroponic indoor vertical farm designed for the re-utilization of vacant or abandoned buildings in Puerto Rico. Fusion Farms has been in the formulation stages for decades, starting from Mr. Lang’s Bachelor of Science degree in biology from college where he completed his senior thesis on aquaculture. That early exposure to technology innovation applied to nature has kept alive the vision and passion which today has culminated in Fusion Farms.

Geza has over 20 years experience with climate policy and implementation in applied science and corporate settings. He has developed various carbon methodologies and innovation projects with carbon, biochar and increased production of food. Has led sustainability programs at Ferrero and Barry Callebaut.

As the Head of Certifications and EMEA/APAC region at Carbopace, he is committed to bring cutting edge technology and validated primary data into land based carbon accounting.

Yury Vasilkov is the current CEO at Gamaya. Yury has also served as the Chief Commercial Officer at Intterra from September 2019 to February 2022. He is Global Agribusiness executive able to create strategic vision, implement it and drive the result. He has a Strong track record in developing and implementing long- & mid-term business growth and R&D strategies on regional and country level.

Gamaya addresses the need to increase efficiency and sustainability of large industrial farming, as well as the productivity and scalability of small-holder farming, by deploying the world’s most advanced solution for mapping and diagnostics of farmland. Gamaya farmland analytics solution improves production efficiency and risk management byfacilitating optimum decision making, including use of chemicals and fertilizers, and resulting in larger and better yields, while minimizing the impact on the environment.

Rajesh Srivastava is the Executive Chairman of Rabo Equity and Chairman of Prowess Advisors, based in New Delhi.

He has been into corporate finance/investment banking for almost 43years and worked in Indian/international banks in India and abroad. Rajesh is one of the founding members of Rabobank in India. Joining Rabo India in 1998, he was Managing Director, Corporate & Commercial Banking of Rabobank India for 3 years and before that Regional Head, Food and Agribusiness, Asia in Singapore for 5 years. In his banking years in Rabobank, he built up wind energy, carbon credits, micro finance, project finance and strategic consulting as business verticals.

Prior to Rabobank, he raised and managed the largest VC fund of the time for Lazard India which had pedigreed investors like IFC, ADB, Daiwa, OECF (now JBIC), IDBI, SIDBI, PNB and 13 SIDCs/SFCs. His Fund triggered SEBI’s regulations on VC and Government of India’s regulation of FDI in VC.

Last 14 years, he has partnered Rabobank in a unique food and agri private equity platform with 2 Funds, to invest in India’s food and agri companies. His investors include IFC, ADB, CDC, FMO, DEG, IFU and Proparco. He made 16 investments across 15 sub sectors of agribusiness and has proved to be very successful. He has recently co-founded Prowess Advisors which is a specialized consulting and investment banking firm in food, agribusiness and sustainability.

Rajesh has been an active advisor to the Government of India with respect to food and agribusiness sector. He has been consulting the Ministry of Food Processing, Government of India and played a key role in the building of “Vision 2015” document of the Ministry in 2005. In addition, he earlier advised Markfed, NDDB/ Mother Dairy and several State Governments on their strategies for the sector.

Today, Rajesh is a “go-to” authority in food and agribusiness and chairs a number of CII Committees and conferences focused on the sector. As a key proponent of the role of private investment in the food and agribusiness sector in India

Genevieve Leveille is the CEO and Principal Founder of AgriLedger, an award-winning blockchain solutions company offering equitable and sustainable solutions to challenges being faced across the agricultural value chain. Originally from Haiti, Genevieve is a social impact entrepreneur who has spoken at numerous conferences globally on emerging technologies and has been recognized multiple times for her work in technology and decentralized finance (one of the Most Influential Women in UK Tech – Computer Weekly, 2021; Top BAME in Technology UK nominee – Financial Times, 2019). She currently serves as vice chair of techUK’s Distributed Ledger Technology Working group and is a Non-executive Director and Board member of FinTech for International Development (F4ID)

Lalit is the Founder and CEO of Sensegrass. Sensegrass is a moonshot Agri tech company solving the biggest issue of soil fertility by predicting and eliminating the excess fertilizers from the soil to help small-scale farmers grow faster and healthy.

Lalit is a public speaker as well and has spoken on varieties of topics from the Future of SDGs to Civic education in the Arab world, unsustainable business model importance in startups to Human IQ vs the Future of AI, etc at various platforms including UN HQ in Geneva. Lalit is the first and only entrepreneur awarded 5 Startup residencies by giving nations.

Being a Farmer Lalit is passionate about environmental and biodiversity issues, He is a climate reality leader, Audi Environmental Fellow, Ashoka Changemaker Exchange, Bosch fellow. Nominated by PM for Climate leader as well.

S Sivakumar oversees Agri and IT Businesses of the Company. He also holds responsibility for ITC's Social Investments Programme. Additionally, he is the Chairman of Technico Agri Sciences Limited and Vice Chairman of ITC Infotech India Limited and its subsidiaries in the UK and USA.

Sivakumar serves on the Advisory Council to the Ministry of Rural Development on National Rural Livelihoods Mission, the Commodity Derivatives Advisory Committee of SEBI and on the Management Committee of National Agricultural Higher Education Project of the Ministry of Agriculture & Farmers Welfare.

Earlier, Sivakumar has been a member on the Boards of NABARD and IRMA. He was the Chairman of the National Agricultural Council of the CII, Vice Chairman of the WEF's Global Agenda Council on Social Innovation and UN Global Compact's Core Advisory Group to develop Sustainable Agriculture Business Principles.

Dr. Parveen is an agriculture professional with 20 years of experience in different fields of the agriculture sector ranging from rural development, academic research, agri-business, hi-tech farming and urban farming i.e. Hydroponics.

He is a founder director for Prayag Policy Research and Innovation Institute and extending his technical support to the urban commercial farms and home growers.

Started his career as a consultant to the European Commission project and followed by the British High Commission project in the field of Rural Development. From Rural development, he has diversified his professional journey and joined Tata Chemicals Ltd. Where he has served in different roles and locations for ensuring the desired outcome for different projects/responsibilities. He was one of the founder members of the customized fertilizer team and contributed significantly to the development of customized fertilizer, branded compost, and outsourced farm services.

His professional journey also includes exposure to Africa, where he was responsible for Corporate Farming and leased 25,000 ha of land from the Ethiopian Government. He has worked with the National Horticulture Research and Development Foundation as Joint Director and was responsible for the seed business & Development activities.

Anand is a graduate of Agricultural Sciences and an MBA with a specialization in Agri- Business Management from MANAGE in 2004. He has an experience of 8 years in Agri-Commodity Based financing. He has been a part of ICICI Bank as the National Product Head for the Agri-Commodity Finance Business. He was instrumental in developing the product and the associated processes for the Bank since the inception of the product. Anand has been a part of the prestigious, “Accessing Global Markets” program at Cornell University.

Mr. Rajiv Chawla, an IAS officer of 1987 batch is the chief knowledge officer and advisor. he has combined his administrative skills and technology prowess to bring about e-governance revolution in the country. He initiated the digitization of land record systems in Karnataka and laid the foundations of the project "Bhoomi". He received the Prime Minister's award for excellence in civil services in 2007 for the project. In 2007, IIT Kanpur conferred upon him the Distinguished Alumnus Award for his significant contributions.

• Co-Director of the Center for Digital Agriculture (CDA) at Illinois
• Professor in the Department of Crop Sciences at the University of Illinois
• Feedstock Production Deputy Theme Lead, Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts (CABBI), University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

An astute businessman and serial entrepreneur with 10+ years of experience, Sandeep Kondaji specialised in instrumentation engineering under the penumbra of Visvesvaraya Technological University. He kicked off his career inthe Middle East, where he began his entrepreneurial journey in telematics. His interest in sustainable energy and consulting experienceon green buildings, prompted him to devote his knowledge and efforts towards solving global challenges in agriculture. Taking pride in his lineage of agrarians and armed with a strong technical background, his aspirations were duty-bound towards working out a fix for the adversity of farmer woes. Sandeep hobnobbed with two of his associates and found “Krishitantra” inspiring the start-up with the intention of bringing happiness to the farmers.

Mr. Rao is the founder of Tartensense.

TartanSense uses AI to create smart and sustainable farming solutions. Their Spot Spraying Technology only sprays on the plant and spares the soil. Spraying with an accuracy of 99.8% and saving up to 60% in chemical usage their 3S Technology commits to maximize farmer profits and minimize ill effects of excessive spraying on the environment.

Dr Priti is the founder of Natura Crop Care . She has several years of experience in product development, formulations, characterization, bioefficacy and project execution.

Natura Crop Care is sustainable farm input manufacturing company for biological crop nutrition & protection. Natura Crop Care by its unique understanding of microbial plant interactions in nature, is validating to the current scenario of increasing sustainable agri-horti produce across the world. Natura has developed biological and botanical products to meet the demand of residue free produce.

Mr Sanjay Agarwal is a 1984-batch Indian Administrative Service officer of the Uttar Pradesh cadre.

He has over 37 years of experience in administration and public policy including in the areas of Agriculture extension & research, Health & Family welfare, cooperatives sector, Industries & infrastructure development, Power sector, child development and both Secondary & Higher Education sector in various capacities with the State Government of Uttar Pradesh. He worked with 3 different Chief Ministers of the State of UP in the Chief Minister Office. At the Govt of India level he has worked for over 5 years as Development Commissioner (Handicrafts) and as Secretary Agriculture, Cooperatives & Farmers Welfare for over 3 years.

Mr Agarwal is presently working with ICRISAT as Assistant Director General. ICRISAT is an International Agricultural Research Organization headquartered in India.

Mr Agarwal is also the chairman of Government of India’s National Committee on Minimum Support Price, Crop Diversification & Natural farming.

Educational Qualification:
Shri Agrawal was awarded the Gold Medal for being the Best All Rounder on Graduation from IIT, Kanpur & has Post Graduate degree in Electrical Engineering.

Ashish is founder of Whrrl, a Blockchain driven financial inclusion lending platform for farmers. Whrrl uses an innovative financial product called "Warehouse Receipt Loan" for enhancing the income of farmers and simultaneously reducing the risk of banks.

Before pivoting to Whrrl, Ashish was working upon CreditMart, an online lending platform for small & medium businesses.

Prior to wearing the entrepreneurial hat, Ashish, who is a qualified Chartered Accountant (CA/CPA), was a consultant advising Small & Medium Businesses in Financial Management and Debt Raising in his role as outsourced CFO.

In the Blockchain space, as co-founder of Blockchain Advisory Council LLC, Ashish has provided Business Model & Token Model advisory to several startups in Remittance, Asset Management, Logistics & GDPR verticals. Ashish is also a member of Investment Advisory Board of BullToken, Norway and sits on Advisory Board of SocialPay, USA.

Prior to joining Mahindra ,he has held successful leadership positions in various Indian and multinational corporations like Godrej &Boyce Manufacturing Co,Videocon International, and Daewoo Electronics. Since 1998, he has been with Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd and has headed diverse functions including sales, channel, marketing, quality and strategy, where he contributed significantly to increasing Mahindra’s market share in the tractor business and in sustaining its leadership position. Ashok was also instrumental in developing an integrated ‘OneMahindra’ strategy for the Automotive and Farm Equipment sectors in South Asia and Africa.

Mr. Rao is the founder of Tartensense.

TartanSense uses AI to create smart and sustainable farming solutions. Their Spot Spraying Technology only sprays on the plant and spares the soil. Spraying with an accuracy of 99.8% and saving up to 60% in chemical usage their 3S Technology commits to maximize farmer profits and minimize ill effects of excessive spraying on the environment.

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Nikhil is the Co-Founder, Ceo of Agdhi , he is a Experienced Business Strategist with a well demonstrated history of working in Design and Technology, Manufacturing, Information Technology and Services Industry.

Agdhi is focussed towards agriculture sustainability by combining blockchain , internet of things, Machine learning technologies for automated seed screening and plant diagnosis. It provides analysis and suggestions of what you are growing, how’s it growing and what can you do to help.

As Head of India Region, Randhir is responsible for overall management of the business and long-term strategic vision for the region. Randhir has more than 20 years of experience in the micro-irrigation sector and has handled cross functional profiles of sales, marketing and operations for Netafim.

Prior to joining Netafim, Randhir worked with Excel Industries Limited, Mumbai - a leading agrochemical company.

Randhir served as President of the Irrigation Association of India for three years and is an active member of the association, Randhir is also a member of CII (Confederation of Indian Industries) National Council on Agriculture.

Randhir holds a BTech in Agricultural Engineering.

Anil Nadig is a electronics & communications engineer, worked in the IT industry for 18+ years with companies like Infosys, British Telecom, Misys etc before co-founding Jivabhumi –safe food social enterprise in 2016.

He is very passionate about safe food, farming and making an impact in the agriculture ecosystem. He is the co-founder at TraceX Technologies building digital agriculture platform for a connected, transparent and traceable agri and food supply chain leveraging blockchain.