AFGRI Technology Services (ATS), part of AFGRI Group Holdings (AGH), is partnering with The SA Innovation Summit, taking place in Cape Town from 12-14 September, where the pioneering agricultural technology company will be participating in sessions focused on how technology can, and is, enabling the agricultural sector across South Africa and the rest of the continent.
Joining her at the event will be Pieter Wasserfall, MD of the Six33 Group and Founder of PICSA, an affiliate start-up within the AGH investment portfolio that provides employee benefit solutions that holistically address the financial challenges faced by farmworkers in South Africa. They will be joined by a host of other guest speakers and panellists from a broad spectrum of technology-driven companies and organisations, start-ups, and academic institutions being represented at the Summit.
“We believe that enabling a platform for South African entrepreneurs, investors and innovators to connect with the broader AgTech ecosystem will have a positive impact on South Africa. Building the ecosystem will not only benefit our customers and our business, but the industry too. If you enable farming, you enable Africa,” says Neumann.
Neumann and Wasserfall both bring high levels of expertise in the field of AgTech to bear on the debates.
The Summit – an industry-leading annual platform for nurturing, developing and showcasing African innovation, as well as facilitating innovation thought leadership – provides the perfect springboard to start conversations about the power of AgTech, believes Neumann.
“Platforms like these provide a way for us to inspire thinking and provide leadership in this sphere to a range of participants, whether they’re entrepreneurial start-ups or corporates considering how to grow and accelerate innovation within their own companies.”
She adds that AgTech can drastically change the sector as we know it. “We want to build a connected, globally competitive, efficient, inclusive agriculture sector through introducing technology and innovative solutions. AgTech goes beyond on-farm technology, robotics, IOT and sensing – it’s about looking at the sector holistically and bringing together pieces of the puzzle to solve the challenges of financial inclusion, water scarcity, connectivity, food security, increased population growth, the increasing demand for farmers to increase productivity and outputs to meet ever-growing consumption patterns, climate change, enabling smaller farmers access to markets and developing surrounding conditions to enable farmers, for example infrastructure.
This is the first year that ATS will be joining organisations such as the Human Sciences Research Council (HSRC), The Allan Gray Entrepreneurship Challenge, the Southern Africa Network for Biosciences, and Adams and Adams, amongst others, with the City of Cape Town, to support this much-needed platform for innovators, not only in South Africa, but across the continent.
For more information on the Summit, including the full programme, visit www.innovationsummit.co.za.
About ATS
ATS was established some 18 months ago by leading agribusiness AFGRI Group Holdings (AGH) to specifically focus on introducing innovation and technology across the agricultural value chain and bring AgTech solutions to its customers.
With services uniquely centred on the concepts of “grow”, “create”, “build”, “leap” and “unite”, ATS provides a host of offerings, including:
- Innovation and growth advisory services for farmers and businesses.
- The design and co-design of new technology-driven business models, digital products and services for the sector.
- The building and scaling of new technology driven businesses through co-creation and strategic innovation partnerships for Ag-specific innovation and digital activities.
ATS offers start-ups and entrepreneurs the ability to scale their enterprise and technology within our ecosystem.
Join their innovation ecosystem to connect with like-minded innovators, entrepreneurs and gain first access to game-changing technology solutions, and to talk to the ATS team about partnerships and strategic collaboration.
For more information on ATS, visit www.afgritechservices.com
About the SA Innovation Summit
The SA Innovation Summit, now in its 11th year, is an annual flagship event on the African Innovation calendar. It offers a platform for nurturing, developing and showcasing African innovation, as well as facilitating innovation thought-leadership. Created to support and promote innovation and facilitate collaboration within its own eco-system, the initiative brings together corporates, thought leaders, inventors, entrepreneurs, academia and policy makers to amplify South Africa’s renowned competitive edge and to inspire sustained economic growth across the continent of Africa.
The Summit aims to:
- Provide a platform where tech entrepreneurs and innovators can participate, grow their know-how and connections, and make their ideas come to life. With the rapid advent of the Industrial 4.0 Tech Revolution, the flexibility to integrate, and the speed to market will be critical.
- Collaborate with government, academia and industry to build an African system for innovation on a practical level.
- Provide curated networking with technology leaders and founders, trend specialists, policy makers and forward thinkers.
- Bring together innovation leaders from different countries, backgrounds, disciplines and world-views, to create an innovative economic environment that will prosper the South African economy and have a positive effect on our clients’ competitive edge.
- Encourage mutually beneficial deal-making between entrepreneurs and investors.
- Grow and accelerate organisational innovation culture.
- Facilitate the establishing of industry-leaders by presenting new market opportunities.
