Moderators: Steven Wolf, Associate Professor, Natural Resources and the Environment, Cornell University and Tapan Parikh, Associate Professor, Information Science, Cornell Tech, Cornell University

Guest Speakers: Pete Nelson, Executive Director, AgLaunch; Sarah Sippel, University of Munster, Germany; Wilson Hago, CEO, Hago Energetics; Quentin Sannié, Founder, Genesis Soil Health

The agrifood innovation landscape is rapidly evolving, and a host of new actors are diversifying a space traditionally dominated by government agencies, public universities, and established agribusiness firms. Intermediary actors, technology incubators and accelerators, have arisen in this context to fill a gap in the innovation ecosystem. Our panel aims to explore innovation intermediaries’ potential to advance agrifood sustainability. Specific attention will focus on how social impact is specified and assessed and how these assessments connect to resource allocation decision making.

Thought for food...

Our global agriculture and food systems require a radical transformation relying on expertise in multiple areas and research collaborations across disciplines that include agriculture, food safety, engineering, information and computer science, biology, business and the social sciences.

More than 100 faculty from across Cornell’s colleges – Agriculture and Life Sciences, Engineering, Computing and Information Science, Arts and Sciences, Veterinary Medicine and Business – have come together to develop a robust research agenda for CIDA, weaving unmatched excellence into holistic solutions for food and agriculture. CIDA’s mission is to inspire learning, catalyze innovation, and integrate fundamental discoveries to achieve new levels of sustainability in agri-food systems and new food for thought.