#AGis Town Hall - Opening Remarks

Okay, I think we're going to get started. I know people are going to be coming in throughout the afternoon. My name is Ted Wells and welcome to a live event online for the Ag is Town Hall. That is a hashtag in our now it is common vernacular of social media and what the purpose of this event, which is hosted by the STEM Food and Ag Council, is to raise the profile of careers in food and agriculture. STEM careers in food and agriculture for students everywhere and to help broaden interest in careers in this exciting field. I know those of you who are eating lunch, we had some of the fruits of science and technology, engineering and math with some of the products we have. But we also know that agriculture is critical in order to sustainably feed the world and science is as well. So today we have organized an event that will be memorialized on our website in sort of power talk format and we've got five terrific speakers and we also have a message from another speaker as well as some folks who you'll hear from who are very passionate about the issue. So please this afternoon engage in this discussion using the Ag is right up there hashtag and feel free to. It is a verb or it's actually a sentence. Ag is feel free to fill in the afterwards and tell how ag is different than maybe people had perceived it. I'm going to ask our co chairs of the STEM Food and Ag Council to come up and kick us off today. And then actually I guess I'm going to have our CEO of STEM Connector then is going to turn it over to our co chairs. So I'm going to ask my boss, Edie Fraser, who leads STEM Connector and also million women mentors to come up and say a few words.

Edie, thanks.

Careful on that.

Ag is what? Right? Ag is just essential to our future and we truly salute the Food and Ag Council. And to Kevin O' Sullivan for what you arrived at PepsiCo and for Crispin Taylor, what you're doing with plant biologists and Monsanto and ADM and the other members collectively. What we know is that we have 5 million STEM jobs open in the United States right now and that food nag needs its share. Because what we're doing in the Food Nourish and Thrive website is not only promoting that youth want to really build a future where they feel so socially responsible can do something that will make a difference in the world. Right? Everybody agrees with that. Coupled with a great career in food and ag, coupled with an ability to really be engaged in making a difference, whether it's R and D or technology. And when we look at the executive vice president Monsanto, Rob Fraley who's coming up, how interesting that science all and R and D reports to him, but that he also has the role now of Chief Technology Officer because as we say digital fluency technology is truly the impact that we need. The skill sets that we need to excite, engage and make sure we've got those job ready skills. We're really fortunate to kick this off on the day that we're kicking off our Global STEM Talent Summit initiative. And what you've got is some of those leaders with you today. So just like to shout out for three of the people that came to honor the food and ag effort of Feed Nourish and Thrive and the website relaunch. And that's Heidi Kleinbach Seider from PepsiCo, Senior Vice President of R and D that runs our Global STEM Talent initiative. And secondly is like to say to Michael Norris, helped to come up from General Mills, et cetera, then ran Sodexo and was doing food services US and worldwide and is a senior advisor. And the other is Rob Denson who chairs our Higher Education council from the great state of Iowa and makes certain that we are truly pushing as he's got a food program which involves chefs and others food gosh. The most exciting things that not only is Rob is pushing, but, but to see FIU Mike with you here today as you're really pushing innovation in food production, technology, freshness, et cetera. We're so pleased that you're here from the fiu. So as we look at the collective family of us pushing the envelope, pushing disruption, we must turn to the students and make certain that you are the leaders that are pushing us into these great careers, solid careers, great paying jobs and know you're gonna impact the solution of feeding nearly 10 billion around the world. So to Ted and to Brian, we want to basically say thank you. Tommy Cornelis runs our social media. But to the Food and Ag Council, how important this launch of this site is, how important the students are, the companies and our universities as collectively we work together to make sure you got the greatest careers which this Food and Ag Council argues Food and Ag is number one. Get on board. Thank you.

Hey, good afternoon everybody. Hey. This is a really exciting event. I think anytime that you can have a dialogue between the existing generation of professional STEM professionals in food and ag and the next generation of professionals is really exciting. I think what you're going to hear with our distinguished presenters this afternoon is that AG is purposeful as edie mentioned, by 2050, we need to feed sustainably over 9.5 billion people, almost 10 billion people. And I mean, it doesn't get much more meaningful than that, doesn't it? In terms of being part of that? We need to sustainably feed them. We need to be very aware of the impact that ag and food production has on the environment. And it's a very exciting time. And as a result, people think about ag and they think farms and seeds and tractors, and there's a little bit of a stigma attached with food and ag, but in actual fact, food and ag is on the cutting edge of technology. Instead of thinking about seeds and farms and tractors, you need to think about robots and drones and digital innovation and data sciences and plant biology, et cetera. And it's a very exciting area to get into. So I'm really excited for this event to have the dialogue between the current generation and the future generation. And I'm pretty sure and confident that what you'll get from this is ag is exciting. Ag is very purposeful and meaningful. You can have a very fulfilling career. It pays well, it's at the cutting edge of technology, and it's definitely a huge opportunity to have this dialogue and really consider a STEM career in food and ag. Thank you, Kevin. Yeah, I don't know that I have that much more to add to that, except that as Edie elaborated, the Food and Ag Council is part of a larger set of entities under the STEM Connector banner. And I think uniquely, not only within the STEM Connector context, but generally we represent this entire vertical, from fundamental discovery science through the farm field to the table with companies like PepsiCo and other global brands that are part of the conglomeration here. And it really is a tremendously exciting time. As Kevin said, we are in a domain where it isn't just about soil and farm forums. It's about a whole set of technology, computer science, data science, and everything else as well. So with the collaboration among the STEM Connector entities, the Higher Ed Council, the Innovation Task Force, we're beginning. We collectively, in the Food and Ag Council, are beginning to explore and experiment with new paradigms and new approaches to training that are exemplified and theorized by some of our partners in the other parts of the the STEM Connector, but that we in the food and ag space are really beginning to implement in the real world. So it is indeed an exciting time. I hope you'll bring your questions to the speakers, and thank you very much for being here.