Future Agro Challenge – Global Event hosted by Startup Tablelands in 2016 and 2017
The Future Agro Challenge (FAC) is a worldwide competition recognising innovative, commercially viable food and agribusiness start-ups that address national, regional and global challenges.
Vision: “Future Agro Challenge” – Revolutionizing the World’s Menu”
At the Australian FAC (Future Agro Challenge) you will be the first to hear all about the latest innovations in food, agtech and agriculture as visionaries from all over Australia, face-off live, on a national stage, to compete for the honour of representing their country at the Global Future Agro Challenge. Make connections and build relationships with like-minded startups, industry leaders, investors, and national media. Soak up the vibrant energy of this one-of-a-kind event.
The current problems in our world today are almost too many to list: food security is coming under attack, rural and urban poverty and inequality is at an all-time high and the environment is quickly buckling under the weight of the human footprint. The Startup Tablelands FAC team is dedicated to solving these on-going problems by bringing the important players together to create a much-needed positive change in the world. We are an independent grassroot organisation run by entrepreneurs that aims to make a global impact by bringing together agro innovators, entrepreneurs, farmers, investors and stakeholders to address national policies and challenges.
There isn’t one single solution to the myriad of complex global challenges we face — like feeding the estimated growing population of 9 billion people by 2050. While disruptive solutions are being created across regions, individuals and visionaries often feel overwhelmed by the complexities involved in integrating with the agricultural ecosystem. We’re here to untangle those complexities. We believe discovering solutions to global challenges doesn’t have to be complicated. Our goal is to foster a community of agro visionaries, startups, farmers, manufacturers, and distributors from countries across the world so they can start a global conversation.
We bring these stakeholders together in their shared interest to learn from each other, grow with each other and develop solutions together to solve problems and bring about positive change. A new agricultural revolution is underway, new technological solutions are coming to the forefront. With these come new opportunities for the workforce. To give some perspective: the Agriculture industry employs over 1.3 billion people throughout the world — close to 40 percent of the global workforce. In more than 50 countries across the world, half of the population works in Agriculture — in some poorer nations that percentage rises to 75%.
The Agriculture industry is the world’s largest provider of jobs and, in many countries is the largest provider of jobs to women. This is a giant industry that bears so much of the weight of the world’s struggles. It is constantly growing and changing and proving to be fertile ground for opportunity, efficiency and innovative change.
Hosting and organising of the first ever Australian leg of the international Future Agro Challenge (FAC) in 2016 was our first international sortie. FAC is an important international agricultural innovation event. ST was the first Australian host, and thanks to QSEAF funding, we expanded our offering for 2017 and created a platform for continuing the event for 2018.
The Australian Future Agro Challenge is timed to coincide with Global Entrepreneurs Week and the Tropical North QLD Innovation Awards, outside peak tourism with the hope to promote agritourism and ag innovation in Far North Queensland at this time.
Future Agro Challenge Australia Event Summary 2017
Networking evening hosted at Natural Evolution premises
Event hosted at Mt Uncle Distillery
Partners:
A big win for our 2017 event was to have the support of Sam Tretheway from SproutX (founder and CEO of Australia’s leading agtech accelerator) who flew up for FAC to be a judge and special guest speaker.
Kay Strong – Regional Manager in Northern Queensland for AusIndustry (Judge)
Andrew Powrie – Senior Advisor Economic Development at Tablelands Regional Council (Judge)
Steve Tiley – North Queensland’s horticulture industry innovation coach (Judge)
Cameron Johns – Impact Innovation (Judge) – listen to the podcast for Cameron’s wrap up of the event
Troy Haines – theSPACE Cairns (mentor, driver and MC for the event)
