Where: Skybury Cafe 136 Ivicevic Rd, Paddys Green, Mareeba, 4880
When: Sat 2nd Nov, 1.30 – 8.30 pm
Tickets: Buy tickets on Eventbrite
The Australian Future Agro Challenge, now in its fourth year, is the Australian arm of the largest global initiative to discover fundable food, agtech and agriculture innovators from around the world.
Six agriculture entrepreneurs from across Australia will present their innovative ideas in an exciting pitch competition on Saturday afternoon, 2nd of November at Skybury’s stunning venue outside of Mareeba, as they compete to represent Australia for the title of Global Agripreneur of the Year.
We also have a fantastic lineup of speakers throughout the afternoon including Guest Speaker: KPMG’s national Head of AgriTech – Ben van Delden; Rachel Cliffe, Regional General Manager Northern Queensland, Telstra; and Australia’s representative at last year’s Global FAC, Jess Fealy.
After a networking session, where you can mix with our judges, sponsors, organisers and finalists, we will all gather to hear from our Guest Speaker: KPMG’s national Head of AgriTech – Ben van Delden who is one of Australia’s leaders in researching and understanding agriculture trends.
Coming from a family business background in aquaculture, livestock and horticulture, Ben has a passion for the agribusiness sector. He has experience at every level of farm and food innovation – developing regional plans to increase farm output, working with the agriculture industry through groups like the Meat & Livestock Association and grower groups to identify solutions for farmers, and being involved with agtech incubators and startups to assess market opportunities and accelerate commercialisation.
Dinner will follow Ben’s presentation and then the winner of AusFAC 2019 will be announced! This is going to be a huge weekend of amazing agtech, innovation and discussion around the future of food and farming – we can’t wait to see you there!
Our simply wonderful sponsors: AusIndustry, Telstra, Tablelands Regional Council, FIAL, Elders Malanda, Growcom, Rotary Atherton, Mareeba Shire Council, Farm Doctors, Startup Tablelands and Boldacious Digital. Please do not hesitate to support them in the future.
AusFAC Dinner speaker – Ben van Delden:
- AusFAC Winner announced!
- Held on-farm at Skybury Coffee, with dinner and a complimentary drink included
- Guest speaker Ben van Delden – KPMG Melbourne Partner and Head of AgriTech division
- Ben will discuss the opportunities of agtech for farmers
- He will also speak to his findings from touring countries leading in agriculture productivity such as the Netherlands – which is 185 times smaller than Australia, yet produce three times more value in agriculture exports. Ben has toured and studied why this is the case and will speak about what Australian farmers can learn from the Netherlands
- Ben has a history of identifying and assessing market and investment opportunities, commercial insights and analysis to accelerate commercialisation of research and adoption of agtech and food tech
- He has a special interest in the fields of technology and of circular economies, using both to optimise value from waste in business operations
- Ben works in agriculture across accelerators, government, research, VC, corporates and startups to identify and assess market and investment opportunities, to bring commercial insights and analysis and accelerate commercialisation of research and technology.
- Ben is leading engagements for Agriculture Victoria in the fields of AgTech and Internet of Things, and works with several of Australia’s Rural Research & Development Corporations and global agribusinesses.
- He designed and led the KPMG AgriFood Traction Tours to the Netherlands to help connect agrifood leaders in both nations to advance developments in agrifood technology and circularity opportunities.
- Ben co-leads KPMG’s involvement and investment in the project to develop the Agtech Finder platform that will connect Australian growers and producers with agtech solutions fit for their needs.
- He is the client lead partner for Meat & Livestock Australia, Horticulture Innovation and Cottons RDC.
- Ben is a Non-Executive Director on the newly established $210m Food Agility CRC Ltd, that aims to transform and digitalise the food production systems and drive new value and business models for the Australian food and agriculture sector.
- Ben led the project to set the aspirational growth target for the Gippsland region‘s $7bn food and fibre sector and industry engagement program that identified six core enabling growth platforms for the region, culminating in the paper Accelerating growth for the Gippsland food and fibre industry.
- He led the project to develop the DigitalAg pilot program – providing IoT and AgTech solutions to up to 600 farmers in the Diary, Horticulture, Cropping and Sheep sectors
