At the beginning of May, the AgriFoRwArdS Cambridge team hosted their annual Industry Day. This useful and interesting event has become a fixture in the AgriFoRwArdS calendar, and each year attendees benefit from this relaxed, networking opportunity. On Friday May 2nd, the day commenced with an introductory talk from Fumiya Iida, who introduced the CDT, and celebrated the students who have successfully completed their PhD through the programme.
Fumiya advised of the importance of industry collaboration in terms of impact on society and translation of research.
Information was provided on the LINCAM and Agri-Tech Global opportunities available to the AgriFoRwArdS students, and the benefits of collaborating with an industry partner when submitting a proposal for either of these opportunities.
There are usually four calls for Expressions of Interest (EoI) per year. The EoI document is only a 1-page document. Support for developing a pitch, and mentoring to develop a business plan, are offered to successful students. For more information on LINCAM and Agri-Tech Global, please contact AgriFoRwArdS.cdt@lincoln.ac.uk.
Attendees then heard from three AgriFoRwArdS students, commencing with Haihui Yan who spoke about her project collaboration with Dyson.
Haihui advised that she personally benefited from the Dyson collaboration via farm visits; accessing colleague expertise; focusing on a real-world challenge; and benefiting from Dyson engineer feedback and mentorship.
Haihui said that ‘the CDT community and industry collaboration gives students a confidence that cannot be obtained from another route’ and ‘working together on one problem is more impactful, and has a positive impact on PhD students’. Haihui advised that working with Dyson validated her research whilst enabling her to increase her non-academic skills. The collaboration highlighted the impact potentials of the research and allowed Haihui to obtain information unavailable from other sources, via networking opportunities.
The second talk was led by Elijah Almanzor, who began by providing an overview of the AgriFoRwArdS programme.
AgriFoRwArdS focuses on a number of areas of robotics, which makes for an interesting community to belong to. The programme consists of site visits, incredibly useful conferences, academic and non-academic training skills, and industry days are all part of the CDT journey.
Elijah’s PhD was in collaboration with Jersey Farmers’ Union (JFU). Rising costs of labour, materials, and equipment is a challenge faced by many agricultural companies. At JFU, planting is still done manually, with 90% success rate. Elijah’s research addressed how this can be fully or partially automated. Potato-Bot was born to help tackle this real-world challenge.
Elijah advised that ‘the value of the JFU collaboration was the opportunity to test this in the real world and obtain feedback directly from the user’.
Elijah has submitted a successful bid for LINCAM funding. The aim of the project is to develop a Multi-Purpose Vehicle (MPV) at the Control Robotics Lab and create a spin-out, post-project.
Elijah said that engaging with the CERES Team, at Cambridge Enterprise, had helped his success with his LINCAM project, and provided him with access to knowledge of robotics and the general landscape of agriculture.
Lastly, we heard from Will Rohde, who has successfully achieved funding for two LINCAM projects. Will advised that, as an AgriFoRwArdS student, working with industry kept him focused on the real-world problem.
G’s Growers worked with Will on his PhD and on his first LINCAM project, which was a proof-of-concept study that followed directly on from Will’s PhD.
Will advised that industry collaboration encouraged him to stay on task; enabled accurate forecasts; allowed access for real time plant monitoring; and provided the opportunity to scale up.
LINCAM will help Will and G’s to keep going with the project following the PhD, thus expanding the work completed to date.
The second half of the event comprised of a Discussion Panel with the industry partners who were present.
Conversations included:
* The business benefits of working with PhD researchers on a specific challenge
* Barriers of adopting research findings/solutions into a business
* What skills do employers look for in graduates
* Benefits of collaborating on a LINCAM or Agri-Tech Global bid
Lastly, there was an opportunity for networking and individual conversations, whilst other AgriFoRwArdS students led on poster presentations highlighting the focus and intended impacts of their PhD research.
Please follow these links for more information on the research conducted by Haihui Yan, Elijah Almanzor, and Will Rohde.
Please see here for more information on LINCAM and Agri-Tech Global.
Thank you to the following industry contributors:
* Richard Meredith from Dyson
* Juan Antonio Martinez Leon from G’s
* Kerry Whiteside from Samworth Brothers
* Samantha Grant from Defra
* James Drummond from MathWorks
* Catherine Eyre from CERES