Conference Overview
The Center for Digital Agriculture will be hosting our annual conference on March 8, 2023, at the National Center for Supercomputing Applications at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. There will be a hybrid option, but in-person attendance is highly encouraged. The theme of this year’s conference will be: How Can Digital Agriculture Help Moderate the Impacts of Climate Change? The conference will bring together an interdisciplinary group of researchers from the areas of automation, data, animals, crops, and people in agriculture. The event will allow local and national Ag Tech leaders, researchers, and government officials to address this critical question.
Agenda
| 8:00 – 8:30 am | Breakfast – NCSA Atrium |
| 8:30 – 8:50 am | Welcome and CDA Overview – CDA Co-directors, Dr. Matt Hudson [slides] and Dr. Vikram Adve [slides] [recording] |
| 8:50 – 9:00 am | Masters in Engineering in Digital Agriculture Overview – Dr. Christina Tucker, Director of Education, CDA [slides] [recording] |
| 9:00 – 9:30 am | Climate Change Mitigation: A Really Wicked Problem CDA is Ideally Positioned to Address, Dr. Kelvin Droegemeier, Regent Professor of Meteorology, University of Oklahoma [slides] [recording] |
| 9:30 – 9:45 am | Mechanisms for Incentivizing Cover Crop Adoption and Implications for Soil Carbon Sequestration, Dr. Madhu Khanna, Director of iSEE; Professor, ACES Distinguished Professor in Environmental Economics [slides] [recording] |
| 9:45 – 10:00 am | Mitigating and Adapting Climate Change in the US Midwest: A Critical Role of Tile Drainage Dr. Kaiyu Guan, Blue Waters Associate Professor, NRES, & Founding Director, Agroecosystem Sustainability Center |
| 10:00 – 10:30 am | Using Satellites to Advance Climate-smart Agriculture, Dr. David Lobell, Gloria and Richard Kushel Director of the Center on Food Security and the Environment; Professor, Earth System Science, Stanford University [slides] [recording] |
| 10:30 – 10:50 am | Break – NCSA Atrium |
| 10:50 – 11:10 am | Is GeoAI the Crystal Ball to Understanding the Plant World and Moderating the Impacts of Climate Change? Dr. Vasit Sagan, Interim Director, Taylor Geospatial Institute and St. Louis University [slides] [recording] |
| 11:10 am – 12:10 pm | How Can Digital Agriculture Help Moderate the Impacts of Climate Change? Panel part 1 [recording] Panelists: Dr. Kelvin Droegemeier, Regent Professor of Meteorology, University of Oklahoma Dr. Brenda Wilson, Professor of Microbiology, University of Illinois Dr. Vasit Sagan, Interim Director, Taylor Geospatial Institute and St. Louis University Dr. Daniel Jacobson, Chief Scientist for Computational Systems Biology, ORNL Moderator – Dr. Bruno Basso, Foundation Professor, Michigan State University |
| 12:10 – 1:10 pm | Lunch – NCSA Atrium |
| 1:10 – 1:30 pm | How Supercomputing, AI, and Large-Scale Systems Biology Can Help Agriculture in the Face of a Changing Climate, Dr. Daniel Jacobson, Chief Scientist for Computational Systems Biology, Oak Ridge National Laboratory [slides] [recording] |
| 1:30 – 2:00 pm | Pathways to Carbon Negative crop Production with Digital Agriculture – Dr. Bruno Basso, Foundation Professor, Michigan State University [slides] [recording] |
| 2:00 – 3:00 pm | CDA Focus Areas: Autonomous Farming: Dr. Girsh Chowdhary, Associate Professor, ABE & Computer Science, University of Illinois [slides] [recording] Rural Networking: Dr. Deepak Vasisht, Assistant Professor, Computer Science, University of Illinois [slides] [recording] Livestock Management: Dr. Angela Green-Miller, Associate Professor, ABE, University of Illinois [slides] [recording] Food System Security: Dr. Yanfeng Ouyang, Professor, Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois [slides] [recording] |
| 3:00 – 3:20 pm | Break – NCSA Atrium |
| 3:20 – 3:40 pm | Unlocking Precision Farming through 5G-enabled Digital Twins Robert Belson, Developer Advocate, AWS Edge Computing, Amazon Web Services Zhenjun Zhu, Lead – 5G Customer Innovation Hub, Verizon |
| 3:40 – 4:00 pm | Can Digital Agriculture Save the Planet and Create a New Category of Business? – Dr. Chris Harbourt, Chief Strategy Officer, IndigoAg [slides] [recording] |
| 4:00 – 5:00 pm | How Can Digital Agriculture Help Moderate the Impacts of Climate Change? Panel part 2 [recording] Panelists: Dr. Chris Harbourt, Chief Strategy Officer, IndigoAg Dr. Cristina Dalle Ore, Head of Remote Sensing and Geospatial Intelligence, Bayer Jack Marck, gener8tor; Managing Director Mark Moran, Head, John Deere Technology Innovation Center and Lead, Advanced Sensing for John Deere Moderator: Dr. John Reid, Research Professor, ABE & Computer Science, University of Illinois |
| 5:00 pm | Closing remarks |
| 5:15 – 7:15pm | Networking reception at Barrelhouse34 (34 E Main St, Champaign, IL 61820) |
TRAVEL/LODGING INFO
Champaign-Urbana has many hotels near the University of Illinois campus. A list of nearby hotels can be found here.
Where should I park for the conference?
Metered parking is available near the NCSA building on Clark Street, in the parking garage just north of NCSA, and on other surrounding streets. Pay for metered parking in the parking structure by either using the MobileMeter app on your smart phone, the web at mobilemeter.us, or by phone at 1-217-207-3033. You will need to provide the zone code of 4801 along with the space number indicated on the meter. For more information, go to mobilemeter.us.