PlantHive Goes to GreenTech – Amsterdam 2018
Last week, Yanni and I attended GreenTech – Amsterdam, the biggest international horticultural trade-show in Europe. There, we were present as members of the Association for Vertical Farming, which had a dedicated vertical farming pavilion, with a lovely espresso bar to welcome new members and set meet-ups across the industry.
This was a great networking opportunity since many established players were present along up-and coming start-up projects. During the three days trade-show, three round-table talks were held in the AVF café, where industry experts were discussing some very hot topics of the vertical farming industry.
Our very own Yanni Garcia (also operating as Operations Manager of the AVF) moderated the first round-table, which revolved around the future of medicinal plant-growing. I myself participated as one of the experts along with Henry Vangameren from PRIVA, Jérôme Doucet from Montel Inc., Whythe Marshall phd candidate from Harvard, and Sonny Ramaswamy, former director of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture (NIFA) of the United States.
The second round-table, concerning Artificial Intelligence and automation in horticulture, was moderated by Gus van der Feltz, former-CEO of Phillips City Farming, while the third-one, where data standardization in the vertical farming industry was discussed, was moderated by Tom Zoellner, vice-chair of the Board of the AVF.
One of our Smart Gardens also made the trip to the fair and found itself a neat little place on the AVF pavilion to enjoy the show!