Speakers and Program

Keynote Speakers

harold schmitz.jpg — Harold H. Schmitz

*Chief Science Officer, Mars, Inc.*
A 20-year veteran at Mars, Visiting Professor Harold Schmitz has been chief science officer since 2005. His responsibilities include strategy development, program alignment and quality control of the company’s multidisciplinary scientific research programs. He has previously held various positions within Mars in scientific and regulatory affairs, fundamental research, analytical and applied sciences and corporate functions.

André Laperrière

*Executive Director, Secretariat for GODAN--Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition*
With an extensive background in data-driven strategy related to agriculture, policy, international economic development, Mr. Laperrière leads the Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition initiative that seeks to support global efforts to make agricultural and nutritionally relevant data available, accessible, and usable for unrestricted use worldwide to solve long-standing global problems related to food.

Daphne Miller.jpg — Daphne Miller

*Family Physician and Author, WholeFamilyMD*
Practicing family physician, Clinical Professor at UCSF and Lecturer at UC Berkeley, Daphne Miller’s research and writing bridges health care and food production. Her most recent book Farmacology: Total Health from the Ground Up focuses on the connections between soil health and human health. Her work aims to reduce the health footprint of our current food system.

November 6

What is the internet of food (IoF) and why do we need it?

8:00 - 8:45 AM

Registration & Breakfast

8:45 - 9:00 AM

Welcome

Matthew Lange

*Founder, IC-FOODS*
Dr. Lange is well versed in food, biological, and health sciences as well as cutting edge food, beverage, information and education technologies. He guides teams toward design, build, and implementation of knowledge environs enabling end-users to make new and insightful discoveries, create new products, and improve human living conditions.

9:00 - 9:30 am

Keynote

Harold H. Schmitz

*Chief Science Officer, Mars, Inc.*
A 20-year veteran at Mars, Visiting Professor Harold Schmitz has been chief science officer since 2005. His responsibilities include strategy development, program alignment and quality control of the company’s multidisciplinary scientific research programs. He has previously held various positions within Mars in scientific and regulatory affairs, fundamental research, analytical and applied sciences and corporate functions.

9:30 - 10:30 AM

Session 1: the LANGUAGE of food

How might our everyday language about food become computable ? Can we enable increased transparency, traceability, trust--and effect positive behavior change?

louis grivetti.jpg — Louis Grivetti
(moderator)

*Professor of Nutrition, UC Davis*
Professor Grivetti’s research focuses on how, why, and under what conditions human diets change, the mechanisms of change, and the nutritional implications of human behavior.

Karen Watson

*Strategic Communications Consultant*
As former SVP and Chief Communications Officer for Nielsen, Karen knows how to create demand for health and create desire for change in individuals and populations.

june jo lee.jpg — June Jo Lee

*Food Enthnographer LLC*
June Jo Lee is a food ethnographer and food culture strategist providing strategic consumer insights to large companies. She is also the Co-founder of Readers to Eaters, a children’s book publisher promoting food literacy through good stories and a deep appreciation of food cultures.

leticia landa - la cocina.jpg — Leticia Landa

*Deputy Director, La Cocina*
Leticia Landa is passionate about empowering low-income, mostly immigrant entrepreneurs as they begin and grow small food businesses.

10:30 - 11:00 AM

Break

11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

Session 2: EDUCATION

What are the greatest challenges shared by our food and education system?

Gabriel Youtsey (moderator)

*Chief Innovation Officer, University of California, Agriculture and Natural Resources*
Gabriel is a business and technology leader focused on transformative innovation at the intersection of food, agriculture, environmental sustainability and technology.

helene dillard.jpg — Helene Dillard

*Dean, College of Agricultural and Environmental Sciences at UC Davis*
Helene is an accomplished scientist and plant disease expert leading the nation's foremost College of Ag in solving problems related to agriculture, the environment, and the human condition.

Glenda Humiston.jpg — Glenda Humiston

*Vice President, Agriculture & Natural Resources at University of California*
Ms. Humiston brings over 30 years of experience working with and advocating for sustainable agriculture.

Christine Geith.jpg — Christine Geith, PhD

*CEO at eXtension*
Christine Geith specializes in creating business models for online and blended learning and learning experience design and production.

12:00 - 12:15 PM

Innovation Showcase: extension / eduworks

12:15 - 1:15 PM

Jeffersonian Lunch

Let's gather with a purpose and create transformative connections over a Jeffersonian-style lunch whose goal is to build community and exchange ideas.

Douglas Gayeton

*Chief Meliorist, Lexicon of Sustainability*
Lexicon of Sustainability project reinvigorates the climate conversation by providing people with a powerful set of tools that explain the interconnectedness between food, water and energy, and show that by changing these systems (and our use of these resources) we can reverse climate change.

1:15 - 2:15 PM

Session 3: Law

How can the semantic web of food data affect and inform food policy?

eugene sisman.png — Eugene Sisman (moderator)

*Intellect Property Officer, UC Davis*
Eugene Sisman is an Intellectual Property Officer with UCD Innovation Access, the technology transfer office for the UCD campus, where he manages inventions mostly in the areas of food and ag. He is an attorney and, prior to coming to UCD, has worked in one capacity or another in pharmaceuticals, cancer research, stem cell therapies, and cardiology, among others.

Allison Korn.jpg — Allison Korn

*Assistant Dean for Experiential Education, University of California, Los Angeles - School of Law*
Allison's teaching and scholarship focus on law, policy, and practices that impact vulnerable individuals’ and communities’ access to justice.

Allison Hagey

*Attorney,* *BraunHagey & Borden LLP*
Allison Hagey is an executive with extensive track record in developing and executing large-scale projects in the food and agriculture industries. She is a nationally-recognized leader, key note speaker, advocate, and author on food, agriculture, health policy, and equity.

Margot Pollans.jpg — Margot Pollans

*Faculty Director, Pace-NRDC Food Law Initiative*
Margot is the Founder and Director of the Pace-NRDC Food Law Initiative, which seeks to expand access to legal services for farmers, food entrpreneurs, and food justice NGOs. Her research focuses on environmental regulation of food production and food systems reform.

2:15 - 2:30 PM

Break

2:30 - 3:45 PM

Session 4: global STANDARDS

In what ways might the Internet of Food help align international food and agriculture standards?

christine kirkpatrick.jpg — Christine Kirkpatrick (moderator)

*Executive Director, National Data Service, NSF*
Christine builds global scale cyber and social infrastructures for finding, reusing, and publishing data.

caterina caracciolo.jpg — Caterina Caracciolo, PhD

*UN FAO*
Caterina oversees global classification systems, ontologies, and data about environment, agriculture and biodiversity.

valeria pesce.jpg — Valeria Pesce

*Global Forum on Agricultural Research (GFAR)*
Valeria oversees the Global Map of Data Standards about open data and ontologies for GODAN and the FAO

Suzanna Lewis

*Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL)*
Suzi develops international infrastructures used by governments and corporations for collection, analysis, visualization and interpretation of genetic knowledge.

3:45 - 4:00 PM

Innovation Showcase: AgVoice

Bruce Rasa

*AgVoice*
AgVoice is a mobile voice-interaction service designed for food and agriculture professionals to capture insights on the go.

4:00 - 5:00 PM

Session 5: interrogating food molecules

How can an Internet of Food enable scientists to share information about food composition? How can we use this information to drive development of new technologies capable of assessing food quality on-site and in real-time?

michael wolf.png — Michael Wolf (moderater)

*Founder, Smart Kitchen Summit*
Michael brings the people from the worlds of food, appliances, retail, and tech together to have a conversation about the future.

Shireen Yates

*CEO and Co-Founder, Nima*
Shireen Yates empowers people to make healthy food choices that are right for them by combining food and technology. At Nima, she is developing products and networks to enable people with food allergies to trust their food.

Anita Oberholster.jpg — Anita Oberholster

*Extension Specialist in Enology, UC Davis*
Anita Oberholster specializes in wine chemistry and the effect of sustainable growing practices and environmental factors. She also focuses on winemaking techniques and has assigned language to molecules, thinking specifically about the mouthfeel wheel.

Daniela Barile.jpg — Daniela Barile

*Associate Professor, UC Davis*
Daniela Barile’s research focuses on functional glycomics, particularly in combining an understanding of the chemical and biological properties of food components with analytics and engineering to characterize, bioseparate and biointegrate bioactive compounds in foods.

5:00 - 5:15 PM

Innovation showcase: Jaiswal Lab

Pankaj Jaiswal.jpg — Pankaj Jaiswal

*Jaiswal Lab*
Jaiswal Lab captures agricultural data using sensors to provide mechanistic insights into plant development and adaptation in the face of global climate change.

5:15 - 5:45 PM

Break

5:45 - 7:30 PM

Wine Tasting

We rely on our senses to categorize aspects of our food, such as flavors. How might we use our senses to experience food in a different way? Come join us for a one-of-a-kind sensory evening designed specifically for this conference. This interactive, educational, and entertaining evening will engage your senses. In this tasting, participants will truly be able to let their guard down and learn about aromas, wine, and how wine is so much more than the social beverage we sip at parties or at dinner. This wine tasting is supported by Givaudan.

hoby wedler.jpg — Henry "Hoby" Wedler, PhD

*Co-Founder, Sensepoint Design*
Hoby Wedler specializes in sensory design and sensory education to shape the impact of products, culture, and ideation.

November 7

What parts of the IoF already exist and who has built it?

8:00 - 8:30 AM

Registration & Breakfast

8:30 - 8:45 am

Welcome

Tom Tomich

*Professor and Director, UC Davis*
Tom Tomich has broad interests and experience in agriculture, including agroforestry and other farming systems; economic development strategy and policy; hunger and food policy; and natural resource management (trees, forests, land, water, air).

8:45 - 9:15 AM

Keynote

Andre Laperriere.jpg — André Laperrière

*Executive Director, Secretariat for GODAN--Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition*
With an extensive background in data-driven strategy related to agriculture, policy, international economic development, Mr. Laperrière leads the Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition initiative that seeks to support global efforts to make agricultural and nutritionally relevant data available, accessible, and usable for unrestricted use worldwide to solve long-standing global problems related to food.

9:15 - 10:15 AM

Session 6: Tools for Building the Internet of Food

What are the tools available to build the Internet of Food?

Matthew Lange, PhD (moderator)

*Founder, IC-FOODS*
Dr. Lange is well versed in food, biological, and health sciences as well as cutting edge food, beverage, information and education technologies. He guides teams toward design, build, and implementation of knowledge environs enabling end-users to make new and insightful discoveries, create new products, and improve human living conditions.

Medha Devare

*Senior Research Fellow & Module Lead, CGIAR Big Data for Agriculture Platform*
Medha is deeply involved in agricultural research, bioinformatics, data and knowledge management, and ontology development and semantic web technology. Currently leading CGIAR's Big Data Platform for Agriculture project work.

Gabe Youtsey.jpg — Gabriel Youtsey

*Chief Innovation Officer, University of California, Agriculture and Natural Resources*
Gabriel is a business and technology leader focused on transformative innovation at the intersection of food, agriculture, environmental sustainability and technology.

clement jonquet.jpg — Clement Jonquet

*Assistant Professor, University of Montpellier*
Clement Jonquet's research focuses on ontologies, ontology repositories, ontology metadata, semantic data indexing and annotation, semantic Web, text mining, knowledge representation.

Chris Mungall

*Scientist, Lawrence Berkeley Labs*
Chris Mungall specializes in bioinformatics, genomics, and ontologies. His contribution to the Gene Ontology consortium is impressive and has produced invaluable resources to the biomedical ontology community.

10:15 - 10:30 AM

Innovation showcase: Passio

Fabrizio Milo

*Passio*
Passio uses Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning to create tools for tracking and analyzing foods, and for personalized nutrition, health and performance advice.

10:30 - 11:00 AM

Break

11:00 AM - 12:00 PM

Session 7: BLOCKCHAIN FOR FOOD

Blockchain technology can lend its distributed and secure features towards increased trust, transparency, and collaboration in our food system.

alexa beaver.jpg — Alexa Beaver (moderator)

*Digital Innovation Manager, BASF*
Alexa is passionate about the use of data, technology, and market-based solutions to catalyze positive environmental and social impact. A chemical engineer by training, her diverse experience spans everything from evaluating sustainable biofuel feedstocks in Argentina to spearheading market development at a blockchain startup.

Marco Vitale.jpg — Marco Vitale

*CEO, FoodChain*
Marco Vitale is the CEO of FoodChain, a startup that offers blockchain services to agribusinesses for end to end supply chain traceability, certified quality and transparency.

gurvinder ahluwalia.jpg — Gurvinder Ahluwalia

*CEO, Digital Twin Labs LLC*
Former Field CTO for Blockchain-Cloud-IoT-Cognitive at IBM, Gurvinder now participates in forming new ventures in blockchain, digital tokens, and cryptocurrencies, knitted with IoT, cloud, machine Learning, and artificial intelligence.

raja ramachandran.jpg — Raja Ramachandran

*CEO, Ripe.io*
ripe.io is a blockchain for food implementation leveraging connected technologies such as IOT, cloud, algorithms, machine learning and blockchains to help solve large, global problems around food.

alex voto.jpg — Alex Voto

*West Coast Regional Director, ConsenSys*
Alex Voto has actively engaged experts and practitioners in the blockchain technology ecosystem, applying foresight and design thinking to anticipate long-term social, economic, and political impact areas. His focus lies at the intersection of economic design, peer-to-peer technology, and social change.

12:00 - 12:15 PM

Innovation Showcase: Ripe.io

12:15 - 1:15 PM

Lunch & Consortium meeting

1:15 - 2:15 PM

Session 8: FLAVOR

What will it take to build computable models of flavor? Can we digitize and reproduce taste and flavor?

Scott May.jpg — **Scott May (moderator)**

*VP Global Innovation at Givaudan*
Scott leads innovation at the world's largest flavor and fragrance company exploring new opportunities, making innovation a way of life for corporate success.

peter klosse.jpg — Peter Klosse

*Founder, Academie voor Gastronomie*
Peter developed a widely adopted theory on flavor classification and wine and food pairing.

jonathan p wellio.jpg — Johnathan Pagnutti

*Wellio*
Jonathan builds models of taste and flavor for AI systems to enable recipe recommendation and generation systems that can reason over how food actually tastes.

jason cohen.png — Jason Cohen

*Founder & CEO, Analytical Flavor Systems*
Jason Cohen's company, Analytical Flavor Systems, helps producers in the food & beverage industry make data-based decisions beginning with taste alone. He combines using sensory science, analytical chemistry, and data mining to aid in product development.

2:15 - 2:30 PM

Innovation Showcase: Wellio

tjarko leifer.jpg — Tjarko Leifer

*Wellio*
Wellio uses the latest artificial intelligence technologies and machine learning algorithms to provide evidence based personalized food and diet recommendations.

2:30 - 3:45 PM

Session 9: Personalized food

How might we leverage the semantic web of food to demystify and simplify personalized diets?

Michale Rose.jpg — Michael Rose (moderator)

*Partner, Better Food Ventures*
Michael Rose has extensive experience working with data systems and analytics. he currently works with companies that harness the power of internet and communications technologies to improve the food and agriculture sectors.

Victor Penev

CEO, Edamam LLC

Victor Penev is a serial entrepreneur with a deep understasnding of ecommerce and the digital world.

Kevin brown.jpg — Kevin Brown

*CEO and Co-Founder, Innit*
Kevin is an accomplished entrepreneur and executive, with experience in the networking, storage, cloud and security sectors. He is the CEO and Co-founder of Innit, a platform that combines personalized culinary and nutritional science with cutting edge IT to power the emerging Connected Food ecosystem.

Fabrizio Milo

*CTO, PassioLife*
Fabrizio Milo is the CTO of Passio, an artificial intelligence startup creating enterprise tools for food tracking and virtual nutrition advice. Fabrizio is interested in leveraging deep learning, big data and distributed computing to digitalize nutrition and discover algorithms that allow individuals to select nutrition perfectly tailored to their needs.

3:45 - 4:00 PM

Innovation Showcase: Innit

4:00 - 4:15 PM

Break

4:15 - 5:15 PM

Session 10: Food Waste

How might the Internet of Food curb food waste?

Ned Spang (moderator)

*Center for Water-Energy Efficiency, UC Davis*
Ned specializes in environmental policy, clean energy, water resource management, development economics,
sustainable development, desalination and water reuse.

Kristen Rainey.png — Kristen Rainey

*Global Food Program, Google*
Kristen Rainey leads corporate sustainability strategies to reduce food waste, water, and energy in kitchens, with a focus on food waste.

Dana Gunders.jpg — Dana Gunders

*Author and Senior Scientist in Food and Agriculture, Natural Resources Defense Council*
Dana Gunders is a leading expert on wasted food across the U.S. and a Senior Scientist at the Natural Resources Defense Council (NRDC), where she founded and leads NRDC’s work on reducing food waste.

Chris Hunt.jpg — Chris Hunt

*Senior Advisor, ReFED: ReThink Food Waste*
Chris serves as senior advisor for ReFED (Rethink Food Waste), where he supports the multi-stakeholder collaborative’s efforts to reduce U.S. food waste by providing strategic input on communications, stakeholder engagement, and content development.

5:15 - 6:15 PM

Session 11: FOOD INNOVATION

How can we find new ways to address the world's food issues?

Rusty Schwartz.jpg — Rusty Schwartz (moderator)

*CEO, KitchenTown*
Rusty has led a major effort to redefine how food startups and large food companies can benefit from collaborations to accelerate product innovation and commercialization through partnering.

soh kim.jpg — Soh Kim

*Executive Director of Food Design Research, Stanford University*

dana peck.jpg — Dana Peck

*Co-Founder & CEO, Pilot R+D*
With a diverse background in business, law, food and retail, Dana focuses on leveraging that expertise to drive food forward.

Matteo Vignoli

*Director, Food Innovation Program*
Matteo Vignoli is building the future of food through the Design Thinking approach and the world renowned Reggio Approach in university courses as well as in master programs and business education.

Jose Francisco Pelaez.jpg — José Francisco Pelaez Peña

*Project Manager, Basque Culinary Institute*
Jose works with Project Gastronomia, a global network of gastronomic influence that blends disciplines, shares knowledge and cooperates to address one question from several perspectives: How can we create the gastronomy and food system of 2050?

6:15 - 6:45 PM

Break

7:00 PM

Gala Dinner at Russell Ranch

november 8

How shall we proceed to design, assemble, and build the IoF?

8:00 - 8:30 AM

Registration & Breakfast

8:30 - 8:45 AM

Welcome

8:45 - 9:00 AM

Keynote

9:00 - 10:00 AM

Session 12: SUSTAINABLE SOURCING

The future of our food system depends on the practices implemented today. How might the Internet of Food prevent food waste while ensuring a continuous supply without depleting our valuable resources?