Organizing Committee: Derek Scuffell, Syngenta / Richard Tiffin, Agrimetrics / Christopher Brewster, TNO / Clement Jonquet, University of Montpellier
Webpage: https://sites.google.com/view/semfaen/home
By 2050 planet earth will have a population of 9 billion people and they all need feeding: How are we to sustainably feed this growing population? In today’s world the challenge of growing enough food sustainably is already daunting as demographic pressures, increasing urbanization and climate change are transforming the world we live in.
Our agricultural and food systems, which includes all the stages from growing to processing and consuming food, are highly complex, with a multitude of different largely disconnected participants . Data and semantics are the only currencies, which we can use to reconnect these systems, so that we can address the global food and agriculture challenges we all face, whilst also looking after the environment.
Connecting food and agricultural systems is challenging; growers see data as personal, terminology has evolved over two centuries becoming redundant and complex, and global food supply chains are outsourced with constantly growing numbers of players.
This workshop is aimed at the growing population of data practitioners and digital experts that are transforming world agricultural and food practices by applying data science and digital tools. It is an opportunity to highlight and discover the work that is being carried out around the world, through the application of semantics and linked data to meet these and other challenges. We are interested in use cases, studies and projects which show the application of semantic technologies in Food, Agriculture, Environment and Nutrition. Topics can include (but are not limited to):
The organizing committee of the workshop will consider all abstracts received by the published deadline to ensure that the proposed submission is relevant to the workshop. Selection notifications will be sent out to relevant authors. All papers will be peer reviewed by members of the organizing committee or nominated reviewers, to ensure that the proposed subject of the submission has been followed, that the paper is of a suitable length and the work is appropriately referenced.
Derek Scuffell, Syngenta , https://www.linkedin.com/in/derekscuffell/
Derek Scuffell, is a Science and Technology Fellow at Syngenta, leading teams in Data Architecture and Strategy for Syngenta R&D. Syngenta R&D is a global organization employing over 5000 people worldwide, with over 800 of those based at the Jealotts Hill Research Centre in Berkshire, UK, where he is based. Derek has a background in Biological Computation & Mathematics, specialising in Agricultural Physiology and Crop Protection and has worked in Agricultural research in industry for the majority of his career. Recently he has been focusing on applying semantics and linked data to create enduring data assets for enterprises.
Derek actively participates in a wide range of collaborations across industry, has contributed to an number of data initiatives, such as the Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN) network, the European bioinformatics Institute (EMBL-EBI) industry partnership and is Visiting Professor, at the University of Reading in the School of Agriculture Policy and Development.
Richard Tiffin, Agrimetrics , https://www.linkedin.com/in/richard-tiffin-b8365514
Richard TIffin Richard Tiffin is Agrimetrics’ Chief Scientific Officer and Professor of Applied Economics at the University of Reading. Richard read Agriculture at the University of Newcastle and completed a PhD in Agricultural Economics at the University of London. He lectured in Agricultural Economics at both Newcastle and Durham before joining the University of Reading where he was appointed Professor in 2006.
Richard was previously Director of the Centre for Food Security, leading the University of Reading’s strategic research in the area of food security and fostering internal and external collaborations to meet the multidisciplinary food security agenda. His research, which is focused on diet and health policy, has examined the impacts of alternative food policies on land use in the UK and the impacts of both a soft drink tax and a ‘fat tax’ on health in the UK. Richard’s research group is currently developing an empirical framework to better understand the cognitive underpinnings of dietary choice.
Christopher Brewster, TNO , https://www.linkedin.com/in/cabrewster/
Christopher Brewster is a Senior Scientist in the Connected Business team, of the Data Science group of TNO, The Netherlands. His interests concern knowledge management, the role of structured knowledge (such as Linked Data and Open Data) and unstructured knowledge (such as text and social media) in decision processes. He has experience of the application of Semantic Web technologies in the agrifood domain, including supply chains and logistics. In research Christopher is interested in how technology can enable a better food system
Christopher’s other research concerns the application of ICT to sustainability issues, especially using Semantic Web technologies including Linked Data to communicate more knowledge concerning products and their environmental impact. He also studies the social implications of technology and particularly ICT with regard to surveillance, freedom, creativity and innovation
Clement Jonquet, University of Montpellier
Clement is assistant professor at University of Montpellier, France since September 2010. He is a member of the Laboratory of Informatics, Robotics, and Microelectronics of Montpellier (LIRMM) and researches ontologies, ontology repositories, ontology metadata, semantic data indexing and annotation, semantic Web, text mining, knowledge representation. He is also visiting scholar (under a H2020 Marie Curie fellowship) at the Stanford Center for Biomedical Informatics Research (BMIR) within Pr. Mark A. Musen's group. Clement is also the organizer of the Web Science Montpellier Meetup and the AgroHackathon series.
