Virtual Workshop on Emerging Digital Technologies for Agriculture, Food Processing, and Horticulture Businesses Jointly organised by Dr APJ Abdul Kalam Centre for Policy Research and Analysis and Centre for Development of North Eastern Region (CeDNER)

About the Centre

The Indian Institute of Management, Shillong (IIMS) was established as the 7th IIM of the country and started operations in 2008. IIM Shillong is committed to promote quality management education and to work for the societal development of the region since its inception.

The Dr.APJ Abdul Kalam Centre for Policy Research and Analysis was conceptualised and established jointly by IIM Shillong, North Eastern Council (NEC) and the Ministry of Development of North Eastern Region (MDoNER). The centre works in undertaking and initiating cross-functional research and generate data with a motivation of assisting proper understanding of ground realities and provide critical recommendations to the policy makers of the region.

The Centre for the Development of North Eastern Region (CeDNER) is a reflection of the commitment and resolve of IIMS to spearhead a proactive role in the development of the region. CeDNER has been proactively engaged in imparting high-quality managerial training and capacity building to the small business concerns of NER

Virtual Workshop on Emerging Digital Technologies for Agriculture, Food Processing, and Horticulture Businesses

As per the report by the Food & Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), agriculture contributes to the employment of more than one billion people globally. Additionally, a large percentage of (>50% ) of micro, small and medium enterprises in emerging economies are involved in some way with the Agri sector. Food processing is reported to be the 5th largest sector in the Indian economy and contributes to around 14 per cent of manufacturing Gross Domestic Product (GDP). The food processing sector also contributes to around 13 per cent of India’s total food exports. The Horticulture sector has also become a key driver for economic development in several regions of the country. Horticulture constitutes a significant portion of the total agricultural production in the country.

In the past decade, one can observe businesses across the world of all shapes and sizes going through a major digital transformation. The digital transformation has been further pushed by COVID 19 and subsequent lockdowns globally and in our country as well. There has been a lot of innovative transformation in all these sectors driven by the usage of IoT and Sensors in the field, IoT and Sensors in Equipment, Drones and crop monitoring, RFID Sensors and tracking, Machine Learning and AI, Satellite images, etc. Agriculture being a field which is subject to a lot of unpredictable factors like prices, policies, diseases, to erratic weather and climate change, usage of right digital technologies can make this sector more self-reliant and having a higher shock responsive capability. In Food manufacturing and processing, adopting digital technologies would support optimization and unlocking of operational excellence and also would provide cost reductions. The future of food will lie around fast and fresh, and food processing industries will need to provide a novel set of answers for a new set of upcoming questions that would be asked by varied stakeholders like customers, suppliers, and government agencies. Digital technologies would in a long way support answering these upcoming challenging questions of the future.

In recent years, the country has witnessed a large number of agritech startups evolving in the national startup ecosystem. These agritech startups are not only making technology more accessible to the farming community but also enabling them to improve their lives. Agritech startups like Ninjakart, WayCool, AgroStar, Dehaat, Stellapps, Bijak, CropIn Technology, Intello Labs, and Aibono, to name a few, are trying to revolutionize this sector by bringing in technology-driven solutions to existing problems in this sector.

With the motivation of knowledge sharing of innovative technologies for these three sectors, IIMS has planned for a two days virtual workshop on “Emerging Digital Technologies”. The proposed 2-day virtual training program (7 hrs cumulatively) would provide a platform to expose agriculture, horticulture, and food processing businesses to digital technologies and the way they can be adopted effectively. Instructors would share their knowledge through demo sessions and case studies to the audience so these enterprises could benefit from the emerging digital technologies.

The expected outcome of the Training

The training will focus extensively on the simple yet powerful tools and techniques of how emerging digital technologies could be leveraged for better productivity in agriculture, food processing, and horticulture businesses. After the completion of the training, the participants would be able to easily adopt the simple digital techniques for better performance and delivery.

Who should attend?

Farmers Cooperatives, Farmer Producer Organization, Small business owners in agriculture, horticulture and food processing sectors, Students and Faculties in Agriculture, Dairy, Horticulture and Food Processing sectors.

Topics to be covered

  • Digital Transformation for Agri-based, Horticulture, and Food processing businesses- an overview
  • Social Media Marketing for Agri-based, Horticulture, and Food processing businesses
  • E-commerce and Digital Marketing for Agri-based, Horticulture, and Food processing businesses
  • Becoming part of e-commerce business and order processing in digital platforms
  • Bringing financial inclusion in agriculture using satellite technology and data science
  • Blockchain application in agri-businesses
  • AI and IOT application in agri-businesses

Speakers Profile

  • Prof Biplab Bhattacharjee, Faculty IIM Shillong
  • Dr Madhumita Dash, Principal AI Research Engineer, Fasal, Bangalore
  • Mr Soudhakar Elumalai, Senior Data Scientist, SAP, Bangalore
  • Mr Srivatsa Sreenivasarao, Co-Founder, TraceX Technologies
  • Mr Bharat Agarwal, Vice President-Product, SatSure, Bangalore
  • Dr C Ganesh Kumar, Assistant Professor, Indian Institute of Plantation Management, Bangalore
  • Dr Vinod Kumar, Assistant Professor and HOD, Indian Institute of Information Technology, Lucknow

Important Dates

  • Registration opens: August 1st, 2021
  • Last date of registration: August 24th, 2021
  • Confirmation mail to be sent on: August 25th, 2021
  • Date of Training: August 26th, 2021 (10:30 am) to July 27th, 2021 (2:00 pm)

Registration

Click Here to Apply

Note: Sessions will be held online through Zoom platform and links will be sent to the confirmed participants. Certificates from APJ Centre & CEDNER, IIMS will be issued to only those participants who maintains 100% attendance for all the sessions.

Contact Us

Convener:
Prof. Biplab Bhatacharjee, Faculty, IIM Shillong

Coordinator:
Dr. Sanjeev K Ningombam,
Centre Coordinator,
Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam Centre for Policy Research and Analysis, IIM Shillong

Email: apjcentre@iimshillong.ac.in
Website: www.iimshillong.ac.in/apjcentre
Mobile: +91 9854754514
Indian Institute of Management Shillong
Umsawli, East Khasi Hills, Shillong-793018
Meghalaya