ZEBRA TALK - Fair data, fostering trust and humble leadership: breaking down barriers to create impact
In conversation with Benjamin Turner, Chief Operating Officer of Agrimetrics – the Agrifood Data Marketplace building the national infrastructure for open and ethical sharing and interconnecting of data across the agriculture sector.
Benjamin discusses the importance of earning trust within the industry to foster the adoption, and growth of the data marketplace within agriculture – in turn supporting a long term sustainable future for the industry. Benjamin touches on his own personal journey that led him to Agrimetrics, and how his experiences have shaped his leadership approach as well as the foundations that Agrimetrics is built upon – with ethical data governance firmly at the heart of the business – intrinsically woven into the fabric of their working practices.
The full transcript of this podcast episode can be found below.
PODCAST TRANSCRIPT
Please note that this transcript is auto-generated from the audio file through Rev - Humans Working Side By Side With The Best Speech-to-Text AI. We believe this to be a good representation of the conversation, but it isn’t checked word-for-word and therefore isn’t 100% accurate.
Benjamin Turner (00:00):
Technology is getting smarter, AI is coming in and machine learning are coming into the mix. We still need a human driver around all of that but data informed decision making is key for the next generation of our innovation, but also productivity gains, and the inevitable shift in workforce from some types of jobs to other types of jobs.
Matt Meyer (00:27):
Hello, and welcome to Zebra Talk. My name is Matt Meyer. And today I'm in conversation with Benjamin Turner, from Agrimetrics. And Agrimetrics is an agrifood data marketplace company, which has as its mission "Creating A Sustainable And Resilient Agrifood Sector Powered By Data." Now, I studied data and Geographical Information Systems back at university in the early 90s. And as a result, I came to this conversation with what I can only describe as a prehistoric understanding of the power of data in modern agriculture. But what I learned through talking to Benjamin is the critical role that data and analytics now play in modern agriculture, and the opportunity that presents not just for creating a more efficient and productive sector, but also a more sustainable sector. So in today's conversation, we explore business challenges from building open datasets to data governance and data ethics, but also more personal leadership challenges. Learning from the opportunities to be more interdependent in the way we operate in business, and how to be a humble leader. Benjamin, absolutely delighted to be able to have today's conversation, and welcome to Zebra Talk.
Benjamin Turner (01:42):
Thank you very much for inviting me along. It's a pleasure to be here.
Matt Meyer (01:46):
It's a really good time for us to be talking. It's great to catch you as Agrimetrics comes out of a period of reflection and strategy review. And so I'm really excited about some of the things that we're going to talk about during the course of our conversation. In order to share that the pleasure that I get, the inner geek in me that's intrigued by and fascinated by Agrimetrics, I thought actually maybe a good way to start with is just to give a little bit of an explanation about the business and what you're trying to achieve.
Benjamin Turner (02:16):
Great. Thank you very much. So Agrimetrics is one of the UK's agritech centers for agricultural innovation. We get about half of our income from Innovate UK, and the other half is commercially raised through subscriptions and projects. And we're a team of software engineers, data scientists, knowledge engineers, who have come together with a mission to transform the agrifood sector through a thriving data marketplace where data can be easily shared, monetized and accessed. So that's me getting our mission statements across. But what does that mean in practicality? We're creating what we see as being essential national infrastructure, like the motorway network, but for interconnecting data and accessing data across the global agrifood sector, across the supply chains.
Benjamin Turner (03:12):
And we have a focus on the UK, but supply chains for food products are necessarily global. And a key strategic points I would get across is that we operate under the principles of what are called, FAIR data, fair Standing for find double accessible, interoperable and reusable. And most of those words will make instant sense to somebody hearing those other than perhaps interoperable. And just to explain that core to what we do within our data marketplace, and how we work with customers and the market to join data is to make data easily understood and able to be merged without losing the meaning. And that's really important in terms of making data easy to reuse, and analyzing new contexts. Our customers are generally corporates or research institutes, or government organizations and bodies, or application developers who are creating technology tools that they can put in the hands, say of farmers. We tend not have farmers directly as customers of Agrimetrics.
Matt Meyer (04:24):
So I've always simplified in my own head Agrimetrics down to being a data science business and a business that the layman doesn't... Or a sector that the layman doesn't generally associate with data. But clearly that was wrong. Because I've learned a huge amount about how the sector is driven by data and science. I think it's absolutely fascinating. It's an interesting time to be involved with the agricultural sector. We've seen a lot of... I was going to use the word scrutiny but I don't mean that in the negative sense. A lot of attention on agriculture as a sector from a food security point of view obviously with the pandemic and disruptions to supply chains, but also from a climate change perspective and a biodiversity perspective. And in our own business, we've seen that the sort of rush of money coming into agritech as an investment sector, particularly in the US. So I think it's a really interesting time to be thinking about agriculture as a sector. And I wonder what your views were really on, what the sector is facing in terms of issues as we go into the next decade.
Benjamin Turner (05:35):
Thank you. I don't have a background in agriculture, farming agrifood. I came into the sector for the first time three years ago when I joined Agrimetrics. And what I've learned a lot of since I've joined is how difficult this sector is to make a profit in. If you're a farmer, there are so many pressures on this sector, whether they are climate and weather and other environmental factors, pests and disease, whether it's changing consumer habits, and the impact that has on what is produced, how it is then processed, how we buy those goods and services as consumers, sustainability issues, issues around soil fertility and compaction that make it increasingly difficult to produce and inequalities. Large land holders may be turning a great profit but the majority of farmers are not and rely very heavily on subsidies.
Benjamin Turner (06:50):
And of course with Brexit, comes to change from what was Common Agricultural Policy, the Basic Payment Scheme to what is now known as the Environmental Land Management Scheme, which will reward farmers for farming in a way that keeps air clean, keeps watercourses clean, develops thriving wildlife, adapts for climate change, protects against environmental hazards. On top of the Brexit and the shift from capital elms agenda is the whole sustainability issue around the net-zero carbon, which is influencing so many new farming practices like regenerative agriculture. And then there's the issue that's facing all of us at the moment, which is how we respond to the pandemic that we're in, how long this will continue to impact every sector within our economy. Honestly for years to come, as we recover from the debts we came to last year, and how we rebuild our economy in new ways going forwards. So there are a lot of issues that farmers are having to deal with at the moment.
Matt Meyer (07:58):
And I think that range of issues requires people in the industry who are not just technical experts, but also come from a problem solving background. It'd be really interesting to know more about how you did actually end up in the agricultural sector and the career path that you've taken to dealing with some of the issues you're dealing with now.
Benjamin Turner (08:21):
Great stuff. You've actually taken some words straight out of my mouth there, because essentially I'm a problem solver. So where i learned my trade was in kind of business and technology consulting, across a range of different industries. These were utilities, financial services, professional services businesses. That's where I built up that early business acumen. And at the end of that part of my career, I was at the heart of building billion dollar businesses, for others. So at that point, I kind of went through a bit of a pivots, where I thought... Actually I can do some of this myself. And I started to join technology businesses, scale ups, I was the CEO, the chief operating officer of three scale up businesses. These are in the technology data and money service spaces, we got those to exit and various ways, whether it's a trade sale or refinancing events, and then went through another pivot around thinking data is at the heart of everything.
Benjamin Turner (09:29):
So actually even at that stage in my career, I needed to see kind of change up my career around data. And I ended up working alongside some really talented chief data officers in global businesses, in global media giants and food producers. So I think those kinds of experiences put me on the board journey that's got me towards Agrimetrics. But what I've kind of learned on the way in terms of defining moments for me, were around Kind of the professionalism and integrity that came from that early background. Being an engineer by training, and then a chartered engineer, having a code of conduct, having ethics that I live by, being a certified management consultant, being a problem solver as you said, envisioning the future, building for the long term, these kinds of things really influence how I think about business.
Benjamin Turner (10:32):
And therefore, what are the sustainability issues for business into the long term. And that's not just about environmentalism. It's about sourcing, it's about culture, it's about long term capabilities, It's about connecting with a market in a way that shows that you're going to add value, and have a purpose into the long term. And I think at a personal level, that moment which I mentioned before about setting out on my own, is quite pivotal to me at a personal level. I learned a lot about my own self resourcefulness. But I learned about interdependence, while [inaudible 00:11:14] within a team, I could kind of crack on and do my theme. But when I was out on my own, I really had to make things work with others. I really had to bring people together, and work out how best to make the most of my impact.
Benjamin Turner (11:30):
So my impacts grew as a result of that. And I think this is what I've learned through my career. And what I'm really loving about the situation I'm in at the moment with Agrimetrics is that, everything that I'm about now is how do I create more impact from what I can put into my work environments and into the sector. So there was a particular time about 10 years ago, when I had a really great coaching points from my then chairman at that particular business, that particular startup where he said, "Benjamin, you've got nothing to prove." And I suddenly realized, "And you know what, you're right. I can think about what I've achieved, and what I could still achieve, and the only person I need to demonstrate that space to is myself." And that really opened up my mindset. I sort of became very receptive to lots of new philosophies around the changing culture at work.
Benjamin Turner (12:39):
Everyone listening to this will have heard of Simon Sinek, and his Start With Why and how influential that is. But really understanding what does that mean about starting with why not just the superficial first level question, well, what's deeply behind that Matthew Syed with his book of Bounce, that rebel ideas, his series of books is phenomenal when you think about the changing culture in the workplace. So I think those kind of things led me to the point where I've kind of reinvented myself around being someone who has an opportunity in the environment, I mean with Agrimetrics to create a much bigger impact for the economy, for the sector, that I would have advised perhaps just continue to be the CEO of a technology business, purely doing a convenient for commercial game.
Matt Meyer (13:31):
I think that distinction around impact is a really important one. Because we look at so many metrics that are around performance measurement rather than impact measurement. And we definitely sense I guess, as you would within Zebra Project, but we definitely sense that curiosity about, how do we reach target impact? How do we measure impact? How do we story tell about impact as a sort of separate theme to how we look at our businesses through a performance lens? It's interesting that you use that word a number of times. I was also sort of thinking as you were talking there about how important the relationship is between the personal pivot and then the business or organizational pivot. I see so often that actually there are a lot of great organizations that have refined their focus or their operations, they've done some sort of pivot. But it does come from an individual doing the same thing at the same time. And for me it reinforces the connection between great leadership and great strategy, they have to work in tandem.
Matt Meyer (14:40):
I just wanted to pick up on the interdependence point. Because I think recognition... That actually to have that impact, you need to be very conscious about what dependencies you have and how you create the support network that you've had. I think that's a really important theme for leaders who are actually venturing out on something new. When you were making that transition into essentially thinking more about yourself, did you have an understanding at that point of just how important other people or other organizations would be? Or was that part of the learning curve? Is that a scar that you bear?
Benjamin Turner (15:26):
I bear a lot of scars. So a really important moments in terms of my learning around this some decades ago, was working my way through Stephen J. Covey's Seven Habits for Highly Effective People. And that transition from dependence to independence to interdependence. But honestly, I came to that book too early in my career, and I didn't really truly understand it. And it wasn't really until the point that I was out on my own having to find my own work, build networks of resources that would replace these fantastic resources that had available to me when I was part of a global consulting firm, at the end of kicking my fingers. So, learning how to go about being humble, in a way that it said, "I don't know all the answers. I can't do all of this on my own." And I think that also came from that point. You don't have anything to prove.
Benjamin Turner (16:32):
It's okay to go out and say, "You know what, I need your help. I don't have the answers. I need to bring people together." And it's okay for me to sit in the middle of this coordinating conversation and say, "Please help me, please let's all help each other and collaborate to make something work." And going through that journey, that cycle a few times has really got me to a point where at personal level, my management style is very different from what it would have been let's say, 15, 20 years ago. It's much more coaching and much more about bringing people along journeys, as opposed to perhaps being more directive. Which some might see as being an appropriate way to manage, and that might work for certain organizations.
Matt Meyer (17:21):
I went through a similar journey and bore some scars early in my leadership career, sort of recognizing that I had become the bottleneck in a sense. I had the longest to do list because not only was I directed, but I was also controlling and actually adopting a coaching methodology. I trained as a coach and an applying that into the way I managed and lead people was transformational for me, and probably more importantly for the people around me. And so I totally understand what you're saying there. And how wonderful to be in a position where you're essentially only worried about proving something to yourself, rather than other people. And my experience of that has been watching people make that transition has been that... Actually there's so much more human potential recognized and realized when you're trying to prove something to yourself, rather than meet the expectations of somebody else. It's a real opportunity to grow. So that's absolutely fascinating.
Benjamin Turner (18:22):
Yes, very much. I think that one of the things I build on there is being a parent, with teenage children, so much of what I do at the moment with them is just encourage them to do what they love doing. To not have any thoughts about or direction from others to tell them what they ought to be doing. And I come from a generation where there are a lot of expectations about what you do when you're a bit bright at school what kinds of careers are right for you, etc. So I'm really pleased. I think this is a generational thing at the moment. I think the young people coming through today are just much more comfortable in their own skin in many ways.
Matt Meyer (19:10):
Definitely I agree. I'm in similar domestic situation to you. I think the home and the kitchen table is the ultimate coaching environment. It's nice to be done sensitively. But I think if we talk generationally, I think there is also a much greater receptiveness to mentoring and interdependence than perhaps when I was in my early professional career, when it was thinkorswim, and you had to prove that you could swim. I think it's such a healthier environment now where interdependencies is recognized and received positively, so very interesting topic to explore. Let's talk a little bit more about Agrimetrics if that's okay. But not least because it does appeal to the geek in me. And the more we've talked about this offline, It's piqued my interest as a geography graduate and a fellow of the Royal Geographical Society. How all of these kind of topics come together and that culture is a great sector to look at that. But perhaps you could just give us a flavor of some of the work that Agrimetrics does in the real world.
Benjamin Turner (20:18):
Sure, thank you. So I mentioned earlier that at the heart of what we offer is the data marketplace. And what I learned when I... Actually, when I came into this sector, I had this huge misconception about the agrifood sectors, kind of data readiness is widely perceived for the agrifood sector is in a list of all sectors with the ability to use data is right at the bottom of the list. And that other sectors are much more savvy, much more aware. And actually when I joined this sector, what I realized that one of the things that is great about this sector is, it is awash with data. I thought there wasn't much data. That's one of the reasons why we weren't using building great tools and using data in the most effective way. But we're awash with data. A tractor is... Truly Ross fields nowadays is equipped with as much instrumentation as a fighter jet. Apparently it is GPS driven, the boom off the back is making decisions based on optical imagery, about whether to spray that plant with a little bit more chemical than another.
Benjamin Turner (21:34):
So this is convergence, it was called precision agriculture of AI, robotics, image processing, internet of things. There's a convergence of all sorts of technologies at the moment. Hence you mentioned earlier on how much investment is coming into this sector. What the sector is really poor at is actually bringing data together for decision making. And it's data stranded and stuck in silos either within organizations or even across groups. It's very difficult to understand what the data assets are, and bring them together. So at the heart of our offer is a data marketplace that makes that sharing easier. And we also lack in many organizations kind of data leadership. If you go to many sectors, you'll see the role of chief data officer within their board or near their board level. There are very few organizations within the agrifood sector, that really have a chief data officer with a data strategy tasked with building data capabilities.
Benjamin Turner (22:44):
So what we do is we use our data marketplace to help mix and match emerging data across organizations and help those organizations get value for their data. But we can also help organizations create capabilities that will leverage the data and they can build out on those capabilities themselves. We're not a consultancy though, wants to build everybody's data capabilities. We don't have the bandwidth to do that, we're only 30 people. So I'd like to give you an example of an agrichem business that we're dealing with. It's a global agrichemical business. We've created with them an application that is targeted at safeguarding our drinking water. So it's a great objective. And what they found is that they needed support from us to help bring their data together with farmers data, with our data to deliver to a farmer in the field, or at their office, a forecast about which days over the next nine-day period would be the best day to go and spray particular active ingredient active chemicals on their field on particular crops.
Benjamin Turner (24:00):
This was for pests or disease control. So we sit at the heart of that developing an algorithmic model with soil scientists, we deliver into that model some of our core data, just to talk to you a GIS background. We've attributed data across all the UK fields, 2.7 million fields in the UK, with retributive soil type, past and current and forecast weather data topography, lots of other features of the land and we're able given the farmers location from their mobile phone, we're able to find the right field, bring the data together, add that to data supplied by the farmer like drainage conditions, building other regulatory information coming from this a chemical business like particular dates in the growing season that we have to be wary of, and we can then deliver through the user interface that advisory notice has a nine-day forecast of which days would be good or bad days in a simple green, amber red, because it's an advisory.
Benjamin Turner (25:10):
So what we want to spend our time doing is making those data available. And if we can help people who need to build tools, who need to build applications to just get those things off the ground, then we work with them to do that. And then we hope that they'll be able to take it forward from there.
Matt Meyer (25:30):
So I like to reference earlier in our conversation to infrastructure. So if I understand it correctly, and shoot me down if I don't. Essentially the game is you're helping people make decisions. And ultimately, you're pooling datasets rather than creating proprietary data sets yourself. Is that what the power in the infrastructure comes?
Benjamin Turner (25:56):
Yes, very much so. So what we don't do is hoard data. That's a big myth that actually some people have about Agrimetrics, is that we're out there trying to suck up data from across the industry. And that's not the case. We've gone out and open-sourced data that's relevant for these use cases. And also we've purchased other relevant data sets that are relevant to these use cases. And we brought those together and as mentioned, attributed those, linked them and made them interoperable, so that you can search through them and get more value out of those data. And then we can deliver those alongside a customer's own data into algorithms that then create a decision support tool. So it's very much about ... That customers data can still sit and reside in their environments, we don't have to put it into hours in order to be able to make the decision when we're not a dead data warehouse. But we link our data into theirs. And that can be done within their environment, within some other third party environments as long as an application can deliver the end result in this federated data infrastructure.
Matt Meyer (27:11):
I'm guessing that it's important for you commercially, or certainly in terms of your pure positioning in the market, to have governance around that data that speaks to the conversation that said... There's a burgeoning conversation around data and ethical innovation. How important is that as a topic area to Agrimetrics?
Benjamin Turner (27:35):
It's right at the heart of our thinking at the moment. You mentioned right at the top that we have gone through a strategic rethink about where we're at with Agrimetrics, what drives us, what helps to position us better in the marketplace so that some of these myths that may have built up around the agritech centers, Agrimetrics being one of those, some of these myths can be busted. And a key one of those is around trust. Across the agrifood sector, there are concerns and trust concerns in how people use data? Whether it's farmers own data, they have many farm management systems that they have to put their data into for the purposes of sharing with retailers or just managing their own farm operations.
Benjamin Turner (28:32):
And they're rightly nervous that these file management system operators might inappropriately use their data for other purposes. Now we know that these kinds of organizations operating in an ethical way, but how do you get that point across? How do you get that trust point across? So we've adopted principles like, getting ISO 27001 certification as a simple tool to show that we understand the issues of information security. So for the audience who don't know this, is the information security standards.
Benjamin Turner (29:08):
And we believe we're the first organization that is pooling data within the UK in the agrifood sector is got ISO 27001 certification. I did the search, I couldn't find anyone else doing it. But actually if anyone's listening who is pulling data within this sector, just go and get that standard. You will need it as a ticket to be able to operate with data in the future. She may as well get it now. Right? So we got this when I first arrived. Because I've done this all the previous three organizations I've been the CEO of. You get ISO 20001, you get ISO 27,001. It's a no brainer. So we operate in a way that shows that we not only get the principles of it, but we've built it into the way that we work. All of our processes day in day out. So people can be reassured that we do not sell data inappropriately, we do not transfer in the wrong place, that we do protect it and secure it, etc.
Benjamin Turner (30:13):
So those kinds of data security aspects are covered in that. But in terms of kinds of ethics... So there's a couple of things going on here. One is around governance, and then at a slightly more detailed level around the rather scarier proposition of machine learning and AI applied to data. So there are a couple of things. So if I can have a go at both of those briefly, so at the governance level, and I was lucky enough a couple of years ago to... Agrimetrics became involved with a Microsoft initiative called the AI for Good Program. And it was a small cohort about a dozen companies, and they were all social innovators. And we were lucky enough to be able to come along into that program. And I attended the stream of activity around social entrepreneurship and social innovation. And honestly, I learned so much going through that process. Things I've never really been aware of before.
Benjamin Turner (31:17):
You mentioned that I use the impact word a lot. That's purely because of those sessions I attended, that really helped me understand how to think about a company's theory of change. What is the broader systemic change and impact that our business is trying to achieve in the marketplace? So what's our theory of change? What is the logic model that sits behind that, that describes how the inputs flow through to outputs, flow through to outcomes and impact? And how do we deliver that as kind of more of a two pronged approach from Agrimetrics as points of view, kind of half we've got to be commercial, but half we've got to deliver a public good. So all of that thing has really changed up our language, and change our strategy around how we now go to market. And so we've worked with organizations like the Open Data Institute, the Social Tech Trust, and others to think through not only our governance approach to data within Agrimetrics, but also how do we almost set up an Uber governance model above Agrimetrics?
Benjamin Turner (32:33):
So that the marketplace can be clear that when different people are coming into Agrimetrics and using our capabilities for different purposes, we're applying the right governance model within that to those different use cases. And so the ODI, the Open Data Institute has the concept of what are called Data Institutions, which are on a spectrum, from data trust's through data commons and data cooperatives and data club. And we're not one of those. We're all of them within Agrimetrics. We've got to choose the right governance model for the use case. So thinking about governance and ethics from that point of view, is an interesting challenge we're going through right now. So we're just starting to talk to the market about the fact that we are moving in it in this direction. And organizations within this sector are starting to gravitate towards that. So we're adopting a leadership position in the thinking around this.
Benjamin Turner (33:32):
I mentioned the scariness of AI and machine learning applied to data. Now in our case, we don't have personal data sitting within our data marketplace, within our data infrastructure. We very rarely get access to that kind of data. So we don't need to worry about that quite so much. But the others? Yeah. One thing that does concern me actually about technologists generally is... I mentioned my grounding in professionalism and codes of conduct, and I'm a chartered engineer, and you have a lot of letters after your day not because of your professional qualifications as well. And what concerns me a little bit about the market in technologists is not a lack of professional standards, but that not everybody is encouraged to go down that path. So there are so many software engineers and application developers out there who don't have that concept of what is it to be a professional with qualifications and backgrounds and evidence of working towards standards and codes of conduct. Does that make sense?
Matt Meyer (34:49):
No, it does. And I was just reflecting as you were talking there whether that comes from within, is that something that's built up from the organization's that are involved in date and data science, or is that something that's ripe for regulation and control. And my natural inclination is to not withstanding being a lawyer is to try and avoid regulation and control unless it's strictly necessary at the market to determine that. Which is why it's so important for organizations who are doing what you're doing and placing great value on ethics and proper governance to be talking about that. I think that helps make that an issue in a relatively immature market in some sectors where people perhaps don't understand all of the issues that are in play. Was thinking about the impact in the way you were talking there about the inspiration from social entrepreneurship and the impacts language coming from the AI for Good Program. Has that helped you? Has that sort of attracted government attention? How do you interact with those who are looking at this at a sort of macro level rather than individual organizational level?
Benjamin Turner (36:07):
So I mentioned that a good chunk of our income comes from grant funding through Innovate UK. And so we have a strong relationship with Innovate UK and with the government departments that are associated with our sector, ie Defra. And the fact that we're now able to express ourselves in this new way, and be very proactive about where we stand on impact, has made it very easy for these organizations to have the kind of conversations with us that we'd always hoped that they would have, and perhaps we've kind of struggled to make happen in the past. So I think the fact that we are now being seen by Institute Organizations like FDA National Farmers Union, like the Agricultural and Horticultural Development Board, these and other organizations are pivotal to this sector, every farm has to deal with them.
Benjamin Turner (37:09):
And the fact that these organizations see us as their data innovation partner, see us as being an organization that's taking a leadership position in espousing how data needs to be at the heart of the conversation, in order to help us solve the kinds of shocks and issues and considerations and concerns that are impacting farming the agrifood sector at the moment, it's really changed up the quality of the conversation we're having with all sorts of organizations. Whether they're commercial, but also as you pointed out, the governments and other institutions, government bodies and other institutions.
Matt Meyer (37:54):
I'm always fascinated by businesses that sort of built fundamentally on collaboration and interdependencies you mentioned earlier. I think in some sense is how boring is it when all you've got to worry about is customers. I think it's great when you've got all these other relationships that drive the business model in my personal view very much, where we're going to see successful organizations in the future, those that are built on collaboration as much as proprietary customer relationships. If you read about young entrepreneurial businesses, and I put Agrimetrics in that category, and you can tell me if I get that wrong. But if I think about young growing entrepreneurial businesses, there's a lot of discussion about the network effects of what they're doing and how they can grow on the back of those network effects. And I wonder in a business that's built on data and sharing of data and pooling of data, how important network effects will be to your success?
Benjamin Turner (38:57):
It is at the heart of the business model. So where we're at the moment in our development is we've launched our data marketplaces exists. If we were using Lean Startup language, which many of your technology listeners will understand. But if we're using that language, we've launched the minimum viable products. And so it exists, it works, it's functional, you Matt as a data provider could come along and make a data source or resource available, I as data consumer could come along and find it and use it for my purposes and there will be value transfer to you, either in terms of money or in terms of insights. And at the moment, we have some data providers, we have some data consumers, and where we're at the moment is testing our hypothesIs, the business hypothesis, so that we can actually stop... We're cranking the handle on that to the point where we need data providers looking at the marketplace thinking there are loads of data consumers there.
Benjamin Turner (40:02):
It makes total sense for me to just come along and make my data available. We need data consumers to come along and be able to say, "Oh well, there are loads of people bringing the data in. It makes total sense for me to come along and consume data from this marketplace." And that's what we're building at the moment. And that obviously is that network effect you're talking about the... Ultimately, getting this right means us kind of sitting back, and is letting the whole thing take care of itself. Because it becomes a bit of a de facto place where people come to mix and match and merge and share and operate their data. And some people might say, and this is perhaps another myth to bust, what we're trying to do is be the only marketplace in this sector far from it. We're actually talking with organizations who are themselves marketplaces for data, but in very niche environments or sectors or use cases. And so we can enable that by essentially being a marketplace of marketplaces.
Matt Meyer (41:05):
Definitely makes sense. And I think given some of the challenges that we talked about earlier in agriculture as a sector, you'd like to think that that collaborative network approach will be embraced by everyone to really have impact in relation to those challenges. Thinking about that impact, presumably part of your part of your mission is to try and tackle or help other people tackle some of those big systemic challenges. Is there a particular area that you're excited about or where you think you're going to be able to have impact there above and beyond others?
Benjamin Turner (41:43):
We are not interviewing people, I love to say to them, one of the great things about our sector is it's so broad, there are so many different things that we can do. There are so many challenges to face. And one of the issues with this is that there are so many things that we can do. There are so many challenges to face. So the important thing here is that, first of all, you're right. We're here to enable others to solve these big problems. We can't solve these big problems ourselves while we are an enabling infrastructure to help bring these data together to allow others to deal with their particular use cases etc.
Benjamin Turner (42:29):
I was lucky enough to be involved in a group called the Food Industry Initiative on anti microbials. Envisioning ahead, this can be a huge issue for not only how the agrifood sector uses anti microbials for rearing livestock, but also potentially impact down the road on what this means for anti microbials and penicillins for human use. So solving a big picture issue like that by being able to watch the whole industry collaborating around it, and us as Agrimetrics being able to introduce into that conversation, this thinking around data governance and data trust's how all these organizations can bring their data together in a secure way so that their commercially confidential information isn't compromised so that the overall analytics can be made available to the industry.
Benjamin Turner (43:29):
They're being able to make that contribution to that conversation. It was a great moment for me. I loved being in that conversation for that purpose. So I think there are specific use cases like that that are vitally important to us. But biggest picture is climate change, long term environmental sustainability. And so many researchers and commercial organizations and government initiatives are looking in this space at the moment, we're involved with a number of initiatives around soil carbon, and around sequestration, an initiative called Forest Mind, which is a collaborative initiative, government grant funded looking at deforestation and increased and unsustainable encroachments. So knowing that others are using our capabilities, and themselves having an impact is really exciting.
Matt Meyer (44:29):
It is super exciting. And I think it always comes across when I'm talking to people who are genuinely authentically super excited about what they're doing. So I can see that there's a lot in there to motivate you to get out of bed in the morning and tackle the day. So it's been great sharing that with us. So the million dollar question I think for me, which is, you qualified to answer this question. Because it's a question that we ask of Zebra Businesses of good businesses that try and do something more than simply be really successful commercially. Is what do you think is on the board agenda for good businesses in the next chapter? Whatever that may be three years, five years. I'll take six months at this moment. But whatever is coming next, it will be interesting to know what you think on the board agenda.
Benjamin Turner (45:17):
Yeah, I think we've touched on some of these through the conversation. Number one for me in the list, building on what we said around sustainability, et cetera, is actually to broaden that into the topic of what is now called ESG, Environmental Sustainable and Corporate Governance, and how businesses of the future will be measured by their ESG credentials. And the generation that's coming through, who know they recognize that when they spend their money, they're making a decision. I think this will be become very important to businesses around their long term sustainability, but also how they can demonstrate that they're creating the right impact on the world, through their policies and through how their actions match their words.
Benjamin Turner (46:18):
I think that I've always been an advocate for data... Well, I used to say data-driven decision making. I now say data-informed decision making, because it's still human involved. And I think that all businesses need to really up their game in terms of data-informed decision making. I work in the sector where we're kind of coming through that thinking and starting to get onto the first rung of that. Other sectors are much further ahead. But we've all got to be cognizant of the fact that technology is getting smarter, AI is coming in and machine learning are coming into the mix. We still need a human driver around all of that, but data-informed decision making is key for the next generation of our innovation, but also productivity gains, and the inevitable shift in workforce from some types of jobs to other types of jobs.
Benjamin Turner (47:21):
So [inaudible 00:47:22] at a school, and we talk a lot about preparing our young people for the future world of work. And that's going to be a technology data-driven future.
Matt Meyer (47:36):
That's an excellent place for us to finish because the Zebra Project started out of a conversation about the future world of work. So I'm grateful for you for bringing us back to that. And also for satisfying my inner geek, who likes data science businesses generally. So it's been wonderful talking to you Benjamin, and I look forward to seeing how Agrimetrics changes the world and addresses some of those will help other people address some of those challenges in the years ahead
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