The CGIAR Platform for Big Data in Agriculture’s digital forum on COVID-19 and food security brings emergent research and on-the-ground realities together in conversation in order to map out the direct impacts of the crisis across food value chains and glean data-driven recommendations and solutions.

This seventh episode discusses data in a crisis climate.

Click here to view a summary of the session, including key takeaways from each speaker.

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Speakers

Lillian Peterson|Winner of the 2020 Regeneron Science Talent Search

Lillian Petersen is a 2020 high school graduate and an incoming Harvard freshman. She learned how to program in fifth grade and now uses these skills to investigate relevant questions using big data analysis. A few years ago, she created a model to predict crop yields in every country in Africa 3-4 months before the harvest using satellite imagery. She still keeps this model up-to-date to monitor current crop conditions. She has two papers in the journals Remote Sensing and MDPI Climate. See her website at lillianpetersen.github.io

Giriraj Amarnath|International Water Management Institute (IWMI)

Giriraj Amarnath is a Senior Researcher with the International Water Management Institute (IWMI). His research focuses on developing solutions to climate risk management using advanced science and technologies in different hydroclimate regions. He leads a research program on Water Risks to Development and Resilience (WR2DR) that aims to strengthen agricultural disaster risk management in South Asia, African countries namely index-based flood insurance, bundled insurance solutions with seeds and climate information services, drought monitoring and early warning in addressing food security that can help smallholder farmers adapt to climate change. He is also the recent winner of the World Geospatial Excellence Award for the work on the South Asia Drought Monitoring System to mitigate drought risks.

Georgia Barrie| Farm.ink

Georgia Barrie is a Co-Founder of the technology start-up Farm.ink. Farm.ink delivers interactive and engaging digital training to small scale farmers via a smartphone and has previously been the winner of the CGIAR Big Data Inspire Challenge. Georgia is equal parts software developer, UX designer and content creator and has previously worked with organisations such as TechnoServe and GSMA.

Medah Devare|International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI)

Dr. Devare is a Senior Research Fellow at the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI). She received her PhD from Cornell in Crop and Soil Sciences and has worked as an agronomist for CGIAR. Previously, Medha led a project in Nepal to improve productivity and profitability in farming systems, working closely with farmers to implement sustainable management practices. She is one of the key data architects for the CGIAR Platform for Big Data in Agriculture, and the Platform’s Module One lead. She is also the author and architect of the GARDIAN Ecosystem, CGIAR’s flagship data harvester, enabling the discovery of publications and datasets from across all CGIAR Centers and beyond.