AgTech Alchemy at FIRA 2024...

Well, the first event encouraged us, on Thursday the last day of #FIRA we hosted a mini meetup at Sudwerks Brewing in Davis California, a short ride away. With Rhishi Pethe and I away all hosting responsibilities fell on ?Walt Duflock aka the #AgFather. Roughly ~35 people attended with many new faces and some familiar faces to once again gather, share stories and laugh. SO EXCITING!

With our goal to bring together all the amazing folks considering, thinking about, and working in #AgriFoodTech. We wanted to first and foremost continue to build and galvanize the community and secondly, we wanted to continue to experiment with the format to stretch our different muscles.

At the FIRA mini event we launched #SoapBox, where we would present a couple of topics that keep coming up in conversations and not just is there funding.

For the FIRA Mini meetup we had two topics:

Topic 1 - Why is California struggling to efficiently build and maintain critical infrastructure, such as nuclear power, high-speed rail, EV charging stations, rural broadband, and improved ports that can support innovation? What obstacles are hindering the ability to undertake these projects, is it just California?

Topic 2 - California is challenged to retain innovators and entrepreneurs with external competition, expensive cost of living, what policy reforms and incentives can be implemented

As we continue to grow this community, we will continue to look at ways to 1) Bring more people together, 2) Lot more voices of the community be heard, and 3) Promote more interactions. ?

In our next event #AgTechAlchemy #meetup on 10/30 in Berkeley at Trumer Taproom we will focus on the investors who help realize the visions of the startups that presented at the first event. The following have volunteered to share:

1. Robert Grey from Plug and Play Tech Center
2. Danny Bernstein from HawkTower, VC for California's future, will share details about?the Reservoir Farms, the first on-farm robotics incubators. Operated as nonprofits
3. Valerie Christy from Astanor ventures, a global VC
4. Andrew MacDonell from Topcon Agriculture
5. Sara Boettiger will talk about non-dilutive funding from foundations
6. Rachel Stinebaugh from Supply Change Capital will talk about investing broadly across Food and Ag Tech.

We are first thankful to this group of individuals sharing their diverse experiences and perspectives. We are appreciative how this can continue to uplevel us as a community and hopefully build new relationships. #THANKYOU

SO please consider signing up and share with others who would enjoy such a community of dreamers, thinkers, and most importantly doers.

As a reminder we have a slack community, consider joining. We also have released our second newsletter featuring content from Walt and Sachi. Please reach out if you like to provide content for future additions or promote other media like podcasts.?

Most importantly, #AgTechAlchemy is about community to help and support each other to increase the likelihood of success to drive positive impact!

As always this is #Day1 (two of us worked at Amazon).

Alchemy Community - anyone can email us and get added to the invite, Slack, and Newsletter lists! Pictures below!

Ways to Connect:

·????? AgTech Alchemy Event 2 - EAST BAY on 10/30

·????? AgTech Alchemy Slack Community

·????? AgtechAlchemy@gmail.com

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