Cultivating a Pipeline of Next-Gen Innovation and Talent in the Food and Agriculture Industry

BERLIN, June 11, 2019 (Newswire.com) - ​​The Thought For Food (TFF) Foundation and KWS announce the next phase of their multi-year partnership. The celebratory event “Thought For Food and KWS - Connect, Engage, Share” brought together 70-plus stakeholders at the KWS WeWork space in Berlin. The two organizations paved the way for their future collaborations focused on engaging and empowering the next generations in innovation related to plant breeding and seeds.

KWS will support the soon-to-be-launched TFF Digital Labs, a first-of-its-kind, digitally available, food and agriculture learning and startup accelerator program that is optimised for next-gen entrepreneurs in every part of the world. KWS employees will serve as expert mentors on the platform, empowering innovators with the expertise, practical skills and connections they need to develop successful and socially responsible businesses that tackle the most important challenges facing the food system. The TFF Digital Labs will launch on Oct. 16 (World Food Day) and will be made freely available to all participants in the TFF Challenge, a global incentive prize competition that catalyzes deep technology-based transformation and business-model innovation within the agricultural and food space. 

TFF has grown in an unexpected way, which really shows that there is an inherent passion and energy in the sector. We prove that innovation doesn't have to happen in places like Silicon Valley, but that it can truly happen anywhere. With the TFF Digital Labs, we can scale endlessly and leverage our community, resources and mentors to help navigate in their regional and local communities.

Christine Gould, Founder and CEO at Thought For Food

The award-winning U.K.-based design company Maido is partnering with TFF for the build of the TFF Digital Labs and joined the event in Berlin to present the infrastructure and cutting-edge technology which underpins the platform, designed to be modular, engaging, highly interactive and accessible anywhere. 

TFF will also focus on further strengthening its bond with the KWS Young Think Tank and Digital Innovation Accelerator (DIA), which is their St. Louis-based initiative tasked with rapidly identifying and testing disruptive digital technologies that will prepare KWS for the future of farming.

“For us, partnerships such as those with TFF are a valuable breeding ground to work with the next generation of experts and thought leaders in food and agriculture, to share our knowledge and to identify and develop new trends. We are happy to support fresh ideas and to help shape them,” stated Laura Lee, project portfolio manager at the DIA.

In 2018, KWS joined the TFF Inner Circle, a unique innovation and collaboration platform comprised of select visionary food and agriculture companies and leaders from the next generation. TFF’s Inner Circle offers a space to shape new ideas and approaches that seed talent, foster trust in new technologies and increase innovation towards a more diversified and sustainable global food system. 

Interested to learn more about TFF's work as the world's next-generation innovation engine in food and agriculture? Want to get involved in TFF's global community of purpose-driven entrepreneurs or explore partnership opportunities and other ways to support its mission? Follow TFF's activities on Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter, or directly reach out via email.

About Thought For Food:
Thought For Food is the leading global organization to engage, empower and support the next generation to solve food and agriculture’s biggest challenges. To date, we have worked with over 15,000 next-gen talents in 160 countries, helped to catalyse thousands of ideas and launched 50 startups on all continents and across all parts of the value chain. Our comprehensive suite of industry-shaping programs includes the TFF Challenge, the TFF Digital Labs, the TFF Academy and the TFF Summit. We help build talent, develop new innovations and raise the reputation of the industry as a whole. Thought For Food is a 501(c)(3) non-profit entity. Find out more about Thought For Food at https://thoughtforfood.org/.

About KWS*:
KWS is one of the world’s leading plant breeding companies. In the fiscal year 2017/18, more than 5,000 employees in 70 countries generated net sales of EUR 1,068 million and earnings before interest and taxes (EBIT) of EUR 133 million. A company with a tradition of family ownership, KWS has operated independently for more than 160 years. It focuses on plant breeding and the production and sale of seed for corn, sugarbeet, cereals, rapeseed and sunflowers. KWS uses leading-edge plant breeding methods to increase farmers’ yields and to improve resistance to diseases, pests and abiotic stress. To that end, the company invested almost EUR 200 million last fiscal year in research and development, around 18 percent of its net sales.

*All figures exclude the companies carried at equity AGRELIANT GENETICS LLC, AGRELIANT GENETICS INC. and KENFENG – KWS SEEDS CO. LTD.

For more information: www.kws.com. Follow KWS on Twitter.

Source: Thought For Food Foundation