Industry Innovation Series | Smart Farming Tech Transforming Agriculture

Join us for the 2025 La Trobe Industry Innovation Series as we deep-dive into the future of Smart Farming – exploring how cutting-edge technologies are transforming how we grow, manage, and sustain food production.

This focused session brings together experts from Driscoll’s Australia, Polybee, La Trobe University and more who are at the forefront of applying digital innovation to real-world farming challenges.

From AI-powered monitoring and robotics to drone pollination and precision data analytics, learn how smart technologies are improving productivity, sustainability, and resilience across the agricultural sector.

What to Expect:

• Expert insights from leading agtech organisations and researchers

• Real-world applications of robotics, sensors, drones, and data in farming

• Discussions on sustainability, climate adaptation, and supply chain efficiency

• Networking opportunities with industry professionals, researchers, and students

This event is ideal for growers, agribusiness professionals, researchers, entrepreneurs, and students looking to understand and adopt smart farming approaches that drive the future of agriculture.

Details

Date: Tuesday 1 July 2025, 5 – 7pm
Venue: Digital Innovation Hub (L2, Jenny Graves Building, Melbourne Campus), Map Ref: 8G
Format: In-person
Cost: Free

Speakers and topics

• Professor Simone Warner, Head of Agriculture Victoria Research; Co-Director, Centre for AgriBioscience

  ‘AgBioTech research across Agriculture Victoria’s SmartFarm Ecosystem’

The use of AgBiotech across Agriculture Victoria’s SmartFarms in support of the Victoria’s agriculture sector

• Roberto Barajas, Operations and Planning Director, Driscoll’s Australia

  ‘Automation in the Berry Industry: A Necessity, Not a Luxury‘

Sparking meaningful discussion and highlight the urgency of adopting AgTech in berry farming

• Siddharth Jadhav, Founder & CEO, Polybee

  ‘Increasing profits in fresh produce through automation and intelligence’

Understanding how autonomous pollination and yield forecasting with drones and AI has consistently reduced uncertainty in decision making and improved profits for fresh produce growers.

• Professor Mathew Lewsey, Node Director, ARC Centre of Excellence in Plants for Space, La Trobe University

  ‘Advancing Plant Biology on Earth and in Space’

Exploring technologies for protected cropping and vertical farming in extreme environments.

Snapshot: Industry Innovation Series

La Trobe University proudly presents the Industry Innovation Series.

Each session will feature a one-hour lecture-style presentation – followed by audience Q&A and networking opportunities – focusing on a critical topic, such as agriculture, health and wellbeing, biotechnology and digital innovation. Pivotal research outcomes and industry insights will be spotlighted, as well as technology innovations and impactful partnership opportunities.

Global impact needs to start somewhere, so we’re making it happen right here and now. At La Trobe, we’re not just shaping the future – we’re a community of industry professionals, researchers, academics and graduates who are on-the-ground transforming lives every day, including today.

The Industry Innovation Series is curated to support and inform industry professionals working within or seeking to learn more about the highlighted fields, and the opportunities available to drive innovation and success.

Snapshot: Speaker Profiles

Professor Simone Warner

Prof. Warner is the Head of Agriculture Victoria Research and has over 35 years experience in agricultural sciences, biosecurity and environmental sciences, with a PhD in molecular virology from the University of Melbourne. As Head, Simone leads the research arm of Agriculture Victoria which undertakes national and globally significant research to support the diary, grains, horticulture, biosecurity and natural resource sectors. This includes leading world-class research and innovation in the application of new, effective and fit-for-purpose AgriBiotech to improve the productivity and biosecurity for Victoria’s agriculture sector. Simone leads approximately 400 staff and 65 PhD students across the State, including at AgriBio, Australia’s first integrated agricultural systems biology research centre located at the La Trobe University Bundoora campus, and across five SmartFarms located regionally in Ellinbank, Tatura, Horsham, Hamilton and Mildura. Simone was appointed as the role of Head of Agriculture Victoria Research (AVR) in February 2023, and has recently been appointed as Head of School, for the School of Applied Systems Biology at La Trobe University.

Roberto Barajas

Roberto Barajas is the Operations and Planning Director for Driscoll’s Australia, bringing over 18 years of experience in the berry industry across North America, Australia, and New Zealand, 12 of those years based in Australia. Over his career, Roberto has developed deep expertise in grower operations, supply chain management, genetics, applied research, production planning and forecasting, and strategic planning driving growth. Roberto is passionate about long-term thinking and delivering sustained value to Driscoll’s three core stakeholders: consumers, growers, and customers. His leadership is grounded in a commitment to innovation and operational excellence across the global berry supply network.

Siddharth Jadhav

Siddharth Jadhav is CEO at Polybee, a Singapore and Melbourne-based agtech company. He founded Polybee in 2019 as a spinoff venture from the National University of Singapore. Siddharth leads the company’s product development and oversees business development. He has 7+ years of experience in leading teams working on field robotics, AI and automation in agriculture. Previously, Siddharth was an associate scientist at the National University of Singapore.

Professor Mathew Lewsey

Professor Mathew G. Lewsey studies how plants perceive and interact with the world around them through regulation of their genes. His lab at the La Trobe Institute for Sustainable Agriculture and Food (La Trobe University, Australia) is home to a diverse team of engineers, computational biologists, plant and genome scientists. Their work spans from the fundamental to the applied, involving commercial partners who grow a range of crops such as cannabis, opium poppies, barley, oats and peas.

Mat completed his PhD at the University of Cambridge and then was a Marie Curie Fellow at the Salk Institute (La Jolla, USA) and at the Centro Nacional de Biotecnología (Madrid, Spain). He joined La Trobe University in April 2016, where he has served in several research leadership roles, including Director of the La Trobe Genomics Platform and Deputy Director of the Australian Research Council Industrial Transformation Research Hub for Medicinal Agriculture.

Mat helped establish the Australian Research Council Centre of Excellence in Plants for Space in 2024 with colleagues from Adelaide University, the University of Melbourne, the University of Western Australia and Flinders University, which studies plant design and bioresource production to enable off-Earth habitation and provide solutions for improving on-Earth sustainability.

As Director of the Australian Plant Phenomics Facility at La Trobe University, he leads a team that provide advanced plant imaging and cultivation services to academic and commercial researchers.

Most recently, Mat developed Plant Synthetic Biology Australia with colleagues from Adelaide University, the Australian National University and the University of Western Australia. This distributed facility is funded by Bioplatforms Australia and the National Collaborative Research Infrastructure Strategy, with the goal of enabling academic and commercial access to synthetic biology tools.