On April 12-13, 2021 the biennial CROP Innovation & Business conference will take place ONLINE. During this online program breakthrough news in technology developments, vegetable trait and crop improvement will be addressed.

Topic day 1 (April 12):  BREAKTHROUGH NEWS IN TECHNOLOGY DEVELOPMENTS
The development of new paradigm shifting technologies allows for a tremendous acceleration of change and improvement in all aspects of our society. The amazing short time needed for the development of vaccines against Covid-19 and the impact of ICT to communicate in lock down times are striking examples of that. Also for plant breeders new and breakthrough technologies offer amazing possibilities. These range from increased speed of variety development to opening up completely new directions for trait and crop improvement.

You will be informed on some of the latest developments in technology development that will significantly boost plant breeding.

Topic day 2 (April 13): BREAKTHROUGH NEWS IN VEGETABLE TRAIT AND CROP IMPROVEMENT
Society changes with the speed of light, so do the wishes of consumers, traders, chefs, farmers and food industries concerning the types of vegetables they desire. Which changes are ahead of us? And what can we, as crop innovators, contribute to the development of new vegetables that are adapted to the needs of the producers, users and consumers? How will young people could have impact in building a healthy and sustainable society? What are their ideas and how could society involve them in these changes.

Scientists, breeders and the United Nations youth representative will give insight into recent progress and opportunities to respond to these demands.

A very inspiring and dynamic program with the following line up of speakers:

• Prof. dr. Alexandre Bonvin, Professor of Computational Biology at Utrecht University (NL)
• Dr. Ir. Dick Roelofs, Program Scientist DNA Innovations at KeyGene (NL)
• Gordon Sanghera, CEO Oxford Nanopore (United Kingdom)
• Dr. Peter van Esse, Group Leader at the Sainsbury Laboratory at 2 Blades (United Kingdom)
• Michiel Bontinck, Life Science Technology Specialist at VIB (Belgium)
• Evi Vet, UN youth representative on biodiversity and food at Nationale Jeugdraad (NL)
• An Michiels, Director AgKnowledge Partnering (Belgium)
• Gert-Jan de Boer, Manager Molecular Biology at Enza Zaden (NL)
• prof. dr. Marcel Prins, VP innovation 4 crops unit KeyGene (NL)

Check out the complete line up and topics at www.cropib.com.