International Seminar and Public Lecture on Genomic Research for Oil Palm

In part of Dies Natalis of INSTIPER and launching of AI Research and Innovation Center for Agroindustry (AIRICA) an International Seminar and Public Lecture were successfully held at INSTIPER Campus, Jogjakarta. There were two keynote speakers in these events. The first one is Matt Levy, Vice President of BioDiscovery who delivered a talk entitled “Turning Good Science into Good Profit”. He explained mainly on how we can turn a research product, especially in genomic, into a commercial product. Participants were provided with some examples and case studies. The second speaker is Dr, James Baurley, Co-Founder of BioRealm who delivered more on the technical aspect of data science research pipeline in agriculture. He presented one of BDSRC project, Data Science for Rice, and correlate the talk with the opportunities of doing the same thing in oil palm industry.

These two talks were followed by a discussion led by Dr. Bens Pardamean, Director of BDSRC and AI R&D Center. There were some interesting questions from audiences, not only from academics but also from companies. Overall, these two events have successfully create an awareness for companies to start thinking on how to utilize genomic research as their competitive advantages that can generate more revenues. Additionally, these talks also provide academics with some strategies to commercialize their research products.