Bayer brings “Feeding a Hungry Planet” into focus

• 100 chosen delegates will be invited to a virtual global forum on 16-17 November.
• Bayer will collaborate with the United Nation’s Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN) and Babele on a 10-week Youth Ag Summit (YAS) University following the forum with online mentoring from industry leaders and YAS alumni.
• Applications close 30 June 2021.

Applications are now open for the 2021 Youth Ag Summit, a global forum and biennially organized conference where young leaders collaborate to develop sustainable solutions for food security and global agriculture as they work toward becoming global instruments of change.

While this is the 5th biennial Youth Ag Summit, it will be the first virtual YAS event. This year’s cohort will also benefit from another exciting YAS first. As an official global partner with Bayer for this year’s forum, the UN Sustainable Development Solutions Network (SDSN), in partnership with technology company Babele, will also provide a virtual idea incubator called YAS University where delegates will continue to learn entrepreneurship and leadership skills, receive coaching from mentors, and improve their own “Thrive for Change” project concepts throughout a 10-week period following the November summit.

The summit’s overall theme, “Feeding a Hungry Planet,” is based on the United Nations’ prediction that the planet’s population will reach 9.7 billion people by 2050 and will be faced with food security challenges. The 100 delegates selected to participate in this year’s Youth Ag Summit will be tasked to work on developing solutions to this challenge using the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) of the United Nations as their framework.

“We believe there is a strong need for young leaders to be engaged in developing a healthier food and agricultural system,” said Joerg Ellmanns, managing director of the Crop Science Division of Bayer in Australia. “Through their work at the 2021 Youth Ag Summit young leaders will broaden their network, be empowered through new transferrable skills and knowledge, and be inspired to take action.”

Application for the 2021 Youth Ag Summit is open to young people of any background aged 18-25. Potential delegates will be asked to share their motivation to join the summit, their previous advocacy experience and a 3-minute video pitch explaining their project idea on “How to feed a hungry planet.” Guy Coleman was selected as an Australian delegate to the the 2019 Youth Ag Summit where he was able to further develop his project idea that used machine learning to identify and target weeds in broadacre crops and then use technology that would automatically spot-spray or even target a laser directly on the growing point of the weed.

Applicants should be personally, professionally, and academically interested in agriculture, international development, environmental stewardship, food security, biotechnology, and/or farming.

To apply for the Youth Ag Summit 2021, please visit www.youthagsummit.com. To learn more, follow #AgvocatesWithoutBorders on Twitter and Youth Ag Summit (@youthagsummit) on the YAS Instagram channel.