Eleshea is the Corporate Development Manager at Livestock Improvement Corporation (LIC), a NZ farmer-owned herd improvement and agritech co-operative, where she manages the commercial pipeline of mergers and acquisitions (M&A), strategic partnerships, collaborations, distribution and internal commercialisation.

She is passionate about finding new innovative technologies that will define the future of dairy farming and supports this through managing the LIC AgCelerator Fund, which invests globally into innovative start-ups.

She has over 10 years of experience in dairy, from farming through to consumer goods in global markets including China, Middle East, Europe, NZ and Russia. She has lived in New York, Mumbai, Amsterdam and currently resides in Auckland.

She is also qualified as a lawyer and chartered accountant and is the Founder and Director of her own business in the art entertainment industry in Auckland.

Dean is a Venture Partner for Finistere Ventures where he manages Finistere New Zealand’s portfolio and investment programme. In addition to his role at Finistere Ventures, Dean is the Executive Director at Sprout Agritech, a New Zealand agrifood tech accelerator, and was previously the Chief Executive of The Factory.

Dean has experience with multiple start-ups and technologies and is a founding member of the New Zealand Angel Association where he received the Association’s inaugural Kotahitanga Award.

Dean has founded an angel investor network and three seed investment funds. Dean is currently a director of Sprout Agritech (seed stage investment), Biolumic (UV light treatments) and AgGenetics (bovine genetics). Dean has a BA(Hons) in Economics and Geography from Otago University.

Jason Wargent is Chief Science Officer and founder of BioLumic. In addition to leading the science vision and science team at BioLumic, he leads the company’s IP strategy.

Jason is a world-leading plant UV photobiologist, with more than 15 years of research know-how in the space. Trained in the UK, Jason took up a faculty position at Massey University, New Zealand, in 2010, leading to appointment as Entrepreneur-in-Residence, and Professor in Plant Photobiology.

The recipient of numerous research excellence and research funding awards, Jason is deeply committed to developing novel world-changing technologies for agriculture.

Leila is Co-founder and COO at Cropsy Technologies, an AgTech startup based in Auckland. After completing her BE (Hons.) in Computer Systems Engineering at the end of 2018, she and co-founder Ali Alomari promptly started Cropsy. In the early days, Leila designed, built, and tested the electronics for Cropsy’s unique hardware, and now also manages day to day operations for the company.

Her work on Cropsy as a founding member is backed by a strong resolve to bridge the technology gap in horticulture; this means delivering technology that’s accessible to every grower today, while paving a path that leads to AgTech innovations of the future.

Cropsy's mission is to deliver disruptive, scalable technology to every fruit grower to unlock the full potential of their land with insights that were impossible before. The system is a simple tractor add-on, so growers do all their daily operations while Cropsy looks out for problems.

Cropsy is poised to set the new gold standard for growing, with recommendations, forecasts, and providing certainty to every grower, every season.

Brendan Mahar is New Zealand Trade and Enterprise’s International Market Manager for Latin America. A region that has a significant number of established NZ Agritech companies doing business there, as well as growing interest from up-and-coming Agritech companies.

He was the NZTE Lead on NZ Govt taskforce for the Agritech Industry Transformation Plan during the inception phase, and a representative on the AgriTech NZ establishment board.

He has worked across the NZTE Agritech portfolio of companies over the last ten years. This portfolio has traditionally focused on pastoral based farming technologies but has more recently expanded into the growing NZ Hort-tech offering.

Dylan is the Sales and Partnerships Director at UBCO Bikes Ltd, a NZ based company that design and produce Utility Electric Vehicles for both on-road and off-road applications with a history deeply entrenched in Agriculture.

UBCO’s mission is to ‘power your purpose’ - whether you are taking inspirational journeys, exploring our planet, saving our parks, delivering goods, or just working smarter and safer.

Dylan has experience working across several start-ups in the electric transportation sector with a focus on Asia Pacific, EMEA and North America.  He is also qualified in Environmental Planning, Marketing, Business Management and Food Nutrition.