The Future of Agriculture and Biotech at Bayer with CIDO Bijoy Sagar

On the 12th episode of Enterprise Software Innovators, hosts Evan Reiser (Abnormal Security) and Saam Motamedi (Greylock Partners) talk with Bijoy Sagar, Chief Information Technology and Digital Transformation Officer at Bayer. As one of the largest pharmaceutical companies in the world, Bayer positively impacts billions of people through technology innovations across healthcare, agriculture, and biotech. Today, Bijoy shares how Bayer is deploying digital farming practices, his perspective on AI, and the best methodologies for partnering with startups. 

Quick hits from Bijoy:

On Bayer deploying drones to optimize farming practices: “We have drones over 73 million acres where we're collecting data real time on the field. We have satellite data coming in. We actually acquired a company to get the data so you can actually predict how much soil moisture is there in one square meter of the land. And then you can actually use algorithms to predict how much seed you plant there and how much do you water? What kind of resources do you need there so that you can actually grow, get the best outcome for the farmers in the most sustainable way? This may not be the most critical digital topic somebody would think about until you think about the fact that this is the food you're eating every day.”

On building mission-driven teams: “​​You have to have everybody be mission driven. We spend a lot of time purposefully looking at ‘how do we build the teams together, how do we actually get them to be mission focused?’ I don't start a single presentation without first referencing our mission and purpose, ‘Health for All, Hunger for None.’ I always remind them you are here every single day because there is a patient at the end of the journey, there's a farmer at the end of the journey…You cannot go solve problems of tomorrow with the tools of yesterday.”

On the technology frontiers of the future: “The best is yet to come. And what do I mean by that? Some of the really complex pharmaceutical problems such as protein folding would require a 1000 qubit computer right now. We are playing with 40 qubit, so it's gonna be amazing but we're not there yet. So I don't want people to sort of feel like yeah, this is the pinnacle of digital; I don't believe that. I think we will look back six years from now and say my God, those were primitive days!

On step changes coming to medicine: “With better models with stronger AI, [in the future, we will have] the ability to do protein folding and visualizations. We should be able to treat Parkinson's disease and cure it. I'm happy to predict and we'll see if I'm true or not in 10 years that Parkinson's will be a curable disease, not even necessarily a manageable disease.”

On the framework for engaging with startups: “Look for non weaknesses in the way of solving a problem. I always tell people, if band aid and bailing wire is the cheapest, best, most reliable way to solve a problem, that's fine because there is a role for a band aid and bailing wire, otherwise we wouldn't be making those things, right? So I wouldn't look for a startup to invent a problem to solve. As you say, if you only have a hammer, then every problem looks like a nail.”

Recent book recommendation: Sapiens by Yuval Noah Harari

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Enterprise Software Innovators is produced by Josh Meer and Luke Reiser