Depth Charge Podcast

Dr. Vikram Adve is the the co-founder and co-director of the Center for Digital Agriculture at the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign where he leads the AIFARMS Institute. AIFARMS is one of a handful of national institutes for Artificial Intelligence Research in the US. There they are focused on foundational AI and science research to address important challenges facing world agriculture.He previously co-led the development of the LLVM project, one of the most significant developments in compiler technology in the last couple of decades.In this conversation we talk about the state of AI in agriculture and the ambitious goals of the AIFARMS project.Links :AIFARMS Project WebsiteVikram's Personal WebsiteLLVM ProjectFollow this podcast on :- Spotify- Apple Podcasts

Dr Sonny Ramaswamy is the president of the Northwest Commission on Colleges and Universities, he was previously appointed by President Obama as the Director of the National Institute of Food and Agriculture .In Part 1 of this conversation we talk about his tenure at NIFA and how they directed the investment of billions of federal dollars into research related to food, nutrition and agriculture across the us.In Part 2, we get into the inequitable access to nutrition, technology and resources that to this day continue to plague large swaths of the population. And how  well established models of public funding for research are critical to ensure we as a nation not only remain competitive on the international stage but continue to help the underserved and underprivileged in the US.Newspaper article about Sonny's fascinating life story : https://www.oregonlive.com/environment/2012/03/this_land_is_his_land.html