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

11/09/22 • 29 min

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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Find more great lessons from tech leaders and enterprise software experts at enterprisesoftware.blog.
Enterprise Software Innovators is produced by Josh Meer and Luke Reiser

Quick hits from Bijoy:

Previous Episode

Building a More Customer-Centric Company with Technology with Air Canada CIO Mel Crocker

On the 11th episode of Enterprise Software Innovators, hosts Evan Reiser (Abnormal Security) and Saam Motamedi (Greylock Partners) talk with Mel Crocker, Chief Information Officer at Air Canada. As the largest airline in Canada, Air Canada is responsible for tens of millions of passengers every year, flying to destinations across the globe. In his nearly five years at the company, Mel has overseen a range of digital transformation initiatives. Today, he joins the show to share how technology deployment is enhancing the customer experience and his insights on AI, data, and the future of air travel.
Quick hits from Mel:
On AI helping optimize airplane maintenance processes: "Picture how are you going to track all of your inventory, watch what happens throughout a year, and then preposition the parts where they're probably most needed as time goes on, such that if you do have to cancel an aircraft, you can either fix it very rapidly or if you have to delay a flight, you can fix it very rapidly. or at the very least you've got another aircraft somewhat available. When you're running a complex network, you don't have planes all over the place. That becomes almost unsustainable. You've got to be incredibly thoughtful about maintenance and things like that. That's where we absolutely throw a lot of AI at to try and get very smart at this."
On future forms of air travel: "There's no doubt you've seen eVTOL, these electric vehicles or electric vertical takeoff and landing technologies. On a small scale, I think that's quite real. I think people are going to be able to order a flight in the same way that they order an Uber, then go from point A to point B through the air versus on the ground. I don't think it's that far from reality now. There's a lot of companies pushing hard on this, I think it's real."
On the complexity of air travel logistics: "We hold some love for rocket scientists, they got to figure this out. It's a one-time, you take off from here, you fly to the moon, you slingshot around, you come back. Well if you think about it, try and do that with 240 aircraft that are going to various destinations. You have to coordinate the passengers with their bags, ideally, then you've got to follow all the regulations from all the different countries to make sure you're not breaking any of those and then right in the middle of it, Russia attacks Ukraine and you have to change your network on the fly and make all this happen. Some days I wish I worked for NASA, it'd be a lot simpler."
Recent book recommendation: Peak Mind by Amishi Jha
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Like what you hear? Leave us a review and subscribe to the show on Apple, Google, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Find more great lessons from tech leaders and enterprise software experts at enterprisesoftware.blog.
Enterprise Software Innovators is produced by Josh Meer and Luke Reiser

Next Episode

Next-Generation Innovations in Healthcare with HSS CTO Bashir Agboola

On the 13th episode of Enterprise Software Innovators, hosts Evan Reiser (Abnormal Security) and Saam Motamedi (Greylock Partners) talk with Bashir Agboola, Chief Technology Officer at Hospital for Special Surgery. HSS is one of the preeminent medical institutions in the world, specializing in orthopedics and providing care to patients from over 100 different countries. Today, Bashir shares his perspective on digital transformation, the exciting technologies HSS is deploying to improve patient outcomes, and insights into upcoming step changes in the healthcare industry.
Quick hits from Bashir:

On HSS utilizing 3D printing: “We have the first in-hospital 3D printing of joints. This was a project we did in collaboration with a European company to set up an FDA regulated facility at the hospital to print the joints for acute procedures. So for things like that of course you might think, ‘3D printing, is that digital?’ Of course...it's all along the line of digital transformation. The modern total knee replacement was developed at HSS close to 50 years ago. So being able to do 3D printing of implants for those acute situations is just in line with that tradition of groundbreaking innovation.”
On HSS accelerating its digital transformation during COVID-19: “We went from an organization that as of 2019 probably had less than 1% of our workforce working remotely to within March of 2020, a third of the organization was working from home, so we had to enable that technology. For me and other infrastructure and operations leaders in healthcare it was ‘finally, yes. This is what we've been saying all along, we need to focus on digital workplace transformation...’[For perspective], in all of 2019 we had less than 1500 telehealth sessions. 12 months later, we had over 123,000 telehealth sessions.”
On the future of healthcare delivery: “The future of healthcare has us consuming care virtually more and in ambulatory settings whether it's in-home or in a clinical setting. To put things in perspective, for the first 150 years of HSS, we did surgery at the hospital. In the last five years, we've opened a number of ambulatory surgical care centers where you go in, you get that meniscus tear repaired and you go back home. You don't have to stay in a hospital setting.”
On blockchain’s use cases for healthcare: “People have also talked about tackling the problems of counterfeit therapeutics, which is a big problem, particularly in the developing world. There are counterfeit drugs in pharmacies all over Africa and other parts of the world. Leveraging the blockchain to track the provenance of that drug or any other thing for which you want to track the provenance, the decentralized nature of the blockchain can allow us to do that.”
Recent Book Recommendation: The First 90 Days by Michael D. Watkins
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Like what you hear? Leave us a review and subscribe to the show on Apple, Google, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you listen to podcasts.
Find more great lessons from tech leaders and enterprise software experts at enterprisesoftware.blog.
Enterprise Software Innovators is produced by Josh Meer, Luke Reiser