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Extract from Industrial Biotechnology (Joseph Byrum)
IB: Life-cycle assessment has been important to assess the sustainability of innovations that we make to complex agriculturally based industrial systems. To what degree does sustainable development play in Syngenta’s approach to plant breeding and agricultural innovation?
BYRUM: Take a crop like soybean. It’s the number one export in terms of value. If you could improve output by one bushel per acre, it would deliver $820 million in extra value to U.S. soybean farmers. A little bit of optimization goes a long way in reducing costs and easing environmental impacts. That’s why we’ve been committed to this systematic approach. It’s a ‘‘win-win’’ for everyone involved, and it’s the best sustainable development play.
IB: How has Syngenta sought to strengthen the development of system modeling, simulation, and optimization tools through its outreach activities and strategic partnerships?
BYRUM: We realized early on that Syngenta needed to augment the in-house expertise required to build the data analytics tools we wanted. We couldn’t exactly place a help wanted ad in the newspaper and expect practitioners of pure mathematics who understood plant biology to flock to our doors looking for a job. This was a skillset that essentially didn’t exist in our organization and had to be created over time. We used a variety of crowdsourcing tools to work on building the tools we needed, starting with simpler problems that could be solved with just statistical expertise. As we found more talent, we evolved the challenges and worked with teams that brought the needed skillsets to create the tools and methods. Our internal teams were absolutely essential in working hands-on with these external partners to develop these tools.
Joseph Byrum is an accomplished executive leader, innovator, and cross-domain strategist with a proven track record of success across multiple industries. With a diverse background spanning biotech, finance, and data science, he has earned over 50 patents that have collectively generated more than $1 billion in revenue. Dr. Byrum’s groundbreaking contributions have been recognized with prestigious honors, including the INFORMS Franz Edelman Prize and the ANA Genius Award. His vision of the “intelligent enterprise” blends his scientific expertise with business acumen to help Fortune 500 companies transform their operations through his signature approach: “Unlearn, Transform, Reinvent.” Dr. Byrum earned a PhD in genetics from Iowa State University and an MBA from the Stephen M. Ross School of Business, University of Michigan.
