The 4th International Agriculture Innovation Conference

Speech Topic: Innovative Agriculture for Human Health and Environmental Sustainability

Dr. Cheng-I Wei is the former Dean of the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources and Director of the Maryland Agricultural Experiment Station and University of Maryland Extension at the University of Maryland. In January 2018, Dr. Wei founded the International Association for Agricultural Sustainability to assemble agriculture-related knowledge and methodology approaches, and to further impact the economy, human health, and sociality positively. He assumed the current position as International Programs Director in November 2015 following a two-term, 10-year service as the dean and director. Prior to coming to Maryland, Dr. Wei served as Associate Dean for Research and Graduate Studies of the College of Human Environmental Sciences at Oklahoma State University, as well as Interim Head of the Department of Nutritional Sciences. He was Bruno Professor and Head of the Department of Nutrition and Food Sciences at Auburn University, Alabama, for four years. Dr. Wei is the chairman of International Association for Agriculture Sustainability which founded in 2018. During his tenure at University of Florida, Gainesville, he advanced through the ranks from assistant professor to associate professor to full professor in the Food Science and Human Nutrition Department where he taught “Food Toxicology and Foodborne Infections” and “Seafood Technology.”

Dr. Wei received his B.S. in biology from the Tunghai University of Taiwan in 1970, an M.S. in medical microbiology from National Taiwan University in 1972, and a Ph.D. in microbiology from the University of California-Davis in 1979. His research interests are in food microbiology and safety, toxicology, and immunotoxicology. He has secured over $11 million in external funds to support his research and published 207 refereed papers.

Under his leadership, the College of Agriculture and Natural Resources has established the successful Department of Environmental Science and Technology, Center for Food Safety and Security Systems, the Agriculture Law Education Initiative, and the 2+2 Undergraduate Transfer Program with four Chinese universities. The enrollment of undergraduate students in the college increased from 916 in FY 2005 to 1226 in FY 2015, and the extramural funding increased from 19 million to 35 million.

Dr. Pekka Antero Kess is a Professor of industrial engineering and management at the University of Oulu, Finland. He received his Dr of Science degree at the University of Oulu and Dr of Engineering at Kasetsart University.

Professor Kess has an extensive managerial experience from both universities and industrial enterprises. He has worked in managerial positions in chemical, steel and electronics industries, as well as in the software business.

He has been an active project evaluator for the European Commission, as well as a manager of international research and development projects. His research areas cover smart cities, business ecosystems, strategic management, production organizations, and knowledge management with the specialization in knowledge transfer and e-learning. New is of interest is the business opportunities based on natural forest-based resources.
He has supervised more than 300 graduate and close to 30 doctoral students in the area of Industrial Engineering and Management.

Professor Kess has collaborated with Asian universities closely in the areas of research and education and services to the society.

Dr. Tzong-Ru Lee is the professor of Department of Marketing and the Advisor of Global Research & Industry Alliance at National Chung Hsing University. He is also the Vice Chairman of International Association for Agricultural Sustainability and the Editor in Chief of the Jorunal “IJAITG”.

Dr. Lee is the former Chief of Media Relations Division and the former Chairman of the Department of Marketing, the Institute of Electronic Commerce and the Center for Electronic Commerce and Knowledge Economics Research in National Chung Hsing University. His contributions in the academia are outstanding that he has been awarded by International Biographical Center, Cambridge, England as 2000 outstanding intellectuals of the 21st century in the field of Marketing and Logistics in 2003 and 2000 outstanding intellectuals of the 21st century in 2005. He also serves as the associate editor of multiple journals, IJLEG, IJGC

He has been invited to be the Advisory Committee Member at International Conference on Modelling Optimization and Computing(ICMOC-2012) by Department of Mechanical Engineering, Noorul Islam Center for Higher Education, Tamil Nadu, South India in 2013. His research interests are Internet Marketing and E-commerce, Service Management and Marketing, Nonprofit Marketing, Industrial Marketing, Corporate strategy, competitive dynamics, Product & Brand Management, Technology and Innovation and Supply Chain Management

Speech Topic: Cleaner and Sustainable Food Production through an Aquaponics System

Dr. Göran Svensson is the professor at the Institute of Marketing, Kristiania University College, Norway, as well as the professor at Halmstad University, Sweden. In addition, he is Visiting Professor at University of Johannesburg, South Africa; and Adjunct Professor at Monash South Africa. He holds a Ph. D. at the School of Economics and Commercial Law, Göteborg University, Sweden.

He is the editor of European Business Review (Emerald). He is also an active and dedicated member of numerous editorial boards and editorial review boards of international research journals. Furthermore, he is a committed member of numerous international research and scholarly networks and associations.

He is a frequent author of international journal articles (240+) and international conference contributions (260+). He is also engaged as a book author.

Occasionally, he gives speeches in business and writes columns for business magazines and newspapers. During the 1980s he was an industrialist and entrepreneur in South America (Bogotá, Colombia).

His research agenda consists of various research subjects and has published in areas such as Business Ethics, Logistics Management, Industrial Marketing, Leadership, Relationship Quality, Services Marketing, Supply Chain Management, Business Sustainability.

Dr. Tan Wee Liang joined SMU in 1999 as a member of the Core Planning Team of the then new university, SMU, when he developed the predecessor offices of the present day Office of Student Life and Office of Career Services. He joined academe beginning his career with the Faculty of Accountancy and Business Administration at the National University of Singapore in 1985. Prior to SMU, he had served as sub-dean, vice-dean and director of the Entrepreneurship Development Centre at NTU.

His current research interests lie in the domains of entrepreneurship, family business, international cooperation and corporate governance. His initial research was in law as he began his career as a law professor, when he had publications in the Malayan Law Review. He has since moved into entrepreneurship research. He has published in the Journal of International Business Studies, Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice, Family Business Review, Journal of High Technology Management Research, and Journal of Business Research. In addition to journal publications, he has co-authored Entrepreneurship and Enterprise Development in Asia (2001) and edited a number of books. He serves on the editorial boards of Journal of Small Business Management, International Entrepreneurship and Management Research, and Small Business Research.

He has served as national expert for entrepreneurship and SMEs for APEC, Asian Productivity Organization, the Colombo Plan Secretariat and the Commonwealth Secretariat.

Dr. Joanna Paliszkiewicz was employed as an assistant professor at the Technical University of Czestochowa, Poland after completing her master’s degree in 1999. At the time, her main topic of research was intellectual capital. In 2004 she earned her PhD. Her multiple research writings were published in scholarly outlets including a book entitled “Development of organization by management of intellectual capital”. In 2006 she moved from Czestochowa to Warsaw to start employment at Warsaw University of Life Sciences where she was conducting research in the area of knowledge management. In 2009 she earned her habilitation degree. As a result, she published her research in the form of articles and the book entitled “Knowledge management in small and medium enterprises – concept of estimating and models”. In 2011 she was promoted to the rank of professor at Warsaw University of Life Sciences. Her research in the area of trust management began after 2009.

Dr. Paliszkiewicz was the recipient of a research project grant supported by the Polish Ministry of Sciences and Higher Education. Her research work on this grant appeared in the 2013 book “Trust in management” and other scholarly publishing outlets. She was taking part in different research projects usually as the leader. In addition to acquiring her research experience in Poland, she was a part of many scholarship endeavors in Ireland, Egypt, Slovakia, Hungary, Georgia, Serbia, USA, Taiwan. She was actively involved in participating and presenting research results at international conferences.

Currently, Dr. J. Paliszkiewicz serves as the deputy editor in chief of the international journal, Management and Production Engineering Review and editor of Issues in Information Systems. In addition, she serves as a member of editorial board of several reputable and high impact international journals such Expert System with Application and the Journal of Computer Information Systems. Dr. Paliszkiewicz has successfully supervised Ph.D. students leading them to completion of their degrees. She has also served as an external reviewer for several Ph.D. students including a one in the University of Vaasa in Finland in 2011. She is actively involved in participating in scientific committees of many international conferences. She was chair of the scientific committee of International Farm Management Congress IFMA 19, which was held in July 2013 at Warsaw University of Life Sciences.

Speech Topic: Consumers’ Perceptions of Biocide use in the Food Industry

Dr. Mirosa is an Associate Professor and Director for the Consumer Food Science Programme at the Department of Food Science, University of Otago, New Zealand. She is an Interdisciplinarian who has a background in consumer behavior research and food marketing. Her research aims to understand why people eat what they do, why they don’t eat what they don’t, and how we might best impact upon these choices to encourage people to choose quality, healthy and environmentally sustainable foods. Dr. Mirosa has recently completed a Postharvest Food Loss and Waste Research Fellowship funded by the Ministry for Primary Industries and the Ministry for Business, Innovation, and Employment and represents New Zealand on the multiyear APEC-funded Food Loss and Waste project. She is a Strategic Team Leader of the New Zealand Food Safety Science Research Centre and Co-Leads the Markets and Perceptions Theme. She is also the University of Otago Lead on the New Zealand China Food Protection Network. Dr. Mirosa currently has National Science Challenge High-Value Nutrition funding from the Consumer Insight program so is working to guide the health research programs towards “biomarkers” of health that resonate with consumers and to provide a knowledge base for businesses to leverage from when conducting their more specific market and consumer research and product design.

Dr. Pamela Becker has been employed at Eastern Michigan University since 1993; she is a full Professor and the Interim Director of the School of Technology and Professional Services Management. Prior to this, she was the undergraduate Technology Management program coordinator in the School of Technology Studies. She was the primary researcher and developer of this program which was approved in 2001 and had its first program graduates in 2004. She was instrumental in the development of unique 3+1 Articulation Agreements with area community colleges, which enable students to transfer technical Associate of Applied Science degree programs and general education coursework into the Technology Management program without loss of credit hours.

Speech Topic: Wild bilberry: from Basic Science to Applications

Dr. Häggman is the Professor at the University of Oulu and Docent at University of Helsinki. Dr. Häggman completed her post-doc at Prof. Ronald Sederoff’s lab which is at the Department of Forestry, Laboratory of Molecular Biology in NCSU, NC, USA. After the post-doc degree, she continued her career as a research leader of Tree Biotech project in the Finnish Forest Research Institute. Since 2001, she has been working as a full-time Professor at the Department of Biology and now, after the change of organization, she works in the Ecology and Genetics unit. Her research is mainly focus on the species of forest trees and wild berry. Dr. Häggman has around 200 publications. She also organizes the research group which includes both post docs and PhD students. Dr. Häggman has several commissions of trust, for example, she is the member of Research council of Academy of Finland (2007-2012), and the member of the Board of Thule Institute (UOulu 2005-2015).

Speech Topic: New Innovations Emerging from the Focused Scientific Research and Unique Technologies

Mr. Korteniemi has a background in establishing new financial instruments and consultant services for small and medium-size enterprises in Finland. He was also one of the pioneers in developing venture capital financing in Finland. Especially he has worked in Oulu region 1970-1980 when new technology companies had their start-up phases.
After ten years period as managing director in a venture capital company, he started his own businesses in 1992. One of the new areas was the establishment of Aromtech Ltd together with professor Heikki Kallio (University of Turku). Korteniemi has education in engineering from the University of Oulu, M.Sc in technical physics in 1972. Korteniemi is the Vice-President in the International Seabuckthorn Association. Aromtech’s main raw material source are sea buckthorn berries.

Speech Topic: Hyperspectral Imaging in Food Quality Control

Esko Herrala, one of the co-founders of SPECIM, Spectral Imaging Ltd., has 30 years of experience on hyperspectral imaging and its applications. SPECIM is the world-leading provider of hyperspectral instrumentation to industry and research. As Senior Application Specialist, Esko Herrala is working closely with major food and recycling industries that apply hyperspectral imaging in their manufacturing processes.

Speech Topic: Interregional Collaboration in Europe and Agri-Food Smart Specialisation Platform

Kateřina Ciampi Stančová is Scientific Officer at the European Commission, Joint Research Centre. She is tasked with supporting the design and implementation of EU territorial development policies and assessing their impact. Her research interests include research and innovation policies and eco-systems, smart specialisation, transnational and interregional cooperation in R&I, regional development, public policies (capacity building, multi-level governance, policy learning and policy evaluation), international skilled migration and less developed innovation systems (EU-13).

Professor, China Agricultural University, China
General Manager, Beijing Futong Environmental Engineering Co., Ltd., China

Director, Institute of Agricultural Planning Science of China Agricultural University, China

Vice-chairman, Agricultural S &T Park Branch of Chinese

Association of Agricultural Science Societies（CAASS）, China