Agri Info Design’s app, AgriBus-NAVI, is a simple GPS guidance system to mount on agricultural machinery, allowing farmers to create straight and evenly spaced plow lines on large land plots. Farmers who operate large machinery often struggle to navigate efficiently, leading to excessive fertilizer and pesticide use and wasted seeding. Through the use of this technology, Agri Info Design is laying the groundwork for “cloud farming” and enhanced agricultural productivity. Founder and CEO Yasuyuki Hamada shares his thoughts on how building IT systems for farming can create greater empathy between farmers and consumers and lead to the production of more nutritious crops.

We are incredibly committed to STEM education at Weatherford, especially when it comes to supporting women and underprivileged youth. In 2016, we provided approximately 2,220 students with STEM mentorship through our Weatherford Worldwide Initiative Supporting Education (WISE) program. In June, the Weatherford WISE program hosted seven high school girls from the Houston area for their IPAA/PESA summer externship.

Richard Choularton is a senior associate focused on food security and climate resilience with Tetra Tech International Development Services. As the former Chief of the World Food Programme’s Climate and Disaster Risk Reduction Unit, he is a recognized, world-renowned expert in climate change adaptation and risk mitigation, resilience, food security, emergency preparedness, and early warning systems.

Participants of this event ran, walked or volunteered to assist during a 5K while carrying buckets of water to symbolize the distance that people around the world must travel to access water.

Our approach to evaluating greener chemicals is based on the 12 Principles of Green Chemistry. We recognize that these principles distill into three major categories: improving resource use, more efficient use of energy, and minimizing human and environmental hazards.

In 2016, we saw nontraditional sustainability reports gain traction with Patagonia's report, which swapped the text-heavy format for an image-laden report focusing on action and the outdoors. But the stand-out activation was Heineken’s video featuring a Dutch rapper and spoken word artist who delivered the report stats in a concise and compelling way. This year, the brewing company is taking an even more interactive approach – serving up data in a fun and entertaining way.

With global environmental changes locked into our future, what we teach must evolve. All education will need to be environmental education, but environmental education cannot focus solely on teaching everyone to live just a bit greener. Instead, it will need to both teach students to be bold sustainability leaders as well as equip them with the skills necessary to survive the turbulent century ahead.

Chicago Cubs catcher Willson Contreras found himself on quite the ride in 2016 – catching for the eventual World Series Champions, being part of a fun, and energetic clubhouse, and learning more about his position from a seasoned veteran in David Ross! Sounds like the perfect way to begin a career. He was a jack-of-all-trades for the Cubs in 2016, making appearances in left field and first base in addition to his duties behind the plate.

Boeing and the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency will flight-test Long-range Light Detection and Ranging (LIDAR) technology next year. This remote-sensing technology could help commercial airplane pilots better detect and avoid weather disturbances to improve flight safety.