How does a company operating outside the major technology talent centres gain access to the most innovative data scientists that money can buy? Despite having 28,000 employees, including more than 5,000 Doctorate-holding experts, there is a world of talent external to Syngenta, with the ability to provide cutting-edge innovations and assist Syngenta’s mission to develop innovative crop solutions.
Research and Development in agribusiness traditionally consists of thousands of trial and error tests to optimise seeds based on growing conditions, locations, soils and others; this equates to hundreds of millions of dollars and on average a seven-year process to take a new plant variety through to a commercial product. But could data analytics facilitate a better modelling of probable outcomes, allowing smarter choices to be made, saving time, effort and money in the process?
This is where crowdsourcing and InnoCentive helped: utilising the power of the global crowd to deliver innovative solutions and assist Syngenta in their aim of smarter processes and leaner research.
