![]() ![]() As representative for the more than 40,000 students on the Urbana-Champaign campus, I provided the student perspective on strategic initiatives for the ongoing success of one of the premiere land grant universities. What achievement are you most proud of in your professional career? I had exposure to executive-level leadership at a young age through my experience as the Student Trustee on the University of Illinois Board of Trustees. Over the course of the last 18 months we have stood atop 40 grain bins on farms in Illinois to prototyping in the Shenzhen China the hardware capital of the world, and beginning business development and fundraising conversations in Silicon Valley. We were named to the list of ‘Top 80 Startups Powering the Future of Food and Agribusiness’ by CB Insights. Amber Agriculture was also just recently named Best Startup at the 2017 Consumer Electronics Show (the largest tech convention in the world) by Engadget. At the University of Illinois, we won the 2016 Cozad New Venture Competition. Our work together has had some great success. We quickly realized a direct application for it within agriculture and were able to build out Amber based on the intersection of interests. As an electrical engineering student, he had a unique idea for a new type of small wireless sensor. I was fortunate to meet my co-founder at an entrepreneurship event at the University of Illinois in 2015. Which academic or extracurricular achievement are you most proud of during business school? Co-founding Amber Agriculture. Career mentor for young agricultural students. ![]() Moderated state legislative primary debate for agriculture community.Guest lecturer on entrepreneurship in agribusiness for College of Agriculture.Leadership keynote at agriculture college event.Conducted data acquisition for Kauffman Foundation report on “State of American Entrepreneurship in Education” Led a team of six consultants on an industry analysis for an audit firm to provide primary research on regulatory risk from stakeholder surveys. Project Manager at Illinois Business Consulting.Led business development, strategic partnership relationship management, customer discovery, and fundraising initiatives for rising startup in the agriculture space. Co-Founder, Amber Agriculture, an Ag Tech Startup.Come summers’ end, we will relocate our team to back to Illinois to be near our market long term.Ĭommunity Work and Leadership Roles in Business School: This spring we are continuing to develop the hardware and software for our sensors while sitting in Silicon Valley. Last fall, our startup was focused on prototype development as was based in Shenzhen, China. This sensor can enable farmers to optimize the return they receive at the time of sale and also reduce risk due to spoilage. Amber Agriculture is introducing new sensor technology for the agriculture industry that can monitor grain qualities and connect farmers to buyers around high degrees of real-time information. Where will you be working after graduation? I will continue building Amber Agriculture as we develop our product for the market. I also executed some business model validation techniques around core new technology in wireless sensing, industrial automation, and hardware-enabled software for our product. It was my goal to thoroughly examine and understand the problems surrounding postharvest agriculture, an area on which our startup is interested in providing solutions. My focus was primarily on customer discovery by traveling and speaking face to face with over 50 individuals in farming, grain origination, food grade, and agriculture technology. Where did you intern during the summer of 2016? My summer of 2016 was spent developing Amber Agriculture, a startup where I am co-founder and CEO. Where did you work before enrolling in business school? Aside from growing up on a family farm, my internship experience was across the ag value chain: gaining exposure to seed production processes with Monsanto to agricultural credit and insurance services with Farm Credit Illinois for two summers and Management Consulting for Adayana Agribusiness Group in Indianapolis.ĭuring my senior year at the University of Illinois, I served as one of three student trustees on the university’s Board of Trustees. Undergraduate School and Degree: University of Illinois Agricultural Economics In addition to corn and soybeans, we also grew some specialty crops, including popcorn. Lucas Frye University of Illinois, College of Businessįun fact about yourself: I grew up on a farm in Mason County, Illinois. ![]()
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