Global Open Data for Agriculture and Nutrition (GODAN), a United Nations, UK and US government-supported initiative advocating the proactive sharing of Open Data to make information about agriculture and nutrition available, accessible and usable to deal with the urgent challenge of ensuring world food security, will be speaking at the high-profile Global Forum 2018 in Copenhagen, Denmark between 5–6 November

Andre Laperrière, the CEO of GODAN will be presenting on Digitisation – Transforming Economy & Society at the panel.

The Global Forum is a high profile, international, not-for-profit event dedicated to business and policy issues affecting the successful evolution of the Digital Society. Convening over 300 key policy-makers and public/private stakeholders from more than 30 countries from all continents each year, it is often considered as the Davos for ICT.

Mr Laperrière will discuss Denmark’s role in reshaping the world’s Open Data polices as a leading country in Open Data and agriculture. He will also spotlight ambitious initiatives being developed by the country. GODAN believes Denmark is well positioned to demonstrate the critical impact and benefit of open and accessible data on the country’s agriculture sector as well as support improved crop yields and nutrition in developing countries.

GODAN seeks to support global efforts to make agricultural and nutrition relevant data available, accessible, and usable for unrestricted use worldwide, by building high-level policy and public and private institutional support for open data. The idea is that open and accessible data will empower farmers and food companies from across the world to use relevant and smart data to better plan and execute their production and in turn address and tackle world hunger.

GODAN works closely with the Danish agriculture industry and counts Ceptu as one of its partners from the country. Ceptu delivers a web and smartphone-based solution for crop vegetation development using satellite technologies.

Speaking about GODAN’s participation at the summit, André Laperrière said “Denmark is home to one of the world’s most important agricultural industries. It is the only country amongst the other Baltic nations with a net export of agricultural products whilst the country is also producing up to three times the amount of food it needs for itself. It has worked tirelessly to produce a solid infrastructure and develop excellent technology to help with its agricultural production. With this in mind, Denmark has become an important country in the sector and, alongside GODAN, both will be looking at ways to create new opportunities and help use the influence created by Denmark to ensure world food security.”

The event is being organised by Items International, an international consulting firm based in Paris, dedicated to Information & Communication Technologies strategies.

While in Denmark, Mr. Laperrière seeks to work with the Danish Government and the private sector organisations and invite them to join GODAN’s 800+ strong alliance.

Mr Laperrière was in Vietnam last week for the ‘Data-driven agriculture within the digital economy’ forum, demonstrating Vietnam’s commitment towards open data in agriculture and nutrition.