Company
Agricompas was founded in 2016 and specialises in agricultural data analytics to create knowledge and decision support for all users in major crop value chains.
CEO: Roelof Kramer
Roelof has over 20 years of experience building businesses and providing services to customers worldwide. Having worked for VanderHave (seeds), Syngenta (crop protection), and both consulting firms Context Network and LMC International, Roelof has a thorough understanding of crop value chains.
His great passion is sustainable optimisation of agricultural production systems in developed and developing countries. Better knowledge and decision support will improve the technical, economical and environmental efficiency of crop value chains and bring socio-economic benefits to commercial as well as smallholder growers.
Head of Programmes: Sam Adams
Sam has worked in international agriculture projects since 2001, with expertise in project management, communications, and monitoring and evaluation. He has delivered projects in over twenty countries, primarily in sub-Saharan Africa and has lived in Zimbabwe, Uganda and South Africa.
Sam oversees the Agricompas portfolio of projects, including our work with rice, cacao and oil palm growers in Colombia. His role includes the project management of EcoProMIS. He is based in the UK and is passionate about agricultural innovation that delivers agronomic, social and environmental sustainability.
Head of Crop Science: Carlos Bojacá
Carlos is based in Bogotá, Colombia and leads our work with crop modelling. He is an agronomist with a PhD in Bioscience Engineering.
Carlos’ research interests are focused on the sustainability of agricultural production systems coupled to crop systems modeling. Environmental assessments uncertainty due to agricultural production variability is another research interest.
Most of his work has been focused on horticultural crops including both open field and greenhouse systems, with a growing expertise in the Agricompas core crops of rice, palm oil, and cacao. In his spare time, Carlos likes to go jogging.
Head of Engineering: Richard Strange
Richard is the Head of Engineering for Agricompas and the EcoProMIS project. He looks after our data at every step between post-collection to analytics and customer-facing products. Outside of work, Richard is completing a DPhil in Environmental Research at the University of Oxford, using AI and Big Data to better forecast volcanic eruptions around the world.
Richard has a background in Geology and Environmental science with a Masters in GeoScience from Royal Holloway. He has consulting experience with Data Science and Big Data Engineering, working with Agritech and AI start-ups.
Away from the desk, Richard is a keen pianist and violinist and a slightly rusty fencer. He grew up split between Warsaw, Poland; and Portsmouth in the UK.
Crop Modeller: Rodrigo Gil
Rodrigo is an Agronomist Engineer with a master’s degree in Geomatics from the National University of Colombia and a PhD in Biosciences from the Catholic University of Leuven.
He has 15 years of experience in research projects related to the agricultural area that have resulted in multiple national and international publications. Rodrigo is a Professor of horticulture, basic statistics and research in a Colombian University. Married with three children, including twin boys, before the COVID pandemic, his main hobby was running.
Business Development Manager: Nicolás González
Nicolás joined our team in October 2020 and is based in Bogotá. He is a talented communicator and financier with an Executive MBA.
Nicolás enjoys solving problems, and bring leadership and strategic thinking. He has seven years experience leading work teams as a Key Account Manager of diverse clients in projects that integrate sales, marketing and corporate finance.
His hobbies travelling and enjoying movies and music. Back at work, Nicolás regularly takes on the role of entrepreneur, developing business models for start-ups with a focus on sustainability, profit and social impact.
Product Manager (Rice): Ivàn Avila
Ivàn has worked with Agricompas in various capacities over the course of our project in Colombia. He is based in Bogotá and currently serves as the Product Manager for our work with the rice sector.
Working closely with Nicolás and Roelof, Ivàn leads the coordination of our work with the rice federation in Colombia, rice growers, and the insurance sector.
Ivàn has a broad range of skills, with experience in project management, strategic planning, problem-solving, leadership and management, coordination and facilitation of strategic alliances. His work interests are in sustainability, development, innovation and entrepreneurship and in his relaxation time enjoys movies, cooking, art and listening to podcasts.
Data Analyst: Simon Dzurjak
Simon has a background in Earth observation, having worked in remote sensing research prior to joining Agricompas.
He has undertaken a MSc in Computer Science at the University of Birmingham, where he has developed an interest in applying machine learning approaches to remote sensing and environmental challenges.
Outside of work, Simon thinks of himself as a world-class cook and recently, an aspiring runner.