In this series, we introduce you to the people behind CropXR. Who are they, what do they do, and why are they passionate about their work for CropXR?
Name: Atoesa Farokhi
What is your CropXR role?
Coordinator CropXR education.
Can you describe this role in a nutshell?
My role relates to education, life-long-learning and community building. For example, I need to make sure that the interesting findings in CropXR end up in education for students and professionals. Think of courses, minors, and other interesting forms of education. At the same time, we are working on a learning community where applied science, companies and academia meet to create meaningful collaboration. Involving researchers and students from HBO (Dutch abbreviation, meaning: Higher Professional Education) is an important task. In practice, it is making sure that people get to know and understand each other and synergize!
Why are you driven to contribute to the CropXR project?
I align with the mission of CropXR, and I am excited about research that is close to society. Being an environmental/earth scientist, I am used to the concept of resilience but from an ecosystem or society level perspective. Through CropXR, I get to understand resilience from a plant perspective, which I find very interesting. Issues of food security have always been important to me, and I think CropXR can make a real contribution to that.
Diversity is part of the beauty of CropXR
What is the main challenge you face?
That we are working with such different types of institutions and cultures, and with a lot of them. All the universities and applied science universities are important, but they are also very different. Creating solutions that work for everyone is a challenge. However, I think this diversity is also part of the beauty of CropXR, so I would not have it any other way!
What do you personally hope to achieve within CropXR in the next (10) years?
A sustainable and lively community in which academia, applied science and industry find and appreciate each other. This should be a place where students of different institutions learn about resilience and work together on meaningful projects. So that we have a generation of experts that can carry on the mission that we share in this project. I hope to be able to bring this to life.