Microsoft and Danone commit to Artificial Intelligence for a responsible food industry

17-Jan-2020 - France

AI Factory For AgriFood is the third class of the Microsoft AI Factory, after AI Factory for Green Energy and AI Factory for Health! The start-ups will be jointly supported by Microsoft and Danone, one of the world leaders in the agrifood sector, and will benefit from a 3-month acceleration period.

Danone

AI Factory for AgriFood for sustainable food and regenerative agriculture

AI Factory, Microsoft's support program for start-ups specializing in Artificial Intelligence, is organized around 5 major economic and societal challenges: health, environment / energy, transportation, financial services and agrifood. The aim of the AI Factory for Agrifood is on the one hand to accelerate the digital transformation of each sector, and on the other hand to support these young companies to continue their development in artificial intelligence and cloud computing. Real start-ups accelerator, this program aims at being a co-innovation laboratory that links start-ups, world of research and various players in each sector. Thanks to these synergies, the AI Factory for Agrifood intends to encourage projects serving regenerative agriculture (soil health, animal welfare, support for farmers), sustainable food, waste minimization, and optimization of supply chains.

A personalized support for an full ecosystem

The AI Factory for Agrifood start-ups will benefit from Danone’s ‘One Planet. One Health’ vision,
which links human health and the planet’s across its entire value chain. They will also benefit from
access to real use cases under demanding real life conditions of quality and performance. Microsoft
will provide personalized support through its technological skills and the services of its Azure
platform, as well as its sales network.
Inria, the national research institute in digital sciences, France Digitale, FaberNovel, EIT Food and
Seventure Partners are also teaming up alongside Microsoft and Danone and will intervene during
the different stages of the program: AI start-ups sourcing, selection process, coaching, among others,
to bring their respective expertise.

First step for start-ups: apply!

  • Start-ups applying need to have developed and marketed a solution based on an artificial
    intelligence technology and intended for professionals in the food industry.
  • Applicants need to have already raised funds


The announcement of the 6 selected start-ups will be formalized on March 5.
Agnès Van de Walle, Director of the One Commercial Partner Entity at Microsoft France: "Our
ambition is to help develop digital intelligence for healthy food and sustainable agriculture. This
partnership with Danone will provide the selected applicants with in-depth expertise and
personalized support, thus accelerating innovation throughout the agrifood sector. "
Cécile Cabanis, EVP, CFO, IS / IT, Danone Cycles & Procurement:" At Danone, we believe that artificial
intelligence can contribute to the Food Revolution by improving our agricultural systems and our
food’s value chains. That’s why we are very happy to launch this program with our partners at
Microsoft: in a fundamental area such as food and agriculture, it is essential to encourage
collaborative initiatives, knowledge sharing and the emergence of new, more inclusive and more
sustainable solutions "

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