Tue, 11 Sept
|The Laneway Lounge
The cassava warriors in East Africa
Technology, like pocket DNA sequencing and supercomputing, are making a huge impact for farmers in sub-Saharan Africa.
Time & Location
11 Sept 2018, 6:00 pm – 7:00 pm
The Laneway Lounge, 414b Murray St, Perth WA 6000, Australia
About The Event
Dr Laura Boykin, a Computational Biologist at UWA and Senior TED Fellow, along with her team of 'Cassava Warriors' have been utilising technology to develop a cassava plant (which is an important food crop) that is resistant to viruses and whitefly.
They’ve already reported an 800x increase in the yield of the cassava plant – a positive result for smallholder farmers in East Africa where whiteflies had been devastating the local cassava crops! Laura’s team have helped African scientist increase their knowledge of genomics and high performance computing resulting in local communities taking charge of their agricultural development sector.
Download event flyer.