The Symposium includes a great opportunity to take part in an afternoon tour of UNE SMART Farm on Thursday.

Robb College Foundation are excited to invite you to be part of this year’s 3 day Rural Focus event.

The full program for the event includes the Rural Focus 2016 Dinner on Wednesday 27 July at Robb College, with the Symposium on Thursday 28 July welcoming high profile guests from industry as well as university staff from UNE Business School, School of Environmental and Rural Science and School of Science and Technology. These speakers will address a broad range of topics and issues of great significance to our current and future farming communities.

The Symposium is geared towards looking to the future of the agricultural industry, with an emphasis from our speakers on change and transition – hot topics like future workforces, changing business models and implementation of new technologies into business practice.

The Symposium will see UNE alumna Kirsty McCormack returning to campus to speak alongside her colleague Dr Andew Linco on the topic “From the Channel Country to the World: A family success story” in her role as Sales and Production Executive at OBE Organic.

Thursday’s program includes a chance to see innovative technology in action with an afternoon tour of UNE SMART Farm for all attendees.

The visit will be followed by the IFAMA cocktail reception, for the official launch of the Centre for Agribusiness, where attendees will meet our IFAMA sponsors and hear from our students about their insights into the future of food and fibre.

The Centre is significant news for our community, taking focus on innovation and collaboration with experts in a variety of fields and industries. The Centre for Agribusiness will work to meet growing needs of future-facing industry – equipping businesses to anticipate changes and see opportunities; to put technology to real-world uses that can be monetized; to interpret the vast supply of data available to make better decisions and plan ahead.

Attendees of the launch event will have a special opportunity to meet more key industry guests as well as our UNE academic experts who will be working with the Centre.

Friday brings the annual Farming Futures Careers Fair on campus at UNE and the Farming Futures Dinner at UNE Bistro.

The events over three days will be a place to network, to learn and to let the future grab the imaginations of our attendees. A full list of speakers and topics is available on the Rural Focus Symposium page, which includes how and where to register for each event, as well as a chance to get to know our speakers in advance and consider the questions to put to each panel of experts.

Further questions about the event can go to ruralfocus@une.edu.au or call (02) 6773 1700.