For 20 years Ad Bastiaansen has been working for Tele Atlas, a pioneering company in the area of digital maps. Tele Atlas was sold for 3 billion Euro to TomTom. At present Ad is chairman of the Waterwatch Cooperative. In this company he is not digitalizing roads but plants. The Waterwatch Cooperative is gathering data of soil, climate and weather conditions in a Global Vegetation Database. The database is easy accessible and provides free data for companies developing applications for farmers to increase their yields while using less water and pesticides. A hugh global database! The challenge we face in 2050 is to feed 9 billion people on our planet. To achieve this we have to increase food production with 70%. With smallholders having an important share in the food production, the aim is to bring these data through applications to all farmers.

You can listen to the interview (in Dutch only) here or you can look at the additional interview of Ad Bastiaansen with Vincent Everts here.