United Nations Day
76th Anniversary Celebration
Sunday, October 24th
3:00-4:30 p.m.
Zoom presentation
Keynote Speaker: Dr. David Hughes
"It Takes A Village: The PlantVillage Model for Combating Food Insecurity in Africa”
In this talk Dr. Hughes will share with you the approach by PlantVillage, a UN partner, to help communities across Africa cope with climate change and pests. Through the innovative deployment of AI, cloud computing and local youth (named Dream Teams); they have seen major positive advances in farming and pastoralist communities across Africa. The great challenge these communities face is climate change. He will share how they are advocating both climate change mitigation and adaptation in a model that promotes sustainable development through the carbon market.
Dr. David Hughes is the Dorothy Foehr Huck and J. Lloyd Huck Chair in Global Food Security at The Pennyslvania State University and founder of PlantVillage. He was a Fellow at the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (UN FAO) from 2018-2020 where he solidified the relationship between Penn State and UN FAO using the PlantVillage, a global platform that helps millions of farmers cope with pests and climate change. PlantVillage helps the UN to monitor transboundary pests across 60 countries and 30 languages. Dr. Hughes’ previous work was as a rainforest ecologist studying ants; however, now his passion and focus is on global food security. He is Irish and was educated at Glasgow and Oxford and held fellowships at Copenhagen and Harvard before coming to Penn State.
Make A Difference!
As always UNA will be sponsoring a “Make a Difference Project. This year we are partnering with the PlantVillage. Any money you donate will be doubled by one of PlantVillage's benefactors. Your contribution, together with the donations of other UNA supporters can make a huge difference in the lives of African farmers.
Learn more about PlantVillage and donate