Lorenzo Conti Podcast Transcript
Lorenzo Conti joins host Brian Thomas on The Digital Executive Podcast.
Welcome to Coruzant Technologies, home of The Digital Executive Podcast.
Brian Thomas: Welcome to The Digital Executive. Today’s guest is Lorenzo Conti. Dr. Lorenzo Conti is Founder and Managing Director of Crover Limited, a Scottish based startup that developed the world’s first subterranean drone, i.e. a CROVER.
Lorenzo is an enterprise fellow of the Royal Academy of Engineering and holds a PhD in engineering from the University of Edinburgh, where he worked on granular rheology, which is the study of how granular matter flows and discovered the Crover effect. Well, good afternoon, Lorenzo. Welcome to the show.
Lorenzo Conti: Thank you, Brian. Delighted to be here.
Brian Thomas: Absolutely. Thank you so much for jumping on a podcast. I know that you’re currently hailing out of the UK sometimes traversing the globe is a challenge, but always fun getting to meet somebody new from around the world. So, thank you. And Lorenzo, we’re going to jump right into your questions.
Let’s talk about your career as an engineer. Distinguished fellow and entrepreneur, and now you’re the founder and managing director of Crover limited. Could you share with our audience the secret to your career growth and what inspires you?
Lorenzo Conti: Well, unfortunately, I don’t think there’s any simple way to carry growth.
You know, in the end it’s all about hard work and putting in the time. So, it took me quite a bit of time to get to where I am you know, part of the path, especially the PhD wasn’t exactly as straightforward as I would have hoped, but I’m, you know, I’m delighted that he turned out for the best and that we’re here and I’m generally inspired by complex problems that.
And not a lot of people are tackling, but there are particularly challenging and, you know, most importantly over the last years, I’ve been fascinated by the field of granular materials which is a bit of a funny word that not many people know, but in reality. All of us since a young age, we have dealt with granite materials from you know, playing with sand at the beach as kids.
You know, he’s really the most ubiquitous type of trading material across the world. They cover anything made of solid discrete particles from, you know, sand to chemical powders and so on and also grain. Which has really been our focus so far. So just coming from PhD working on non-local effects in granular materials.
So, I managed to discover that there is a connection or a coupling between rotation and transitional motion in this type of system which effectively represents the first feasible method for locomotion. Or moving through this type of environment, which enabled us to develop what we call a Kroger robot which is effectively the world’s first device able to move fully submerged in in this type of environments.
Brian Thomas: That’s awesome. And, you know, I’ll be honest, I’ve interviewed 800 people around the world doing different things, different entrepreneurs, scientists, you name it. But I can tell you, this is the first podcast we talk about the granular matter. And we’re going to dive into some of these questions here, here in a second.
But really, really interest me, piqued my interest. And I appreciate you sharing that story and all the work and education you’ve done. So, Lorenzo, what are the potential applications of the CROVER technology? beyond grain storage management?
Lorenzo Conti: Yeah. So, like you said you know, the application that we’ve been focused on is helping grain storage operators like grain merchants, cooperatives, port operators, and farmers maintain the quality of their stock.
You know, making sure that the grain that goes into storage comes out with the same quality and also that that grain is managed safely so that. You know, farmers and grain storage operators, they don’t have to walk on these very dangerous bulks, which can be unfortunately fatal at times.
But because the Crover robot is able to move through any type of granite materials, it could be applied to the storage and handling of you know, minerals. Chemical powders and even even for space exploration I mean, we, we often see you know, NA and the organizations just avoiding like very Sandy Dunes or Mars and other places just because they don’t have a rover that can move through.
Those type of environments without getting stuck. And, you know, we, we think we have a device and a technology that can do that. And you know, even though that requires a lot of time and that’s why we’re focused on application on earth we’d love to get a Crover into space in the future as well.
Brian Thomas: That’s amazing. Again, I love it. And just so our audience understands a little bit more really you essentially, like the basically the first drone that is subterranean and that when I was doing some of the research, I was just amazed by it and I’m really excited for the possibilities and the use cases of this and I hope someday you will be on March with your with your particular product.
That’s just awesome. So, Lorenzo, how does Crover’s technology contribute to reducing post-harvest losses and improving food security?
Lorenzo Conti: So, we help both monitor the quality of large blocks of grain in storage. So, whether it’s in sheds or silos, we’re usually talking about, you know, thousands of tons of grain staying static for long periods of time you know, one month, two, three months or longer, sometimes even two years.
And over that time. If the condition is not right, especially if the environment is too hot or too moist, then it creates an environment where infestations like molds or insects, they can grow from the spores or the eggs that come from the field. And they can you know, damage a grain, but also, they start reproducing and they, they start almost an exponential growth effect.
So, it’s really important to identify those problems early, identify any conditions that can lead. To the growth of those infestations, ideally, even before they have started or stop them, you know, early in their tracks and control the conditions of you know, of those stores so that those infestations are not able to grow this also, you know, some cases where also you don’t want to go too dry or too cold for instance, you We’re based in Scotland, where the primary crop is malting barley for the brewing and distilling industries.
And you know, in that case, you also want to make sure that the grain doesn’t effectively die, so it doesn’t lose its germination capacity, and that can happen also if it’s just too dry or too cold. We’ve also been working on a Sampling feature to help storage operators collect physical samples from wheat in the bulk which again helps them you know, track their grain like monitor but especially like kind of, meet some contract, some contractual obligations, as well as requirements from trade assurance schemes that usually require samples to be taken over regular.
Intervals and yeah, over time, we love to, you know, we, we’ve got in plan to implement topical intervention features as well so that we can address problems locally where they occur rather than having to intervene on the entire bulk through, you know, cooling aeration or fumigation which is quite inefficient at the moment, because even if you have a problem in a limited area, you’ve got to act on, on the entire thing.
Brian Thomas: Thank you. That’s, that’s just amazing. And, you know, with the advancement of technology, especially in your case we could save You know, billions potentially of, of savings across the world by ensuring that our grain is safe. And we are preventing a lot of these different types of insects and spores and so forth that may reproduce in the green elevator.
So, I appreciate the share. And Lorenzo, the last question I have for you today is, could you discuss the role of innovation and technology in the ag tech sector and its impact on global agriculture?
Lorenzo Conti: Yeah, it’s you know, obviously we all need food. And we, we’ve got the problem that we’ve got a growing population and there, this you know, there’s not going to be enough land to, to feed all of that.
And so, it’s all about improving efficiency and technology is all about developing, you know, better method, more efficient methods that can. enable us to produce more with less to especially save more so that more food reaches the end of the supply chain and is effectively used. And we need a multiplicity of technologies to, you know, to get to those targets.
So, we are happy to contribute our part. Also, you know, with our tech domain the sort of tech part of our name, even though it is an officially. Part of our company name, a lot of people, you know, recognize it because it’s in our domain and it has become almost an extension of our brand.
Brian Thomas: That’s awesome. Thank you. And I appreciate you mentioned that with the tech domain. And Lorenzo, you know, the, the thing that I like about it, your product, obviously you mentioned you’re doing your part of it. And we love this because we’ve talked to other entrepreneurs doing different things in the supply chain around agriculture, right?
And blockchain is just one of the many things that will contribute to again, making sure that the food gets to the end of the chain. Versus it being spoiled or wasted or lots of, you know, cost or waste in, in this process. So, thank you again. And Lorenzo, it was such a pleasure having you today and I look forward to speaking with you real soon.
Lorenzo Conti: Thank you very much, Brian.
Brian Thomas: Bye for now.
Lorenzo Conti Podcast Transcript. Listen to the audio on the guest’s podcast page.
