PHILIP O’CALLAGHAN
Director
BCom, BA, CFA
Philip O’Callaghan recently joined Lincoln Agritech as a director and is the Chief Commercial Officer at Lincoln University.
Phil comes to the University from PwC where he has worked with the University recently on the Refreshing Lincoln programme, specifically on the implementation of the University’s internal economy and review of the University budget for 2017 onwards.
His work experience includes valuations, commercial turn-around, modelling advisory roles across both the public and private sectors. Phil graduated from Otago University with a Bachelor of Commerce in Finance and a Bachelor of Arts in Economics, and is also a CFA charterholder.
Lincoln Agritech has five complementary areas of expertise:
Environmental
Supplying tools that enable regional and central government, as well as water users, to manage groundwater quality, nitrogen impacts and water allocation to enable a sustainable future for New Zealand’s water resource; our work includes hydrological resource characterisation and assessment of groundwater assimilative capacity.
Precision Agriculture
Providing technologies and advice to enable efficient agricultural and horticultural production systems and to respond to inter- and intra-field variation; includes best management practices, technologies and models to balance pesticide and fertiliser use, sustainable primary production and environmental protection.
New Materials
Creating new revenue opportunities for New Zealand’s primary sector developing new functionalised high value materials from coarse wool. Lincoln Agritech is leading the ‘New Uses for Wool’ partnership programme, a joint venture between the New Zealand Government and Wool Industry Research Ltd (WIRL). The seven-year programme aims to develop high volume, high value materials from New Zealand’s coarse wool industry.
Sensing and Biotechnology
We develop technologies to benefit New Zealand’s agricultural and industrial sectors, including microbial biotechnologies to enhance plant growth systems and manage disease and smart sensing technologies that reduce costs, realise new revenue streams and improve decision-making. Our work is delivered by four teams:
- Biotechnology: Providing microbial biotechnology and consulting to industry and agriculture, including biological control and plant growth promotion systems for farming, horticulture and forestry.
- Electromagnetics: Remote electromagnetic sensing for precision measurements in agriculture, medical imaging, industrial processing and civil engineering, including design, simulation and prototyping of complex systems such as radar, transmission lines, capacitance devices and antennas.
- Optics and Image Processing: Extracting data from images to enable sensing solutions; specialising in image processing, deep learning and designing custom neural networks for detecting fruit in their natural growing environment as well as using other optical sensors, such as LiDAR and multispectral cameras.
- Automation, Robotics and Process Control: Focusing on measurement and sensing, specialising in control strategies that use measured information to optimise and regulate processes such as remote predator sensing, and in/ at-line food production.
Information Technology and IRRICAD™
Developing software tools for a range of applications to deliver decision-making and visualisations from complex data; includes IRRICAD™, a world leading computer software system developed and sold commercially by Lincoln Agritech in over 90 countries, for designing pressurised irrigation systems.