Precision agriculture products and practices have been enhanced and improved over the past two decades in large part by the work of innovative and driven individuals and organizations. The PrecisionAg Awards of Excellence program sheds light on some of the most important people and programs that have helped agriculture realize the full benefits of technology to improve agronomy, efficiency, and stewardship in crop production. The Awards of Excellence program is sponsored by the PrecisionAg Institute and its supporting partners.

Since World War II society, business and agriculture have experienced, enjoyed, and been challenged with change driven by information technology. The list of next BIG THINGS extends thru mainframe computers, PCs, the Internet, precision agriculture and Big Data. While the promise of Big Data in agriculture has received attention and publicity lately, the underlying change factor for agriculture is embedded in the term, Data, not the term, Big. The exciting driver of change is the application of digital technologies to agricultural production, distribution and marketing.  This discussion will focus on the impacts and opportunities of these applications. Drawing on lessons from the non-ag economy as well as from agriculture, the conversation will speculate as to future dynamics associated with digital technology application to agriculture. As we strive to use data and analytics to resolve our known unknowns, where will we find unknown unknowns?