Surtees’ appointment comes as the NFP readies itself for huge scale following a partnership with IBM to integrate its watsonx AI portfolio into its educational program.
Food Ladder, a leader in combating food insecurity through innovative greenhouse technology in schools, has appointed highly accomplished executive and entrepreneur Tony Surtees to the chair of its board. Food Ladder’s educational program aims to expand to more than 1,000 schools by 2030 and supplement the meals of more than 25 million young Australians.
A graduate of Stanford’s Graduate School of Business and President of the Stanford Australia Association, Surtees was Yahoo!’s first US Vice President and General Manager of Commerce when the global business had a market capitalisation of $US125bn and sat inside running 20% of Yahoo!’s pageviews when it was one of the top 20 most valuable companies in the US.
Locally, Surtees co-founded Zeetings, which was acquired by Canva and laid the groundwork for Canva for Presentations, the world’s first cloud-based presentation platform since 2021 that is now used in more than 1.5 billion Canva presentations. He has also had a long-standing role as Chairman of the Entrepreneurs’ Programme Committee and the Catalysing AI Opportunity Fund Committee at the Australian Department of Industry, Science, Energy, and Resources.
Aside from his new role at Food Ladder, Surtees also chairs the board of Better Breathing Foundation, an NFP contributing to vital research on chronic lung diseases, and sits on the board of the Menzies Leadership Foundation.
“Food Ladder seeks to mitigate one of the world’s most pressing issues by addressing food security as well as concepts like circular economy, health and human welfare – and is pioneering a new pedagogy by integrating AI to achieve its goal of putting nutritious food on the tables of young people across the nation,” Surtees said. “The Food Ladder program helps to enhance both teaching and learning across communities from remote through to urban areas, bringing together the transformative power of hands-on real-world experiences – planting, growing and harvesting food – with the power of AI-reinforced learning.”
Using technology in this way, according to Surtees, can change lives by endowing students from all backgrounds with the positive experience of growing food and producing a tangible result flowing from their own efforts. This changes the lived experience of students in a unique and most impactful way and demonstrates how their efforts can bring forth things of value.
“We are delighted to attract someone of Tony’s calibre to chair the Food Ladder Board,” Food Ladder CEO and co-founder Kelly McJannett said. “Tony brings a wealth of experience across government, not-for-profit and commercialisation, which will be an asset to Food Ladder as it moves into the next phase of tackling Australia’s food insecurity crisis.”
Read also: EON Foundation empowers ~200 children in WA Aboriginal school
Geraldine is currently the Content Producer for Third Sector, an Akolade channel. Throughout her career, she has written for various industries and international audiences. Her love for writing extends beyond the corporate world, as she also works as a volunteer writer at her local church. Aside from writing, she is also fond of joining fun runs and watching musicals.
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