Alumni Story: John Corbett '84 Develops Localized Weather Information as Agriculture Climatologist for Tomorrow Now

I am a practicing agricultural climatologist - a geographer - working now for TomorrowNow.org, a not-for-profit created to ensure inclusive reach of innovative localized weather information. Our work is primarily in sub-Saharan Africa - and my career geographic interest in this region all started with an Environmental Studies 'FSP' to Kenya back in 1982. We subsequently lived in Kenya for almost 5 years and our second child was born there.

As an applied scientist (Ph.D. from U of Minnesota - a land grant university solid in the agricultural sciences), today we reach almost 500,000 small-scale producers with location specific weather driven agronomic advisories sent by SMS text. We have just submitted a proposal to create a location centric AI driven 'personal agricultural extension agent'. We envision - and in a real sense we are on track - to impact 10s of millions of farmers. This AI personal extension agent will be the future for sure as the warming atmosphere has radically impacted tropical rainy seasons (onset, duration, intensity, distribution). AI - and we are working with openAI.com - can sift through the agronomic science and current (and historical) weather to provide advisories to help farmers adapt to their new environment. These are particularly and specifically geographic variables - seed (genetics), soils, weather, labor, distance to market etc.