Michael Beck is an assistant professor for data analytics in the Department of Computer Science at the University of Winnipeg (UWinnipeg). Before moving to Canada in 2017, Beck earned his master’s degree in mathematics and doctorate in computer science from the University of Kaiserslautern in Germany. He has held postdoctoral positions at both UWinnipeg and the University of Manitoba (UM) and lives in Winnipeg.

What is the best part about your job?

The best part about my job is that I get to work in a very interdisciplinary field, where people from many different departments come together. I work with physicists, plant scientists and other computer scientists; it’s a very wide spectrum of people. I might talk to a farmer one day and a scientist the next, then sit down to write some code or head into the lab and start building a robot. It’s so diverse. That variety is what makes the work exciting and what makes me happy week by week.

What got you interested in working in computer science?

It was after doing my postdoc at UM when Christopher Henry and Christopher Bidinosti (both professors at UWinnipeg) asked if I could work on a project. They wanted me to build a robot, create a database to hold images and do a number of things I had never done before. When they asked if I could do it, I said I hadn’t done anything like it before, but I was willing to learn, and that was all they wanted.

My journey went from a very theoretical background in mathematics toward real-world problems. Curiosity and not being afraid to try something I wasn’t trained for is what got me into computer science, and the interdisciplinary nature of the work is what made me stay.

Tell us a bit about your role and the Manitoba Centre for Digital Ag.

As an assistant professor, my role is teaching and research, and I work in digital agriculture with TerraByte. We focus on bringing new technologies into agriculture, from machine learning and equipment such as sensors to new data acquisition methods and figuring out how that data can be useful. This can mean helping plant breeders, agronomy research or even directly on the farm. We have people from physics and computer science working with plant scientists, and together we solve research problems. We don’t know everything about plants, and plant scientists don’t have a full picture of what technologies are available, so bringing those worlds together is where real progress happens.

The Manitoba Centre for Digital Agriculture (MCDA) grew out of this same thinking. When Manitoba Crop Alliance (MCA) put out a “hopes and dreams” call, we responded with the idea of bringing together the many people already working in digital agriculture across Manitoba. Right now, there are individual efforts, but no co-ordinated, province-wide strategy. The MCDA is intended to connect post-secondary institutions, grower associations such as MCA and MPSG, government, industry and farmers, so that work can happen more strategically.

Similar centres exist in the U.S., the UK, Australia and even in Saskatoon, and the level of investment and synergy in those institutions far exceeds what we currently see in Manitoba. Without something like this, my concern is that Manitoba risks being left behind, with new technologies developed elsewhere and brought in at a cost. We want innovation to happen here, not only for economic reasons, but because solutions developed locally are better suited to our conditions. The MCDA isn’t a brick-and-mortar building. It’s more of a consortium that brings people together, avoids duplicated efforts and helps navigate an increasingly complex digital agriculture landscape. No single group can do this alone, and that’s really what the MCDA is about.

What can you say about the value of farmers providing funding and support to your organization?

It’s absolutely instrumental. What we’re trying to build with the MCDA is very ambitious, and it’s hard to find funding channels for something like this. So, when MCA came to us and said, “Tell us about your hopes and dreams,” and then followed through with funding, that was absolutely massive. It’s an opportunity we would have a very hard time finding anywhere else, and we’re incredibly grateful. We really appreciate MCA and its members trusting us with this responsibility.

How does that farmer funding and support directly benefit farmers?

This is still research, and the work we’re doing isn’t going to show up on farms next year. To some level, this is fundamental research. There was a time when chemistry had no business in agriculture, then someone invented fertilizer. There was a time when biology or genetics had no business in agriculture, but look at plant breeding now. I think digital agriculture is a similar story. We don’t yet know exactly what it will look like in 10 or 20 years, but farmer funding will help us shape that future here in Manitoba, together with the people who are living and working in this system.

There are some very tangible benefits already. One example is our work with plant breeders studying Fusarium head blight in wheat. We’re helping researchers assess diseased wheat heads more accurately and faster, which in turn accelerates breeding program and helps deliver more resistant varieties sooner. These are the kinds of projects we want to establish more of through the MCDA. We’re very thankful for the opportunity farmers have given us, and we take that responsibility seriously.

How do you spend your time outside of work?

I play a lot of different games, including board games, tabletop RPGs, computer and card games. I also enjoy sports like volleyball and soccer.

Who or what inspires you?

What I find regularly inspiring is seeing people who are really good at what they do, no matter what their field is. Watching people perform at a high level and master their craft is something I find motivating, and that inspiration can come from anywhere.

Do you have a favourite TV series, movie or podcast at the moment?

One series I really like is The Bear. I also enjoyed Arcane League of Legends, which is based on a computer game but stands on its own as an animated series. Recently, we’ve also been enjoying Pluribus.

Connect with Michael on LinkedIn.