Overview

Dr. Harikrishna Kulaveerasingam, Senior Vice President I and Chief Research & Development Officer of Sime Darby Plantation Berhad delivered the Keynote Address titled "Plantation 4.0: ​Challenges & Opportunities in the​ Oil Palm Industry" in Plenary Theatre in Monash University Malaysia on 25 September 2023.

Keynote Address

In his keynote, Dr. Harikrishna shared some of Sime Darby Plantation's (SDP) research and development initiatives as well as SDP's plans for the future.

Dr. Harikrishna talked about SDP's pursuit for higher-yielding palms through genomics and the remarkable results of GenomeSelect™️, which has proven to outperform the current best planting materials in the market. He also shared videos of machines that have been rolled out in our operations, and SDP's vision for the future of palm oil through mechanisation, automation and digitalisation. Our aim is to transform the palm oil industry into a less labour intensive industry.

One of the key takeaways from Prof. Ir. Chan Eng Seng, Head of Monash-Industry Plant Oils Research Laboratory (MIPO) at Monash University, and Mr. Yen Hun Sung, Head of Impacts Monitoring, Evaluation, and Learning (IMEL) at the Roundtable on Sustainable Palm Oil (RSPO), is that the power of partnerships and collaborations is the way forward for the oil palm industry.

About Dr Harikrishna Kulaveerasingam

Dr. Harikrishna completed his first degree (B.Sc.) in Plant Sciences at the University of London (Wye College), UK, and his Ph.D. in Plant Developmental and Molecular Biology at the University of Leicester in the UK.   

Dr. Harikrishna joined the Sime Darby Technology Centre Sdn. Bhd. an R&D company within the Sime Darby R&D Centre in July of 2003. Currently, he is the Senior Vice President I and Chief Research and Development Officer of Sime Darby Plantation Bhd. Over his career, Dr. Harikrishna has been a post-doctoral Fellow of University of California, Davis, USA; a lecturer in biotechnology at Universiti Putra Malaysia and a visiting scientist at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, USA. He has over 30 years postgraduate experience in biotechnology and is a co-author on numerous publications and patents.  In 2012 he was inducted into the Malaysian Academy of Science as a fellow.  He is currently a member of the Scientific Advisory Council of the Institute of Systems Biology (INBIOSIS), Universiti Kebangsaan Malaysia since 2016 and a visiting Professor to the School of Biological Sciences, University of Nottingham, Malaysia. 

Dr. Harikrishna spearheaded the effort to sequence the oil palm genome at Sime Darby and in May 2009, Sime Darby announced that it had successfully sequenced, assembled, and annotated the oil palm genome exclusively using second generation sequencing technology.  In April 2016 Sime Darby announced the first commercial planting of genome select oil palm seedlings – making Sime Darby the world’s first company to achieve this scientific break-through using this technology.  In April 2017 Sime Darby Plantation’s Genome Select was announced as a winner for the Edison Best New Product Awards™ under the Sustainability Category.

About Symposium

RSPO-Monash Joint Symposium 2023 was proudly supported by POPSIG.