Stuart Oda is an investment banker turned urban farmer with a passion for innovation and sustainability. In 2013, Stuart founded Alesca Life, an agritech company that builds turnkey vertical farms and precision agriculture solutions to make food production more localized and data-driven. Alesca has been recognized by the World Economic Forum as a Global Innovator, SDG Champion, and Technology Pioneer and was selected into prestigious innovation programs including Stanford StartX, Unreasonable Impact, Nvidia Inception, and Dubai Futures as a leader in the field of controlled environment agriculture. Stuart has presented on the future of the agritech sector at the TED World Theater, Majlis Mohamed Bin Zayed Lectures, and UN FAO headquarters. Stuart previously worked in the investment banking division of Merrill Lynch and the corporate development team at Dell China.