Harnessing the power of AI, sensors and engineering to reduce food waste and improve food safety with Harjeet Bajaj, President and CEO of Savourmetrics | FoodGrads Podcast Ep 81
In today’s episode, we are talking about innovation and artificial intelligence in the food industry, making an impact in the world, and the unique paths that you can take with an engineering degree.
Our guest today is Harjeet Bajaj, President & CEO at Savormetrics. Savormetrics provides AI-driven sensor devices to food and agriculture companies. Their devices perform real-time, in situ QA/QC. Their predictive quality metrics allow organizations to reduce costs and increase customer satisfaction.
Harjeet Bajaj has over 14 years of work experience in various leadership and consultancy roles. He has a Bachelor’s Degree in Electrical Engineering and management and a Master’s Degree in Engineering, both from McMaster University. Harjeet is recognized internationally as an AI expert, having won numerous awards for developing commercially viable solutions. Harjeet’s background includes developing Artificial Intelligence driven solutions for the medical and healthcare industries. Today, he has his sights set on the ag & food sector and innovating into the future.
Table of Contents
Show Notes
Time Stamps
[00:00] Intro
[02:24] About Savormetrics
[7:50] AI in food processing
[12:19] Harjeet’s Career journey
[18:07] The Power of Networking and Mentorship[25:02] Wanting to make an impact
[27:25] Understanding machine learning and AI
[29:27] The skills required for an AI engineer
[32:53] How to develop skill set in AI
[36:43] Canada’s implementation of AI in food processing
[41:52] Staying focused in a fast-paced world
[46:58] Final words of advice for students
[47:54] Where you can find Harjeet
[48:35] Closing words from Veronica The Future of AI in the Food Industry
Links/Resources Mentioned
Dr.Ian Bruce at McMaster University
Harjeet Bajaj Quotes
Find something that you’re really interested in. Find what you value the most, something that you’re passionate about and then don’t hesitate to put that hard work in. – Harjeet Bajaj
So if there was something I could do with technology that also made a social impact, that was something that always drove me. And food and Ag became kind of, food and Ag became kind of the next, the next thing that I wanted to. – Harjeet Bajaj
AI is another way of solving a problem. So whereas in the past, we’ve been looking to model things. We looked at what are all the variables that correlate to something. And then we try to get to an understanding of causation then from there, like what are what variables cause what? And our tendency is that okay, well, these variables are not of importance, scrap them, let’s get it down to a set of variables that we can then manage. Whereas AI takes the opposite approach, more variables the better. – Harjeet Bajaj
We feel that we’re on the pioneering front and in some cases internally to organizations that some of these standards are now being. We are also part of certain projects working with certain leading regulatory bodies around new standards. – Harjeet Bajaj
So whether it’s in the lab, depending on a customer’s process, You know, we’ve got the zapper, which goes at the end of the line, or if it’s in the line, we have to be able to provide these again, insights and wisdom in real-time so that they can make decisions on how to change parameters. – Harjeet Bajaj
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