Karsten Temme
CEO & Co-founder, Pivot Bio
Driven by a passionate belief in the power of science and the desire to create meaningful change in the world, Karsten Temme, Ph.D., has founded two companies focused on increasing farmer productivity. As Pivot Bio CEO and co-founder, Dr. Temme leads a team that is unlocking new ways to provide nitrogen and other key nutrients for cereal crops. Pivot Bio offers an alternative to chemical-based fertilizers in the form of naturally occurring, nitrogen-producing microbes. This biological product will help farmers sustainably fertilize their crops while reducing the global impact of synthetic fertilizer pollution. Dr. Temme founded Xwires in 2002, a company that provided internet access to farmers and enabled them to use digital agriculture resources to enhance their operations. After earning BS and MS degrees in biomedical engineering from the University of Iowa, he received his Ph.D. from the University of California-Berkeley Joint Graduate Group in Bioengineering.