About us​

We're growers, just like you

As vineyard owners, we understand the challenges faced by grape growers and viticulturists. We teamed up with other growers and IT professionals to pursue innovative yield and vine health analysis, and facilitate better vineyard management decisions.

Our Goal

We strive to merge modern leading technologies with viticulture to enable vineyard owners to make better management decisions, while reducing operation costs, increasing productivity and fostering good quality crops.

Our Team

Fiona Turner
Founder & CEO

With a background in Deep Tech, Innovation and Product Development, as well as managing her own vineyard, it was Fiona’s destiny to combine her passion for technology and love for wine. ​The result? Bitwise Agronomy.

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Aran Elkington
CTO

Aran is a seasoned developer and technological polymath, well-versed in a plethora of different programming languages, architectures and environments. He has extensive experience leading Agile development teams and Aran’s goal at Bitwise is to harness the ever-changing world of technology to rapidly deliver value to customers.

​​Dr Fiona Kerslake
Head of Agronomy

​Dr Fiona Kerslake has a PhD in Pinot Noir viticulture and has gathered expertise in sparkling wine viticulture, cider and wine making over the last 15 years. She has a breadth of knowledge across annual and perennial horticulture crops, as she has spent the last three years as Head of Horticulture for the Tasmanian Institute of Agriculture at the University of Tasmania.

Zeljka Mikulic
Senior Data Quality and Curation Engineer

Zeljka has spent 12 years working in software system development and project management roles, consulting with companies in a wide variety of industries. Her primary area of interest has been to use technology and its associated data to help companies better understand and improve their business processes.

Dr Annie Xu Wang
Machine Learning Engineer

Annie primarily involves herself in developing automatic solutions to efficiently and effectively monitor your vineyard. With extensive experience and knowledge in image processing, computer vision and machine learning in agriculture. She is also a PhD candidate at UNSW SRV group and works in deep learning for apple orchards.​
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Kew Jie Long
Machine Learning Engineer

Kew is a Full-Stack developer, applied researcher and AI Engineer specialising in Deep Learning Computer Vision, especially in image restoration and image enhancement. Familiar with Tensorflow and Pytorch machine learning framework and capable of solving industry problems, not only conceptually but also well into production stages.​

Dion McKenzie
Agronomist/Consultant

Dion is our New Zealand based Consultant and comes to us with a wealth of infield Viticulture knowledge having worked as a vineyard operator in the Marlborough region.
He also has a background in Tourism and Sales.
He aims to use this knowledge and his can-do attitude to help customers gain the most value from our solution as a service.​
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Belinda Bramley
Business Development Manager

Belinda has a long and varied background in R&D, with many years of experience in research (soil, water and agriculture), as a wine sensory analyst, a wine sector project management consultant and, more recently, supporting extension and adoption of wine sector R+D. She has a degree in Viticulture from the University of Adelaide and is a keen cyclist.
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Quincy Lim
Computer Vision Engineer

Quincy has a background in Mechatronics engineering and machine learning. He has used his programming and machine learning skills in a variety of fields, including academia, music and blockchain.
Most importantly, he is enthusiastic about technology and is always looking for ways to add value to people’s lives.

Supra Chiluka
Machine Learning Technician

 Supra has a Master’s degree in IT (Computer networking) and is an experienced member of Bitwise Agronomy’s Tech team.
Previously he has worked as a technical support assistant in India and as a student leader for Charles Sturt University which included support and administrative services.
Supra’s Interests and skills include Machine Learning, AI, SQL Databases, AWS, and Power Bi.
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Samuel Forbes Driver
Data Support Technician

With a background in the military and psychology, Samuel brings a detail oriented approach to data curation, organization and problem solving. Samuel is passionate about blending agricultural and technical knowledge to inform data-driven decision making.

Levi Martins
VP of Operations

With more than 15 years working in the software industry, Levi is instrumental in ensuring all the moving pieces of the company stay connected and that customers are happy and satisfied with our deliverables. Other responsibilities include supporting the management team on strategic decisions and facilitating the creation and implementation of business plans from design to completion.
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Rafael Anelli Raspa
Machine Learning Technician

Rafael comes to Bitwise Agronomy as an experienced Office and Sales Manager with more than fifteen years of experience in developing administrative processes and procedures, customer service and business coordinating roles, maintaining business relationships between the company department and industry/customers.
As a Data Analyst, Rafael has analytical and critical thinking, and is fascinated with working data to generate insights and recommendations. His skills include Advance Excel, SQL Databases, Google Analytics, Tableau, Power BI, Google Data Studio and Python.
Rafael has a love of flying and uses his spare time to put his Private Pilot’s License to use.​

Dr Julie Tang 
Data Scientist

Julie has a PhD in Mechatronics engineering and many years of experience in data capture and wrangling within the AgriTech space. Her background is in computer vision and machine learning, for both vineyards and apple orchards. She is passionate about technology to support businesses in improving processes for food sustainability.
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Manuel Caravia
Intern

After completing a summer internship with Bitwise Ag,
Manuel has recently joined the team permanently.
He is currently studying software engineering and has experience
working on berry farms and vineyards.
As an intern Manuel gained experience in the ground truthing
​ process working with our data team.
He will soon be joining our Full Stack Team.