Roland Pieruschka is currently a plant scientist at the Forschungszentrum Jülich, IBG2: Plant Sciences after his PhD at the University of Düsseldorf and Postdoc at the Carnegie Institution in Stanford. He has been interested in physiological concepts and plant-environment interactions, particularly plant phenotyping, which he combines with establishment and coordination of international plant phenotyping research infrastructures (EMPHASIS), research infrastructure projects (EPPN, EPPN2020), international networks (IPPN). Dr Eri Hayashi is the President of the JPFA, where she is also the Director of International Relations and Consulting. Eri was Research Project Leader for a national project on Artificial Intelligence- and Phenotyping-based Smart Plant Factories with Artificial Lighting (PFALs). She leads a number of international projects on technology development, has given presentations at a number of international conferences, and has written widely on the topic of smart plant factories. She was a co-convener of the Symposium of Advances in Vertical Farming at the 31st International Horticultural Congress (IHC 2022). She led the JPFA in organizing the first JPFA International Symposium on Plant Factory (ISPF 2023) at Kashiwanoha, Japan.