Sollio Agriculture team: Meet Wilbert Arce

Wilbert Arce knows that his work as a programmer analyst makes a difference, both to farmers and to his organization. He sees the agricultural industry as the ideal place to develop useful, innovative IT solutions.

Question: What does a programmer analyst do?
Answer: I analyze user needs and develop functionalities based on that information. I’m mainly on backend, but I do a bit of frontend too. I’m working on developing AgConnexion, Sollio Agriculture’s smart farming platform.

Question: What do you find most motivating about your work?
Answer: Working on a good product that’s useful to the entire organization, the cooperatives, and the farms. As users, farmers need a lot of different functionalities. It’s stimulating for our whole team and gives us opportunities to use new technologies and keep looking further ahead.

Question: Which Sollio Agriculture value is the most motivating for you?
Answer: Cooperation. To me, that means that all our members and employees can help each other succeed at work and in life.

Question: Now for a few rapid-fire questions. What’s an interesting fact about you that your colleagues might not know?
Answer: I love learning languages. Right now I’m learning Quechua, an Indigenous South American language mainly spoken in Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia and Argentina. It’s part of my culture, part of my country’s history. Learning it is a way for me to help preserve it.

Question: If you could do another job for a day, what would it be?
Answer: I’d be a politician. There’s a lot that needs to change, especially for the environment. That’s really important to me.

Question: What was the last book you read?
Answer: Peregrinations of a Pariah, a travelogue by French-Peruvian feminist Flora Tristan about her trip from France to Peru in 1830.

Question: If you could only listen to one song for the rest of your life, what would it be?
Answer: Any jazz song!

Question: What’s your dream travel destination?
Answer: Peru, to visit my parents.

Question: What’s your favourite food?
Answer: I love Peruvian baked chicken with potatoes and a nice salad on the side.

Question: Who’s your most inspiring colleague?
Answer: I’d say my team manager, Juan Balcazar. He likes to share his knowledge and give the people around him opportunities for professional growth.

Question: What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever been given?
Answer: To take responsibility for my actions. There’s no use in complaining about others. You’re in control of your own life and your own decisions.

Question: And do you have any advice for new employees starting out at Sollio Agriculture?
Answer: Don’t be afraid to let the people around you help. There are great people and great teams at Sollio Agriculture, and you can count on them. You won’t get far on your own. We have to leverage everyone’s strengths to achieve our goals, together.