The US egg industry generates roughly 44,000 tons of poultry manure every day. This waste is a significant contributor to water and air quality pollution. As the egg industry is concentrated in localized regions around the country, current manure management strategies have led to over-fertilization of nearby cropland. To avoid these problems, OrganicMatters dries manure at the site of poultry production to maximize nutrient preservation. Dry manure is then transported to a central facility where it is processed into a stable pellet that can easily integrate into the existing fertilizer market. OrganicMatters can increase the feasibility of manure use as a fertilizer for organic farmers. Our product can meet the demand of diverse agricultural customers across a wide range of crops and applications. Appropriately dried poultry manure is a very balanced, high nutrient fertilizer that satisfies both conventional agriculture and the organic sector.
Year: 2017
Roach Protein
This project aims to produce of an alternative protein feed additive from farmed Periplaneta Americana cockroaches. This protein will be a direct substitute to the fishmeal protein that is currently used in poultry, piggery, and aquaculture feed formulation in Uganda and East Africa. Cockroach is an alternative insect protein source, which can sustainably be reared and produced by commercial feed producers and potentially at household level in Uganda. According to studies, Cockroach protein has been measured to be between 62%-65% protein on a dry matter basis which is comparable to silverfish at 65%. Having an alternative to the expensive fishmeal protein additive to feeds will directly increase the profitability of the poultry, piggery at households and commercially. Feed costs are the major costs within the poultry, piggery and aquaculture production chain.
Tech+SEAfood
There exists gross demoralizations in the seafood system in the US- 43% of US wild caught seafood is exported, 90% of seafood consumed in the US is imported , 60% of imports being inferior, unstandardized aquaculture, and 30% illegally imported. This project envisions a Tech+SEAfood solution for alternative seafood marketing networks (ASN) to improve efficiency, profitability, communication, and traceability in seafood distribution. Project demand has been researched and vetted with seafood supply chain practitioners. The team aims to improve the timeliness and transparency of supply and demand data as well as improve decision making for mission driven distributors about when, where, and how much seafood should be sold and to whom.
Planet Murple
Planet Murple inspires kids to explore natural food through creative cooking and playful media. We help kids and their families build happy relationships to healthy food! Our world is based on a fantastical planet made entirely of natural food and follows the adventures of the Murples. Kids interact with the Murples through Storytime Recipes via streaming videos and books. These recipes are designed for kids 4-8 to make with their guardians as an afterschool or weekend activity, and are always made with natural food. We are also building a line of Murple-branded children culinary products that make it both easy and irresistibly fun to bring kids into the kitchen. With Planet Murple, we make learning to cook real food an experience to look forward to!
Farmview: New Power for Tenant Farmers
In California, just as low-income residents struggle to find affordable housing, farmers also face a cutthroat farmland rental market. If beginning farmers can’t find land for agriculture, then the ‘young farmer movement’ is a pipe dream. In California, 41 percent of all farmland is rented out to others, and new tenants face exorbitant rental prices, lands of poor quality, and predatory leases. There is a tremendous opportunity to leverage emerging data science and geographic information system methods to address the land access issue. In collaboration with California Farmlink, a farming direct service provider, Farmview is a tool that assists beginning farmers in the acquisition of farmland. Farmview combines public data about land ownership with local knowledge contributed by farmers to show farmers the location of available land and its associated attributes. This project will run workshops with farmers in California, conduct user testing, and roll out a statewide tool.
HingiCredit
Financial institutions face a big challenge when offering agricultural financial credit. They have inefficient mechanisms to evaluate a farmer’s credit worthiness in relation to the sector-specific risks such as production, price and market risks. Most financial institutions do not have reliable credit risk analysis models to guide them in best evaluating farmers. Without a proper method or approach to credit risk analysis, farmers face the risk of being denied the credit they require because of the potentially inaccurate credit risk scores generated for them. Financial institutions also stand the risk of making losses when they give loans basing on the potentially inaccurate credit risk scores. HingiCredit will provide an automated credit risk analysis system that can be used to assess the credit-worthiness of farmers requesting loans from financial institutions. HingiCredit will reflect the risk factors that influence production and market and as a result will match farmers to financial institutions that are willing to provide the loans within the calculated risk.
Accelerating Low-to-Moderate Income Customer Inclusion in Community Solar
Solar is booming and the price is lower than ever. Yet, 80% of America is locked out of the rooftop solar market. Solstice radically expands access to clean energy by providing community-shared solar power to underserved American households. This model enables any resident to enjoy clean energy at no upfront cost and save money on their electric bill every year. Our project will put affordable solar in the hands of low- to moderate-income Americans by offering the country’s first short-term community solar contract, by working with trusted community organizations to enroll social networks together and by qualifying customers using metrics other than FICO credit scores (unprecedented in the industry).
HomeSlice
Housing has gotten unaffordable across much of the US. With home prices having gone from 2X to 4X the median family income over the past 40 years, 53-77% of the population can’t afford to buy today in metro areas across the country. This means that they are forced to rent for years on end instead of building their assets, perpetuating the cycle of being locked out of the market. HomeSlice is putting home ownership within reach for people who can’t afford to own today by making it easy to buy homes in groups. By removing the current barriers to fractional ownership – from the creation of co-owner agreements to the elimination of liability for co-owner default – it is making shared home ownership a viable and attractive option for millions of Americans. Its mission is to democratize home ownership.
Bio-inspired Desalination for Off-Grid Water Treatment
Access to clean water is a luxury many of us take for granted. Yet, millions of people worldwide are not so lucky. Our team will use existing infrastructure and familiarity with solar technologies, off-grid, bio-inspired desalination through synthetic transpiration to help enable the provision of clean water access to nearly 75 million households in India alone. Synthetic transpiration is a bio-inspired desalination technology that requires no external energy inputs besides sunlight. Mimicking water transport mechanisms found in mangrove trees, this technology uses sunlight to induce water evaporation, which serves as the driving force for filtration. Evaporated water is then condensed as drinkable water. The technology is enhanced by the use of graphene-oxide based nanomaterials that increase evaporation rates and augment passive water transport throughout the technology. This technology is being implemented in southern India to combat groundwater salinization that is causing widespread hypertension throughout urban areas.