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Young Talents in action! Innovative ideas from HackFood4ClimateChange

Compost makers for cities, hydroponics and disruptive solutions against mold and waste! Check out the students’ best ideas to fight climate change at Maker Faire Rome 2018!

 

Young talents at work during the HackFood4ClimateChange

 

The Future Food Zone, the area dedicated to food-tech and sustainability has been the Show and Tell of the latest innovations in food and agriculture for the third year in a row, thanks to the partnership between Future Food Institute and Maker Faire Rome. Food innovation has been tasted, discussed, represented in its best practices and… experimented! A section of the Future Food Zone this year has been dedicated to a very special hackathon, a think-tank animated by the participation of high school talents, mentors from the world of research and communication and organized with the Italian Ministry of Education, University and Research. The focus? Rethinking food production and consumption to prevent risks and problems of climate change. In three days #MFR18 has become the incubator of innovative ideas and the testing ground for new projects! Plastic, tech solutions, circular economy and much more… Two have been the winning ideas of the first HackFood4ClimateChange.

 

Making compost at home: smart and circular solutions for the city!


According to the FAO, 222 million tons of food are wasted every year in the North of the world alone. If global food waste were a country, it would be the third largest emitter of greenhouse gases, after China and the United States. Compost Maker is a project that proposes an effective solution for the upcycling of organic waste in cities, especially apartments. The idea starts from the creation of a compost maker with rotating blades that can shred waste and a fermentation and filtering space that will separate the solid part from the liquids and deprive the compound from odour. The disruptive aspect of this project? The use of IoT, through an internal scanner that detects humidity and the decomposition status of the compost, and a strong focus on smart communities: the compost product, in fact, is aimed to be also distributed to the surrounding urban gardens.

 

Rethinking food production and consumption to prevent risks and problems of climate change: here’s the focus of HackFood4ClimateChange

 

Farms for hydroponic microvegetals: it can be done!


Meat production is one of the main responsible of climate change: one hectogram of beef, from intensive livestock, can produce up to 50 kg of greenhouse gases and as much as 20% of CO2 emissions derive from cattle breeding. Green Makers, the other winner of HackFood4ClimateChange, is designed for medium and large companies, and uses animal dejections to create energy for the company facilities and the associated hydroponic greenhouse. Methane can produce energy for greenhouses, while carbon dioxide becomes a fertilizer, essential for photosynthesis. Which plants could be produced? Above all microplants, which thanks to this process will contain phytonutrients from 4 to 40 times more than traditional crops and which can also be re-introduced in the production cycle. A completely circular solution!

 

Best practices for inspiration: NoMold

 

“These three days have been only the first step. We invite you to refine your idea to go beyond and get to the next steps!” explained Simona Grande, Future Food Institute Project Manager and hackathon facilitator, to the participants. “The best way to be inspired and continue to develop your project? Learn from others!” This is why Anouar Jamali, member of the winning Agrogeneration team at the hackathon Hack for Food, organized within the G7 of Agriculture in Bergamo in 2017, was invited to HackFood4ClimateChange
The project of the Anouar’s team is NoMold, which started from a significant data: 45% of the fruit and vegetables produced in the world is wasted, of which 32% is because of molds. To solve this problem, a device with nanofibre chips has been designed. With the release of non-harmful spores for human beings and smart technological systems, it manages to eliminate the surface of mold created on the fruit or on the vegetable inserted. This process will allow fruit and vegetable products to have a resistance greater than 200% compared to those not treated by NoMold! The project, thanks also to the new progress made during the days of HackFood4ClimateChange, is now in the prototyping phase, and we hope it will arrive very soon on the market!

 

And this was just a taste of HackFood4ClimateChange! Live here the best moments and know more about the disruptive ideas of our fantastic talents at #MFR18!

 

Here’s the verdict!

 

The hackathon mentors:

 

 

The Food Heroes invited to Maker Faire Rome 2018 by Future Food who met the students:

 

The startups and makers from the Future Food Zone who worked closely with the hackathon participants: Funghi Espresso, Crické, D’Adone, Miobio, Wenda.

The jury:

 

  • Pierluigi Vaglioni [MIUR]
  • Matteo Vignoli [Food Innovation Program Director]
  • Claudia Laricchia [Head of Institutional Relations and Strategic Partnerships at the Future Food Institute & Climate Leader of Al Gore’s Reality Project]

 

Young talents at work: discover their incredibile and innovative disruptive ideas!