TechSandBox, 105B South Street, Hopkinton, MA
Cost: $25 - $35
Food systems account for 30% percent of the energy consumption, over 70% of freshwater withdrawals and more than 20%of GHG emissions worldwide. Forecasts indicate that we will need to produce at least 60% more food by 2050 to meet demands of growing populations and emerging economies, centered in urban areas.
Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA) can help meet the nutritional needs of a growing population with greater resource efficiency and fewer environmental impacts. This panel will review the deployment of CEA methods (e.g. hydroponics, aquaponics, aeroponics) at residential and commercial scale. Our panelists will discuss advances in CEA grow methods and technologies (e.g. LED lighting), as well as some of the technical and financial challenges to scaling and widespread adoption.
Panel:
David Hamby is a Principal Engineer, Advanced Technologies division of OSRAM Corporate Innovation
Jeff Barton is the Founder and Owner of American Hydroponics (dba Water Fresh Farms in Hopkinton)
Kyle Seaman, DIrector of Farm Technology, Freight Farms
Mike Zartarian, Director of Engineering, Grove Labs
Sarah Brezniak, Captus Group, Moderator
BIOS
David Hamby is a Principal Engineer in the Advanced Technologies division of OSRAM Corporate Innovation. He has nearly 20 years of experience with LEDs ranging from fundamental pre-materials research to development of smart, connected solutions for new lighting applications. His current focus is on high performance, tunable, LED-based lighting for a variety of horticulture applications. David received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Oklahoma State University in 2003.http://www.osram.com/osram_com/
Jeff Barton is the Founder and Owner of Water Fresh Farms in Hopkinton, MA. Jeff began his business career with IBM and spent the next 26 years in various sales and marketing positions in the technology field. Jeff left the corporate world in 2010 to work fulltime for American Hydroponics, the company he co-founded with Phil Todaro in 1997. American Hydroponics (DBA Water Fresh Farm) grows hydroponically-produced fruits and vegetables and has operated Water Fresh Farm Marketplace, a full service market, since 2012. Jeff acts as General Manager for both the growing and retail operations of the business.
Mike Zartarian is the Director of Engineering at Grove Labs in Somerville. An electrical engineer, Mike leads the engineering, ecology and product design teams for Grove’s Ecosystem, a compact, indoor aquaponics system that allows people to grow their own food year-round at home, work or school. Mike has over 10 years of experience designing, developing, producing and supporting audio, indoor agriculture and consumer electronics products in large, small and startup companies; he specializes in bringing products from concept to commercialization. He has a B.S. Electrical & Computer Engineering and an M.S. Digital Signal Processing and Control Systems from Northeastern University.
Kyle Seaman is Director of Farm Technology at Freight Farms. Kyle leads Freight Farms’ software initiatives, bringing a modern set of farming tools and technologies to farmers through a suite of software products. Freight Farms’ flagship product is an automated, hydroponic farm enclosed in an insulated shipping container, allowing anyone to start growing produce locally. www.freightfarms.com
Moderator: Sarah Brezniak – Principal at Captus Group LLC, a management and sustainability consultancy. Sarah’s project Sustainable Urban Food Initiative for Climate Change Resilience was a winner at the 2015 MIT Climate CoLab. Sarah consults to companies on sustainability strategy and advises cleantech companies on business development and go-to-market strategy
http://techsandbox.org/clean-tech-energy.html
Organizer
TechSandBox
Phone: 508-485-7263
Email: barb@techsandbox.org
Website: http://www.techsandbox.org/
Venue: TechSandBox, 105B South Street, Hopkinton, MA