KUASAR
Team information
Category:
Tuana Aksu
Bachelor
Koç University
Deniz Başar
Bachelor
Koç University
Cengizhan Buyukdag
Bachelor
Koç University
Derya Hançer
Bachelor
Koç University
Erva KIVRAK
Bachelor
Koç university
Galip Özdemir
Bachelor
Koç Üniversitesi
Doğuhan Ulugölge
Bachelor
Koç University
Mert Babalık
Bachelor
Koc University
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About the team
Our interdisciplinary team thrives on a boundless curiosity and a passion for sustainable innovation, relentlessly pursuing groundbreaking solutions in food production. Combining industrial and research-based integrity, we are on a mission to craft an innovative solution to food production challenges based on cutting-edge space food research. Our team consists of undergraduate students with engineering, sciences, and business backgrounds with expertises ranging from computational biology research to vertical farming startups.
Our vision
With the growing population and increasing demand for food, traditional food production systems are getting insufficient and nutrient-deficient. Vertical farming offers a more sustainable and efficient food supply for this growing need, but it needs continuous mineral supplementation sourced through traditional mining methods to support soil-free production. Traditional mining methods are environmentally damaging, and mineworkers endure risky conditions that can be detrimental for their health. Moreover, vertical farmers are dependent on vendors for the supply of minerals. This drives up the production cost in the long term, and increases the carbon footprint due to shipping, and processing in geographically different locations. Our team envisions to introduce eco-friendly mining methods inspired by space research for extracting minerals crucial for sustaining our nutrient-rich diets. Inspired by the boundless possibilities of space research, we are translating cutting-edge science into practical, earth-bound applications that set new standards in the agricultural sector.
Our solution
We propose to utilize biomining to produce mineral supplements for farming practices. To make food production truly sustainable, every process must be eco-friendly—our solution is to source nutrients through automated biomining, ensuring sustainability from the ground up. Biomining, leveraging microorganisms to extract minerals from rocks, presents a cleaner, greener alternative to traditional mining methods, drastically reducing environmental impact. It is experimented in space research and validated on earth with only a few attempts to integrate it to our daily-lives. This solution can be deployable both onsite at farms and at specialized biomining facilities. This groundbreaking approach, novel to the food production sector, holds transformative potential to shift agriculture towards unparalleled sustainability. Based on our discussions with industry experts, a tunable and readily-available mineral supplement as an alternative for liquid fertilizers used in vertical farming holds great potential. This situation highlights the innovativity of our approach and shows its potential to be a groundbreaking solution. By introducing biomining as an alternative, while we are addressing a gap in the market, we provide a practical solution for companies and individuals involved in farming.