Last day to vote for our team’s project in the Thought for Food Challenge—click through & give us a facebook LIKE, por favor!
We are gaining some awesome momentum in the Thought for Food competition—thanks AgriTecture for the help! Click through the link, and make sure to “LIKE” our page at http://tffchallenge.com/team/greentowers/ !!!
Check out this Thought For Food Challenge team’s idea for modular microfarms utilizing aquaponics. GREENTOWERS
GREENTOWERS is a current micro-farming design and social business initiative, conceptualized in Fall 2012 by a multi-disciplinary Penn State student team, networked together through the New Leaf Initiative entrepreneurial incubator. Our working prototype model(s) aim to bring hyper-localized and small-footprint organic agricultural production into the hands of everyday urban and suburban citizens. GreenTowers will deliver upon both retail and food desert social needs by establishing a modular and expandable network of fully-integrated aquaponic and hydroponic vertical and horizontal greenhouses, all constructed from recycled standard shipping containers! In the future of our envisioned social business entity, these small-footprint farming units will be produced by GreenTowers and then managed by our company, alongside many other independent restaurants, neighborhood gardens, and affiliate-for-profit micro-producers, all networking together an educational richness for urban aquaponic sustainability. GreenTowers will ideally begin to manage an increasingly broadening outreach in global distance and economic distribution, moving sustainably aquaponic technology as widely as possible around the world.
GreenTowers ongoing R&D blog, managed by Mike Ghen -
Check out this link to see all the R&D GreenTowers Group has been working on. This Drupal blog is currently being managed primarily by Mike Ghen, who is consequently also GreenTowers Group’s Director of technological Research & Development. Next time you’re in the State College area or visiting Penn State, drop by our MakeSpace office! Conveniently located directly below the Fraser Street parking deck, this hacker space is open to the public to drop in and see exactly what technologies GreenTowers group is currently working to develop.
Newest/Larger-scale shelved aquaponics system that we recently put together at our downtown #MakeSpace location. We will scale this tech to construct the vertical growbed system in the ISBU vertical greenhouse prototype later this semester.
GreenTowers - Spring 2013 Gearing-Up Vid -
Kudos to our videographer in residence Dan Lesher for giving this quick film some seriously professional production value.
GreenTowers gets some coverage from Penn State LIVE! -
I actually had not known that “More than 100 students from a number of Penn State colleges formed 35 teams and entered the contest,” which is pretty amazing news! I cannot wait for finals to end, take a quick Christmas recuperation, and begin prototyping this long-envisioned microfarming design beginning this Spring, 2013. This funding is only the start of what is sure to become an amazing aquaponic community project. Be sure to join in following GreenTowers at Penn State University as we build our first vertical aquaponic shipping container microfarm this Spring in conjunction with the New Leaf Initiative!
New GreenTowers handout flier for tonight’s TEDxPSU event!
Mike's Springboard blog entry + website getting started (!) -
Check out what my GreenTower’s teammate Mike Ghen had to say about the Ag Springboard pitch and the following award ceremony! Mike is a Computer Engineering major and is going to be heading up the creation of GreenTower’s own website. As we move forward with prototyping, we want everyone to be able to follow our work as we hopefully begin to plant the seeds for growing a real microfarming community. More to come on the website progress later though, check out Mike’s blog entry!
This pic was taken right after we were announced as the winning team for the the 2012 Ag Springboard Competition. Leading up the team for this GreenTowers project has so far been one of the most rewarding experiences I have ever had. Now that we have secured some seed funding through the MNE Innovation challenge and the Ag Springboard Competition, we can finally move our work towards actually building a real-scale prototype! I still don’t know exactly what the coming months have in store for GreenTowers, but I do know that it’s gonna be a blast.
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