Online grocer Ocado invests £17m to bring robot run vertical farms to the world
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The way we grow crops today is inefficient, and vertical farms offer companies a new way to grow organic crops en masse without ruining the planet. Interested in the Exponential Future? Join our XPotential Community, connect, watch a keynote, or browse my blog. I’ve been talking about new ways to...
A US start up has created the world’s first fully autonomous vertical farm
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As global population grows we need new ways to produce affordable quality food, and vertical farms are increasingly the answer. Vertical farms that can grow eight times the crops using no chemicals, herbicides or pesticides, and with 99 percent less water than traditional farms...
Futurist Keynote, Germany: Life in 2030, RWE
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF A lot has changed in the last ten years, and even more will change in the next ten. Are you ready? Firstly, a big thank you to Kathrin and the team for inviting me to be the keynote at this years RWE Leadership meeting...
Vertical farms edge closer to disrupting traditional agriculture
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Today’s modern agricultural practises favour countries with fertile land and the food they produce has a dramatic impact on the environment, but tomorrows farms could be stationed in deserts, or at sea, right next to their consumers, producing high quality, organic food at knock down...
US startup secures $200m in funding to build 300 vertical farms across China
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The world’s population will grow by another 2 billion by 2050 and many think today’s agricultural systems won’t cope, as a consequence we need to embrace new forms of sustainable, high yield agriculture. The agricultural industry is going through a revolution, everything from robotic...
NASA inspired tech designed for outer space triples crop yields on Earth
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As Earth’s population grows by another 2 billion in the next few decades scientists are coming up with new ways to feed them and produce food in previously unimaginable ways. Over the next few decades it’s estimated that the Earth’s population will grow by...
Re-imagining retail, Robomart unveil their autonomous, mobile shop concept
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF As society starts to get used to the idea of autonomous vehicles it’s giving companies the opportunity to re-imagine entire industries. As companies start to realise that the future of transportation will inevitably be autonomous there are an increasing number of start-ups, as well...
Futurist keynote, Paris: The Future of Sustainable Cities, ChangeNOW Summit
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The effect that climate change and pollution is having on our society and wellbeing is well documented but it’s clear from this summit that for every problem we face there are hundreds of innovative solutions. Firstly, a big thanks to the wonderful team, lead...
Modern farmers grow bacteria to grow better crops
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Traditional chemical intensive farming methods change the ecology of our planet on a massive scale, by moving from chemicals to mocrobials farmers might be able to grow better crops, more productively and more sustainably. In the back of Indigo’s Boston headquarters, a start up whose...
Japanese company Spread set to open worlds first fully autonomous farm in 2017
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF The only humans these Lettuces see will be the one who eats them. The Japanese lettuce production company Spread believes the farmers of the future will be robots – so much so that Spread is creating the world’s first farm manned entirely by robots. Instead of relying on...
New vertical farm in New Jersey revolutionises farming
WHY THIS MATTERS IN BRIEF Pesticide free farming that yields 75 times more produce that a traditional farm, is this the future of farming? A 21,000 square metre vertical farm, capable of growing a million kilograms of pesticide free produce a year will open in Newark, New Jersey later...
