Thanks Peter for the very detailed response! And apologies for replying so late as the back to school sickness seems to have plagued my entire faculty. I have been watching some of these businesses you indicated to understand the industry better, and learned more about the history of CEA from space research.
There has also been a little bit of a set back in our project this week. We were part of a New Venture Program in my school, but my team decided for the school project we wanted to pivot after we heard you could develop a business plan around a medical device in clinical trials. We have a professor who developed an innovative more accurate breast cancer handheld device who we will be creating a business plan for. That being said it is going to put my CEA project on the back burner for a few months.
However, hoping to answer your questions to the best I can below:
Are you planning to remain open-source?
- We are undecided, but for the time we are doing our research into the technology we likely will be.
Where are you located?
- We are university students in London, ON.
How large is your team?
*We have 4 people currently including backgrounds in electrical, computer, software, and integrated engineering. I am also doing a dual degree for my business HBA.
What resources do you have available?
- We have the support of a lot of faculty on campus who like the idea since London, ON is rich in agriculture. I have also been able to find connections along the way. I know a faculty member at the University of Guelph (major center for agriculture in Canada) who specializes in CEA. I also have a connection with IntravisionGroup (specialize in CEA lighting), http://www.intravisiongroup.com/products/.
What is your long-term goal for your venture (feed the world, save the environment, get rich)?
- We are exploring a focus on targeting restaurant supply chains, or feeding remote areas which cannot get access to some necessities of food thus living off meats. At this time we would like to make this environmentally focused but also be profitable.
I would be happy to answer any questions you might have. Our current prototype is not to use hydroponics, we have used a fish tank from my brother as the base. He has this strange hobby with fish… We are just calibrating some sensors and running the system through Arduino. I hope to share some of the findings during this semester. 