I’m on my third week already. Sheesh.
I haven’t got pretty much anything written since the research plan was accepted, but I’ve been chasing respondents to interview. I guess-hope that it counts for something. Also, I really haven’t searched for additional material for the lit survey -but I’ve got some promising contacts, interesting links to papers and projects on algae cultivation, drone photography and whatnot.
To bring you up to speed, here’s what I’ve got done on these first three weeks:
Snowballing for respondents, will travel
As I told about my thesis plan to one ol’ friend of mine, he mentioned that one of our equally old acquaintance is in the process of setting up a plant factory startup company, pretty much as a hobby to begin with. He turned out to be very supportive and we set up a meeting where among other things discussed I was told about Helsieni company and other urban farmers. I wondered whether mushroom cultivation would count as plant production but was impressed as I read more about them. Definitely good stuff. Luckily, Helsieni was one of the companies with a stand at Sustainable Business area of World Village Festival 2017. I went, had a chat, some fried mushrooms and was invited to next mycohacklab meet at Helsieni office. It turned out to be very nice, informal and frienly hobbyist meet and I got to know some nice people and to see how the cultivaton containers (actual repurposed shipping containers as plant factories) work.
From Helsieni’s Facebook feed I read about Open Source Circular Economy day at Teurastamo where I met urban gardener and one of the founders of Little Garden. We got along nicely and after a couple of emails after the event set up a meeting at Turntable, which is Dodo´s urban farming centre at Helsinki, Pasila.
From Helsieni I also got to hear about MTK’s North Food seminar (also here), where I met a couple of farmers interested in new ways of doing business, insect farmers from Entocube, researchers from Helsinki and Aalto universities, organizers from MTK Uusimaa and many startup entrepreneurs working or intersted in food production.
On the second day of the event/seminar we got a tour of Helsinki university’s Faculty of Agriculture and Forestry, where I made contacts with researchers working with National Plant Phenotyping Infrastructure FIRI and doctoral students working on their theses, one on microalgae and other on plant monitoring using multispectral drone photoraphy. This is getting awesome.
From MTK’s pages i read about MTK 100 historiallinen työkonekavalkadi event where I met with researchers from Yara and some very knowledgeable people working with Valtra.
I will keep in touch with these people and secure as many interviews as possible, probably during the next two months. Yeah, I can dream. :)
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