Student-Run Nonprofit Nucleate Cultivate Gears Up for Third Cultivate Tomorrow Hackathon
October 19, 2023 - 3 min read
Registration for the Cultivate Tomorrow Hackathon, powered by Nucleate Cultivate, is open until November 1st. Apply Here.
Boston, MA, October 19, 2023 — After two incredibly successful Cultivate Tomorrow Hackathon events, applications for the third cohort are now open to students from around the globe. Nucleate Cultivate has worked to make this year’s program the best yet. A hallmark of this year’s event will be the design-thinking based learning modules that Nucleate Cultivate has put together in collaboration with Cell Ag Australia. In addition to these learning modules, applicants can expect all the same features from previous years programs (Cell Ag crash course, industry mentorship, exclusive lecture series, and more.)
The Cultivate Tomorrow Hackathon places undergraduate and graduate students in interdisciplinary teams to design creative solutions to some of the most critical hurdles faced by the industry. Each team will work together with an industry mentor to focus on one of the competition’s two tracks:
- Advertising. The Advertising Track tasks teams with taking the perspective of a company selling a sustainable future food product. Teams will be expected to identify a cultivated food product and develop a brand through a low-fidelity version of an advertising campaign that improves the perception of cultivated or precision fermentation-based products, presents the scientific concepts behind them, and excites the public about the prospect of these new options.
- Underutilized Resource & Novel Technology. Teams in the Underutilized Resource Track will be tasked with identifying and evaluating a novel technology or resource that can drastically improve the state of R&D for animal cell culture or precision fermentation processes. They will produce a proposal of an underutilized resource that can help with cost reduction, quality improvement, environmental footprint, increase in process efficiency, or diversification of cultivated food products. Teams will choose a resource of interest and develop a research proposal that outlines the different experimental steps they would need to take to evaluate and validate this resource.
As part of the competition, exclusive seminars and talks from industry and technical experts will be provided to give participants a rounded view and additional insight into the possibilities and challenges of the cellular agriculture sector. Teams are expected to conduct appropriate research and compose reports detailing their efforts and findings that will be presented to peers and judges.
“Cultivate Tomorrow plays a crucial role in improving the sustainability and longevity of the cultivated food industry through talent development, interdisciplinary collaboration, and building of educational infrastructure,” says Sean Baker, Director of Nucleate Cultivate.
Last year’s event was made possible by support from Millipore Sigma’s Innovation Center, Aleph Farms, Lejjy Gafour, Ginkgo Bioworks, and Mirik Gogri. This year’s Cultivate Tomorrow Hackathon will not only award the winning teams of each track with a $2000 cash prize, but also the teams with the most disruptive tech solution and most out-of-the-box advertising campaign.
For more information, please visit the Cultivate Tomorrow website.
About Cultivate Tomorrow
Cultivate Tomorrow Hackathon is an annual competition in which student teams work on some of the most pressing problems in the cellular agriculture industry. Accepted participants are placed in teams and matched with industry mentors who help guide the team’s work. The hacking period takes place over a period of three months culminating in the final Demo Day, featuring awards, networking, panel discussions and more. Cultivate Tomorrow is the flagship program of Nucleate Cultivate.
About Nucleate Cultivate
Nucleate Cultivate is an affiliate of Nucleate, a free and collaborative global student-run non-profit organization that strives to identify future bio entrepreneurs, educate and empower students in science and business, build bridges within biotech, and accelerate bio ventures.
