Students Launch First US Cellular Agriculture Hackathon, Registration Open Until Nov. 1

*Registration open until November 1st for students to take part in the hackathon, learn about the space, meet industry mentors, and help reimagine the future of food  *

Students from MIT, UC Davis, Stanford, Harvard, UC Berkeley, Northwestern University, and numerous other academic institutions have launched Cultivate Tomorrow, a cellular agriculture hackathon to connect academia and industry.

Together, in teams of four, undergraduate and graduate students with different majors, skill sets, backgrounds, and knowledge of cell-cultured food products will apply their unique perspectives to help design creative solutions to critical issues faced by the cellular agriculture industry: Strengthening supply chain and production processes, disseminating clear scientific communications, and creating effective marketing/advertising strategies.

Toward these goals, Cultivate Tomorrow is offering three different tracks in which students can compete, each with a winning prize of $2000:

1. Work with an industry mentor to create an advertising campaign for a specific product
2. Create a scientific communication platform to demystify and educate the public
3. Propose an underutilized resource that may benefit the production of cell cultivated food (experiment costs will be subsidized)

With industry mentors like Jessica Weaver (Head of Strategic Partnerships at Cultured Decadence), Ari Ratner (Senior Director of Brand Marketing at Perfect Day), and Aryé Elfenbein (Co-founder of Wildtype), participants will get first-hand knowledge from experts and founders active in the field.

Conceptualized during a social networking event for students interested the food and agriculture sector, the Cultivate Tomorrow hackathon is made possible by Merck’s Innovation Center, TurtleTree Labs, New Harvest, GFI, and many other supporters across the industry and beyond.

According to the organizers, three main goals have been defined for the project:

1. To foster collaboration and conversation between educational institutions and industry leaders that will generate innovative ideas and unique perspectives on the advancement of the field
2. To lower the barrier for newcomers and help them recognize their unique value to help spread awareness of the initiative that aims to tackle many of the UN sustainability goals
3. To host a fun, exciting, and educational event that creates a community across states, schools, companies, and people across the US all working towards the same goal of saving our planet

For more information on this event, please use the contact form on the Cultivate Tomorrow website or email Jasmin Kern at jkern@mit.edu.