Harvard Magazine feature on Ellie and VertiGrow

Harvard Magazine has written a spotlight on Ellie and the pilot study she led in Kibera this past summer for VertiGrow!

Elizabeth Gudrais Harvard '01 actually followed Ellie's work in Kenya for a few days this summer, and this is the result :)

http://harvardmagazine.com/extras/elizabeth-nowak-nairobi-kenya


~Tina

World Food Program + Youtube Partnership

Please check out World Food Program's new "a billion for a billion" program in partnership with YouTube to fight world hunger, a cause so near and dear to the VertiGrow team's heart.


$5 dollars nourishes a baby for a year.
$50 dollars provides a daily meal to a school child for one year.
$170 feeds a hungry adult for one year.

https://www.wfp.org/donate/1billion

~Tina

Medicine in Need

Ellie and I have been meeting with some senior staff at Medicine in Need, a Cambridge-based nonprofit that also grew out of the Idea Translation Lab at Harvard, to plan out the next prototyping and business plan stage of VertiGrow.

A second iteration of our preliminary prototype has been developed--built entirely by MEND's CEO Andrew! The second iteration features a new water storage compartment and improved water releasing control, marking a key step in our goal of creating built-in water conservation.

Next week we will be revamping our business model based on a lot of new and exciting ideas we've generated together with MEND, including the marketing and development of VertiGrow as a "hip, green" room decor for developed countries while maintaining its crucial functionality for food growth in developing countries. Stay tuned!

~Tina

Civil Eats

Do-it-yourself farming in urban areas!

http://civileats.com/2009/09/30/a-new-kind-of-garden/

plastic water bottle vertical garden in Kenya

afrigadget recently featured this invention they found in the backyard of Dominic Wanjihia. It's simple, but effective, and uses recycled plastic bottles.

Check it out here!

Clearing the slums

BBC recently reported that the Kenyan government is moving residents out of Kibera into local government housing. I remember seeing the buildings there in August (uninhabited), and asked a few people about why they were unused. Responses were centered around mistrust of the government and inequity in the moving process. The article is pretty helpful for understanding. Check it out!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/africa/8258417.stm

World Food Program's blog feature on VertiGrow: Part II

The second part to the World Food Program blog feature on VertiGrow has been published! Read about Ellie's experience in Kibera this past summer here:


Stay tuned for more updates from VertiGrow this semester as we dive into Phase II of product design and development.

~Tina