Hello, ChiTownBio community! We have some exciting news to share!
Back in September, a number of community members all signed on to form a team to compete in this year’s Biodesign Challenge Sprint. The Sprint is an accelerated version of the Biodesign Challenge that typically runs in the spring of each year. Both offerings challenge participants to imagine a better world in which biology can be used as a tool of design to help improve the human condition.
Six of our community members and our organization president organized a project that looked at some of the biology that makes Chicago great, mainly our indigenous, edible plants, and imagined a Chicago where instead of abandoned lots and empty land on industrial facilities, Chicagoans could invest in and grow small, micro-forests using a method developed by the Japanese botanist Akira Miyawaki. The method consists of planting a high density of native plants and trees and allowing the native vegetation to restore soils, attract migratory animals like birds, bugs, and butterflies, and provides rich, nutritious food to neighbors and community members.
To help promote these dense, urban jungles, the team came up with a snack bar to convince people of the great taste and ease of use of native crops. The snack bar contains native plants like the paw paw, cranberries, amaranth, and more.
This years competition was fierce, with competition from 19 professional teams from sixteen countries including China, Italy, Brazil, Australia, and Algeria. Yet in the end, our project and our idea for a brighter Chicago ended up prevailing, proving the be the idea that impressed this year’s sponsor, Mars-Wrigley, with the most impassioned vision of the future.
We’re very proud of our team, and we’re dedicated to making sure that ChiTownBio continues in its dedication to creating opportunities for all Chicagoans to experiment with biotechnologies. We’re also very excited to help bridge the gap between biology and design, making art and design as relevant to our mission as great science and innovation.
Congratulations to all of our team members!
(Quick edit as of 5:20 on Nov. 10th: if you want to see the team in action, you can watch the proceedings of the BDC. Thanks to our community member Travas, this will take you right to Sprouted’s submission: https://youtu.be/T2OBiFAU93w?t=9199)