The HAPI team is thrilled to announce the launch of our KickStarter Campaign!
We’ve worked hard over the past year to make the HAPI initiative real by generating innovative ideas, products and technologies. The first version of the HAPI automation platform is in its final test phase and we designed and built an awesome vertical system that is now into its first grow cycle. We’re working with some great high school kids as they explore and invent new ways to monitor their aquaponic greenhouse and we developed and released educational content for an introductory hydroponics class. The content has already been used to teach multiple classes. We’ve developed a Smart Power Management system, now in beta testing, that will provide food producers with the ability to minimize their energy consumption while maximizing yield. Most importantly, we’ve formed strong relationships not only within the team but with individuals and groups in our communities that share our vision for transforming the global food system.
We did all of this in just one year, as unpaid volunteers, funded largely from our own pockets. Now we’re ready to take it to the next level and we’re asking you to join us in realizing the HAPI vision.
We have launched a KickStarter Campaign with the intent of crowd-funding urban food production centers that will produce healthy, organic food for their communities. The centers will use both traditional and HAPI-developed grow systems and will feature the remote-control and automation capabilities of the HAPI automation platform. The centers will NOT be owned by us, they will be owned and operated by the communities in which they are located. As the HAPI team is a distributed group of volunteers, we will need to partner with people and organizations near the centers to provide day-to-day operational support. Different centers will have different requirements but the approximate scale of any center will be around $10,000 in systems cost. The owners/operators will need to provide the space and utilities. We will provide the grow systems, automation/monitoring/remote-control platform, site design, staff management software, start-up operations guidance and the necessary support to get every center operating at its maximum potential.
So how can your community get a crowd-funded food production center? Contribute to the KickStarter campaign! Everyone who contributes gets to vote on where we should locate the centers. Doesn’t matter if you contribute $1 or $10,000, everyone gets 1 vote. So organizations, groups, entire communities can get together and vote for their own location. But just amassing votes doesn’t guarantee a center, we also have to reach funding goals. We set a low goal on the campaign, just under $15,000. This pays the costs of the campaign and provides some revenue crucial for the continuation and expansion our current activities. For every $10,000 reached above the campaign goal, we will build another center. So, for example, if the KickStarter campaign raises $40,000 above the goal, we’ll build 4 sites. The 4 sites would be constructed in the 4 locations that get the most votes. Note that you can vote for any location, so if you and your friends want to sponsor a center in a blighted neighborhood across the country, that’s totally up to you!
In 2010, I found myself asking, “How can the food system be transformed? How can we shift from large-scale production of food grown using questionable methods and substantial amounts of fuel and chemicals, to a local production model where the values of the community dictate the means and methods used.” The HAPI project was created out of strong desire to provide solutions to these problems. We’re ready, are you?