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*This is a 2 part event. One workshop (4PM to 6PM). One mini-conference that starts at 7PM. Choose both, or one session. Register below.

Elon Musk is building a space shuttle to Mars. And someone's got to bring the food. Do you dream about building food’s next frontiers? We're not talking about the next health shake, but something much, much bigger. Eating, with blockchain? Plants that can talk, grown with a food computer to suit your personal needs? Plants for medicinal use in Space? A master plan for international and galactic vertical farming?

Ever imagine yourself on a mission to Mars and are asked what 10 kinds of plants you will have to eat for the rest of your life? Are you a chef who could build a ten-course meal for an international space station full of hungry astronauts?

If any of these futuristic ideas sound like fantasy, then we want YOU! Meet us at the first Mars Farm workshop and event December 14 in Tel Aviv-Jaffa.

flux (http://www.fluxiot.com), AI for plants, will co-host with the event with international guests from Border Labs (http://www.borderlabs.org/) (Holland), MELiSSA (Holland), and the Mars Farm Odyssey (http://fluxiot.com/marse.io/), where together we will build 4 challenges:

  1. Plants talk, we listen. This workshop works to understand the 6th+ senses of plants, and builds a new international standard language for exchanging plant data. As a practical objective, we will work on the design of a plant characterization kit to be used as an ESA-supported citizen science project.

  2. New models for practical vertical farming. Next to an IT, transport, and electricity infrastructure, how will we develop an urban farming infrastructure? Walk away from this workshop with a clear set of guidelines for developing an urban farming infrastructure.

  3. Blockchain, food, and urban farms. Building a new understanding of the Internet of Urban Farming. Designing urban farming infrastructures using principles from blockchain.

  4. Chef’s challenge -- kicks off international contest to build the ultimate menu for space-bound tastebuds and realities.

Space is limited to 15 per challenge so sign up now. Workshop above led by 4 futurists will be from 4 to 6, with a break until 7PM. Signing up automatically includes you in the conference after at 7PM.

SIGN UP HERE (http://www.borderlabs.org/workshop-registration/)<<<<<<<------JUST JOINING THIS MEETUP PAGE WILL NOT GUARANTEE YOU A SPACE. REGISTER FOR YOUR SESSION >>>>>

Details below:

  1. PLANTS PHONE HOME

led by Amichai Yifrach, Blake Burris and Christel Paille (through Skype)

We yearn to speak with extra-terrestrials, but there is already a universe of languages spoken by plants and our natural world. If we intend on farming more sustainably on earth, we have to get serious about learning this language so we can grow plants in-sync with our needs and theirs.

This workshop is led by Amichai Yifrach, military man and white hat hacker, who is the co-founder and CTO of flux ( http://www.fluxiot.com ). He is building Eddy, hardware and software listening to the 6th and nth senses of plants and environmental data. The device has practical implications for home growing on hydroponics in consumer and commercial applications and is perfect for gleaning grow wisdom for space farmers.

In this workshop, we will be looking into the flux approach and building an international standard for collecting environmental data, and extend this to the NGO world with MELiSSA, the citizen science project called ‘The Plant Characters’. This project aims to develop an open source hydroponics kit to monitor plant growth under controlled conditions. Scientific output is used by the MELiSSA consortium in their quest to develop technologies and systems for a ‘Micro-Ecological Life Support System Alternative’ (MELiSSA). The kit itself will be useful to hydroponics growers to optimize plant growth and conduct experiments.

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Participants in this workshop will work on the design of the kit (what sensors and data will be needed), and at the same time develop open ‘sensing’ standards for Tara, a new standard for environmental data.

SIGN UP HERE (http://www.borderlabs.org/workshop-registration/)

#2 THE LAUNCHPAD FOR URBAN FARMING ON EARTH AND ON MARS

led by Lavi Kushelevich (https://www.linkedin.com/in/lavikushelevich)

Lavi is a well-known urban farmer and consultant in Israel, who is involved in numerous ventures and projects with a social impact (e.g. educational projects, refugee projects). He believes that the technology to make cities highly self-sufficient is there already; the biggest obstacle is institutional. To enable a more rapid integration of urban farming practices he is developing a framework and implementation model focused on building urban farming infrastructures in cities across the world. This model can extend to the moon and Mars.

In this session, you will learn about this framework and help develop it. Participants will be asked to commit themselves to prepare a proposition to introduce an urban farming solution in their own town. Your chance to lead the way.

SIGN UP HERE (http://www.borderlabs.org/workshop-registration/)

#3 BUILDING THE INTERNET OF URBAN FARMING

led by Matan Field; Liron Brish

Matan Field is the founder and CEO of Backfeed, a blockchain based collaboration solution. He previously founded La’Zooz, a decentralized collaborative transportation system in Israel. Coming from the field of Physics research, Matan has grown to develop innovative open-source solutions based on principles of decentralization and technologies like cryptocurrency and blockchain to maintain trust and provide incentives for social and appropriate participation in evolving technologies and businesses.

Liron Brish (https://www.linkedin.com/in/lironbrish) is the co-founder and CEO of Farm Dog. He has experience spanning the agricultural value chain, including with farmers, groceries, farm-to-fork restaurants, and drones' services. Serial entrepreneur and investor with experience at McKinsey & Co., the Securities & Exchange Commission, FINRA, and as a corporate lawyer. Proud Tex-raeli.

During this workshop, participants will use far-out and futuristic concepts to come up with a vision for a future distributed urban farming infrastructure. Make headlines with us!

SIGN UP HERE (http://www.borderlabs.org/workshop-registration/)

#4: RECIPES FOR SPACE

led by Oren Ravid

You are chosen to lead the first mission to Mars. You and your crew have to decide what to bring, and most importantly, how to survive. You and your crew includes a chef, a farmer, a nutritionist, an engineer: what will you eat? What and how will you cook it?

Choose your ingredients and make a ‘recipe for space’. Make sure it’s tasty. And nutritious… Will you live getting to Mars right? What about alcohol or chocolate? What about the psychological effects of eating certain foods. And your physical health: plants as medicines? Think about the ingredients, and the plants and herbs that produce these ingredients: they need space and time to grow. Participants in this group will develop innovative solutions to feeding our future astronauts.

‘Recipes for Space’ will result in an improved framework for this challenge, before launching this competition aimed at top-chefs across the globe. An initial attempt to formalize this concept has been done in London, see notes about this workshop in this Google Docs (https://drive.google.com/open?id=1FjAdGBTFyXn73qpAtjuy1HnrAWHdxHPRdFgy1cqctZM).

SIGN UP HERE (http://www.borderlabs.org/workshop-registration/)

Expert guests such as Zvi Kapan (retired director of Israel Space Agency), Maya Oren (Manna Center, Tel Aviv) and Daniel Ben Yehuda (emerging economies expert) will circle between workshops, lending advice.

The Manna Center Program for Food Safety and Security (https://foodsecurity.tau.ac.il/) at Tel Aviv University is the first of its kind in Israel, and works in three complementary spheres of activity: Teaching, Research, and Outreach. Maya is the Program Director of the Food Safety & Security Program. She comes from the fields of sustainability and international development. In addition to her day job, she is also conducting research on the effects of an Israeli training program on small scale farmers in Nepal.

Daniel Ben Yehuda specializes in business development and international marketing, with an emphasis on renewable energy in emerging markets. Passionate about catalyzing innovations and scaling impact businesses to solve global challenges. Committed to a vision of transforming Israel from the 'Startup Nation' to the development startup nation - a source of solutions for the developing world.

6-7 BREAK

Bring something vegetarian to share. There will also be soup.

7-10 Presentations and networking

Between 7 and 9 we will have a rapid-fire conference (no PPT presentations) where you will meet and hear from our future's thought-leaders on sustainable food.

Meet:

• Shir Halpern, founder and owner of Tel Aviv Farmers market which started in 2008 and was the first Farmers Market in Israel. Since then 5 more weekly farmers markets have launched all over Israel and in 2010 the first indoor market - The Port's Market, opened in Hangar 12 at the Tel Aviv Port. (www.shukhanamal.co.il (http://www.shukhanamal.co.il/)).

• Meet Dr. Nirit Bernstein (http://www.agri.gov.il/people/676.aspx), leading plant physiologist from the world famous Volcani Center, Rehovot. She's built the Center's first urban rooftop farm, researches applications in hydroponics, and leads research events on medicinal herbs.

• Meet food tech Dynamo Yossi Dan, founder of Challengy (https://www.linkedin.com/in/yossidan). Find Yossi leading foodtech events around Israel. He supports, promotes, and connects Israeli food tech startups endlessly to a world of business and opportunities.

This is followed by a recap of the outcomes of the afternoon workshops, and several other inspiring people. There will be plenty of time to network we will try hard to circulate a list of attendees before the event.

SIGN UP HERE (http://www.borderlabs.org/workshop-registration/)

10 to ?: Local restaurants and bars

The best conversations transcend time and Space! So after 10 we’ll leave the East West House to explore the local nightlife in Jaffa.

Any questions or want to know about speaking/sponsorship opportunities? Contact your event hosts or email karin@fluxiot.com phone: 0543187449

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ABOUT YOUR HOSTS

Karin Kloosterman (Canada, Israel)

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Karin is the founder of flux ( http://www.fluxiot.com ), a platform technology that creates IoT and AI for Life Sciences. flux has created Eddy, a consumer device and software that makes it apple-pie easy for anyone to grow their own sustainable food and medicine, using hydroponics. She is an award-winning journalist, highly-cited publisher, and founded Canna Tech in Israel in 2015 to unlock Israeli cannabis and cultivation research to global business opportunities. She founded Mars Farm Odyssey in 2016 to bring Space-thinking and limitations to planet earth.

Thieme Hennis (Holland)

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Thieme Hennis works as an independent educational researcher and consultant and is active in the field of circular systems and neighbourhoods. In Amsterdam, he introduces more local and sustainable waste practices with Waste Lab West. He has a PhD in Education (educating/engaging youth at risk). He is interested in self-organizing and participatory systems.

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