2022-23 Laureates

In a single year, one car produces the same amount of climate-warming gas as one cow. Blue Ocean Barns is using seaweed to dramatically reduce the greenhouse gases emitted by cows all over the world.

Joan's family had been farming in the United States since the Revolutionary War. Once Joan learned how much methane cows released into the atmosphere, she went back to school to learn more and found a promising study on red seaweed in cows' diets. She put together a research team and verified that feeding cows red seaweed decreased the amount of methane they produced significantly.

Blue Ocean Barns reduces the amount of methane that cows release into the atmosphere by adding red seaweed to what they eat.

In the next 10 years, Blue Ocean Barns expects to feed red seaweed to all 100 million cows in the United States, reducing the total amount of methane cows release into the atmosphere and having an immediate cooling effect on the planet.

Across the United States today, nearly 50 million people are food insecure. At the same time, the United States wastes a lot of food; we are throwing away 40% of the food we produce.

After seeing so many people who were in need, Jasmine started doing pop-up meals. She soon learned about the problem of food waste and had an idea to use the technology of food delivery apps to get food from restaurants and grocery stores that would otherwise be thrown out into the hands of people in need.

Goodr's app works like food delivery apps, but in reverse. When a grocery store or restaurant has excess food items, they use the app to select the food they are donating, and then a driver is notified through the app and arrives to pick up the food items. The algorithm matches the donated food to a non-profit, and food is delivered directly to them.

Goodr is operating all over the United States, helping anyone who is in the food business reduce their food waste by delivering their excess fresh food to organizations feeding people in need.

Today, we heavily rely on oil to make many of the same chemicals we used to make from plants and microbes; we call them petrochemicals. But using petroleum, instead of fresh biomass, pollutes our air, water, and soil, and disrupts our ecosystems.

As a high school student, Sarah was accepted into a science program at Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, where she saw scientific research for the first time and realized she wanted to become a microbiologist.

MicroByre is domesticating novel bacteria to optimize their natural ability. They are building a giant database through the use of robotics and technology that help them monitor and record how bacteria respond to different conditions.

MicroByre has been building their bacterial library and functional dataset since 2017. This data is used to determine which bacteria can help transform bio-waste into life-saving cancer drugs, jet fuel, fertilizer, and other chemicals. Their production methods will one day break our reliance on petroleum and radically reduce our carbon emissions.

All across our world today, the sourcing of building and construction material is having a devastating impact on our climate, stretching our planet's natural resources to the limit.

Shriti grew up in New Delhi and was around construction all the time. She wanted to be a part of the growth, so she went to NYU to study construction. During her fellowship program in rural India, she began researching the potential of using straw as a building material.

Farmers sell their straw to Strawcture Eco, who preps and mixes it up with an adhesive. Then it goes through a machine to be turned into a panel. The panels can be used for walls, ceilings, doors and furniture. They have a high fire resistance rating of over 2 hours and are moisture-resistant and termite-proof.

Strawcture Eco provides 100% biobased composite building panels made from agri-residue (straw that would otherwise be burnt or disposed of) to reduce the carbon footprint of the built environment. Strawcture panels are being used as a building material all across India and they are beginning to ship to the Middle East and other parts of Asia.