QUT's award-winning idea to feed the world

Queensland University of Technology (QUT) has been proclaimed the winner of the Wiley Genesis Award as part of the 2015 Global Business Challenge — a competition to design sustainable solutions to feed the world.

QUT’s Team Exatio was one of six competition finalists from all over the world to pitch its solution to Wiley, a Brisbane-based food facilities designer. The team’s idea consisted of a new cropping system to produce and commercialise the lemna aquatic plant, part of the duckweed family, to provide a sustainable, high-yield and high-value feed for intensive animal and fish farming.

Wiley Managing Director Tom Wiley congratulated the QUT team on securing the award, which included $100,000 in kind of professional support to commercialise the winning idea. “We were incredibly impressed by all of the teams who pitched their ideas,” he said, “but the QUT entry really stood out for its research and ingenuity.

“Team Exatio has developed a new food source for agriculture and aquaculture and addressed a number of key challenges facing global food production, including water quality and land availability.

“We look forward to working with the team to bring their idea to life.”

The other finalists included:

• Team Mayisara — Symbiosis International University (India): A sustainable and holistic model to integrate farmers with consumers, which ultimately increases a farmer’s revenue while reducing consumer costs and waste.
• Team C-Fu — Cornell University (USA) and Schulich School of Business, York University (Canada): Using food science and biotechnology to develop the next generation of insect-based foods with excellent nutritional profiles and high consumer acceptability.
• Team Garbage Clinical Insurance — Brawijaya University (Indonesia): Developing sustainable micro-finance schemes in poorer Indonesian communities to fund the collection and management of household waste to improve community health.
• Team BioThinkers — Warsaw University, Warsaw School of Economics and Warsaw University of Life Sciences (Poland): An eco-friendly, portable micro-farm to produce and process insects as a secure and sustainable food source in Africa.
• Team Fish 4 Africa — Cape Town University (South Africa): A replicable fresh-water aquaculture solution that produces a market-accepted, cost-effective catfish product to increase consumption in Africa.