Food Tech 3.0: Food Technology Project Accelerator
Fab Lab Barcelona’s Food Tech 3.0 Accelerator Lab is taking its next step: launching an open call for creators of innovative food technology to take part in an 8 month-long accelerator program. Fab Lab announced the call during Food Tech’s first public, online event last December 9 (watch the full session here). The acceleration program coincides with Barcelona’s 2021 title as World Capital of Sustainable Food.
Food Tech 3.0 is one of 9 FoodSHIFT Accelerator Labs (FALs) as part of the H2020 EU project, FoodSHIFT 2030. The Barcelona Food Tech 3.0 FAL explores the relationship between Fab Labs and urban food production, elaboration, recycling and consumption through the creation and implementation of innovative food technologies.
What is the acceleration program?
The acceleration program aims to ensure that both innovators and their initiatives are prepared to be part of the solution to the challenges posed by our current food system. To do this, the program will blend traditional acceleration themes (technology, business and investment) with innovative concepts (like community-based design, open principles and tech-for-all) essential for navigating an emergent future with wicked problems.
The accelerator program’s objective is to mature the technological and societal readiness of 10 initiatives in their local context and begin to scale, combine and multiply the initiatives locally. Combine refers to looking for synergies between the initiatives, while scale refers to growing the initiative and multiply implies bringing the idea to new contexts and/or spaces.
The program will combine general weekly courses with specific support from mentors and peer-to-peer sessions. Mentors will range from makers in biomaterials and electronics, to industry professionals, and citizen activists.
Who is the call for?
The call is open to professionals and makers in the food, farming and food technology sectors. Innovators will have an existing prototype that uses technology to meet daily challenges in their industry. Innovators are interested in and used to working with technological solutions.
Examples of participants may include:
| Food producers |
Food Elaborators |
Food recyclers |
- Urban and peri-urban
farmers that are
producing through
traditional (in-ground)
or new
(rooftop, indoor, vertical)
methods
|
- Restaurant owners
- Cooks and chefs
- Prosumers
- Food innovators
|
- Composters
- Biomaterials makers
- Zero waste experts
|
The new generation of food tech
Food Tech 3.0’s open call and acceleration program both emphasize the need to create food tech that is truly representative of the society we live in, as opposed to the privatised, white and wesetern status quo.
The technology initiatives that will be chosen for the acceleration program will be open to making food tech that is: citizen and community-based and driven; holistically sustainable; of open design; equitable; and ecosystemic. Innovators are encouraged to already incorporate these values into their work, which the acceleration program will seek to strengthen.
Current Collaborators
In addition to the Fab Lab Barcelona at IAAC team, Food Tech 3.0 counts on the support of an advisory board composed of local Barcelona food changemakers, including Miki Royan and Diego Waehner of AbonoKM0; Edith Claros of Co-Responsable, Doris Boira of La Fabric@ and La Taca d’Oli; Adela Martínez González of Huertos in the Sky; Arleny Medina Prince of Restaurante LEKA; Pietro Tonini of the H2020 EU project FoodE; and Rasmus Bjerngaard and John Findlay of Nextfood.
Want to learn more?
Applications are open from now until February 10th 2021 at 00h. Interested innovators can apply by filling out the survey here. For the full call description, click here.
Read more about Fab Lab Barcelona’s foray into food technology here.
