Aquapioneers is an initiative that was born in the Green Fab Lab at IAAC Campus Valldaura Labs, which has been supported and powered by IAAC and Fab Lab Barcelona. Aquapioneers creates an open source urban agricultural system saving 90{9109d278f27679b0d72ba26d1dbf285952fc93361903e26181bc35932131a14a} water consumption and allows cultivation without soil with aquaponics system.

Guillaume Teyssié and Loic Le Goueff are the founders of this project which aims to develop a urban and sustainable agriculture to revolutionise food production in cities. In collaboration with the crowdfunding platform Ulule, Aquapioneers set an initial target of 15,000 Euro to finance the initial steps of the project. After one month of a fruitful campaign, they doubled this target by surpassing the amount of 30,000 Euro.

With this total amount, Aquapioneers initiative will boost and produce locally in Barcelona its first invention called the “Aquapioneers Ecosystem Kit”, which combines an aquarium and a garden in a compact wooden design. The kit is based on the symbiosis between fish and plants. Thanks to the use of an aquarium, fish fertilize with their feces the plants of a small garden located on top of the aquarium.

The huge success of the crowdfunding campaign not only will allow the production of these kits but also the installation of a Modular Solar Greenhouse based on aquaponics system.  This is the first open source Aquaponics project designed for urban farming that has been designed and beta-tested to be made in any Fab Lab around the world. All their designs are Open Source and thought to be crafted locally in digital fabrication labs, among others, in order to avoid the environmental impact of transporting materials. This way, anyone anywhere can download the designs and adapt them to their local conditions.

This iniative, together with its popular crowdfunding campaign, has been covered by international and local press and media with a great interest. Journalists from leading media such as El Mundo, El País, PlayGround, El Periódico de Catalunya, Via Empresa or Betevé featured this initative as an innovative and revolutionary project for Barcelona thanks to the collaboration of IAAC.