/ Affordable Greenhouses: A Ten-Year Journey from Inquiry to Sustainable Impact

Affordable Greenhouses: A Ten-Year Journey from Inquiry to Sustainable Impact

March 27, 2023
8:00 am - 9:00 am

SustainFood Innovation & Entrepreneurship Conversations

Affordable Greenhouses: A Ten-Year Journey from Inquiry to Sustainable Impact
by
Khanjan Mehta
Vice Provost for Creative Inquiry
Director of the Mountaintop Initiative
Lehigh University
Bethlehem, Pennsylvania, USA

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Topic

In 2009, in response to umpteen requests from farmers, NGOs, and research institutes in East Africa, a group of undergraduate students set out to build affordable greenhouses. Their clueless mentor, an electrical engineer who seldom ate his vegetables, set a specific goal: design a greenhouse that could be assembled by two people in two days for less than $200. It must have an ROI of less than one year and a lifespan of at least five years. The students got to work and embarked on a ten-year journey building sustainable greenhouse ventures in Kenya, Zambia, Sierra Leone, Mozambique, Cambodia, and other countries. This fast-paced interactive talk will share practical lessons for technology innovators and social entrepreneurs striving to transform food systems in low-resource settings.

About the Speaker

Khanjan Mehta is the inaugural Vice Provost for Creative Inquiry and Director of the Mountaintop Initiative at Lehigh University. Mehta’s research interests encompass affordable design; systems thinking; social entrepreneurship pedagogy; agricultural technologies and food value chains (FVCs); global health and telemedicine systems; cellphones, social networks and trust; development ethics and grassroots diplomacy; women in engineering and entrepreneurship; and informal lending systems for micro-enterprises. He has published three books and over 200 journal articles and refereed conference proceedings. Mehta serves as an Associate Editor for the IEEE Technology and Society Magazine and Contributing Editor for the Engineering 4 Change portal. His latest book, Solving Problems that Matter (and Getting Paid for It), takes a comprehensive look at STEM careers in social innovation and global sustainable development. Mehta was the Founding Director of the Humanitarian Engineering and Social Entrepreneurship (HESE) Program at Penn State, which is an integrated learning, research, and entrepreneurship program that brings together students and faculty across campus in the rigorous research, design, field-testing, and launch of technology-based enterprises in low- and middle-income countries. Mehta has led technology-based social ventures in Kenya, Tanzania, India, Cambodia, Sierra Leone, the Philippines, Mozambique, and several other countries. These ventures range from telemedicine systems and diagnostic devices to affordable greenhouses, mushroom production systems, and knowledge-sharing platforms for self-employed women. Over the last decade, these social ventures have directly impacted the lives of over three million people across 20+ countries. Mehta champions the creation of integrated learning, research, and entrepreneurial engagement ecosystems where students, faculty, and external partners come together to increase their capacities for independent inquiry, take intellectual risks and learn from failure, recognize problems and opportunities and effect constructive and sustainable change.