The Inventivity Pod

Everyday people around the world step on to a scale to see what they weigh, but is this really the most effective tool for measuring our health? Michael Fedewa and Mike Esco, lifelong health and fitness researchers, co-founders of MADE Health and Fitness, and Cade Prize finalists tell us why cutting edge technology on our smartphones may be the best tool for managing our health. By simply downloading an app and taking a photo we can gain an accurate assessment of our health, body fat % included,  that is as accurate as what we could get from a high-tech lab.

TRANSCRIPT:

Speaker 1: 0:01

Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to radio Cade and podcast from the cave museum for creativity and invention in Gainesville, Florida, the museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace.

Speaker 2: 0:39

Welcome to radio Cade . I’m your host, James de Virgilio. And here’s something for you to think about as you’re beginning to listen to this podcast, why are you measuring weight loss? Should you even measure weight loss when you got on the scale this morning, this week, last week, a month ago, is that number relevant? And is it telling you what you want to know about your health? My guests today, both co-founders of the made health and fitness app, Michael FITO and Mike ESCO, joining the program to tell us about maybe why we’re not reading our scale correctly, Michael and Mike, welcome to the show. Thanks for being with us. Thank you for having us . All right . So you told me pre-show that we’re going to call Michael FITA his last name, and then we’re going to call Mike ESCO to keep things simple for our listeners. So we have FITO and ESCO and de Virgilio three last names that are great for a podcast. Let’s start talking about this then right away, weight loss, something that obviously is very, very important, perhaps even more important in light of COVID now, but here we are teasing out the beginning saying maybe your scale, isn’t the primary thing you should be using to measure whether or not you are getting more or less healthy. That’s right. I’m curious. Tell me why. That’s the case. That’s the primary way in which people will evaluate progress on a weight loss program? I mean, after all, they want to lose weight, but the question becomes, where is that weight loss coming from? We have fat mass, which is the culprit of poor health. And then we have lean mass with muscle involved in that. And we’re just based in our progress on weight loss in general, there’s no way of really knowing how much fat mass was lost versus fat free mass or muscle mass as lost research shows that through most weight loss programs, there is muscle that is lost through that. And then the question becomes how much. So imagine we’re starting out and someone says to you, I’d like to lose some weight. I’m just going to eat less calories or exercise more. And we could spend hours discussing that in a podcast, but I want to lose more weight. Of course the response would be, well, you really are saying you want to lose fat and you want to maintain your muscle and what you are suggesting. And I think science is definitively telling us is that if I lose 10 pounds, what matters to me is where did those pounds come from, right? How much was fat and how much was muscle and the scale is not going to tell me that. Correct? Yeah, you’re absolutely right. You know, in our research we have pretty good evidence. We kind of use a three quarters rule. So if you a pound of weight,

Speaker 3: 3:00

Most of that is coming off as fat mass. And it’s probably about 75%, about 25% ish somewhere around that is going to be fat free mass. And so some of that weight is going to be muscle, but that also depends on how early you are in your weight loss program in the earlier weeks, or whether you kind of progressed into the later months. It depends on if you’re a highly trained athlete or if you’re just kind of a general weekend warrior like ESCO and I are so that 75% rule that doesn’t always hold true. And so I think with our app, we’re trying to shift the focus away from how much weight can I lose and smaller and skinnier is always better. We would actually like to completely shift the focus and say, well , stop actually tracking weight loss. What if we just walked away from that and said like, how much muscle can I add or how much stronger it can we get you and , and actually focus on building stronger and healthier bodies rather than just trying to be smaller and thinner.

Speaker 2: 3:51

And that works both ways. As you mentioned, if I want to gain 10 pounds and I say, I’d like to gain as much of that as muscle. And all I use is a scale. Again, I have no way to see how much is muscle and how much is fat. So this brings us to the point now where if you’re a listener and you’ve done anything like this, you’re aware of measuring body fat. You’re thinking, well, wait a minute, there’s calipers out there. If you’re near a university or you’ve been a high level athlete, you’ve probably sat in the egg, so to speak, potentially you’ve gone under water, right? All these different ways to manage your body fat. So why do we need something else?

Speaker 3: 4:22

So the majority of those techniques, and there’s a lot of techniques out there, there are laboratory techniques that we have that we do research with. And those are very sophisticated and they’re very accurate. But the problem with those is they’re limited to laboratory settings and they’re costly. They require somebody that knows how to run that equipment, to perform the measures. And then there are field tools like skinfold calipers or the handheld or the specialized bioimpedance scales or whatnot. And those have a cost associated with it as well. And usually those are found in gym settings. They oftentimes can carry a range of air that’s pretty wide too. And a person that would want to have those measurements performed would need to go into a fitness facility or a clinical facility or a laboratory, and have someone else perform that measure the system that we have takes that away, puts the power, so to speak in the user’s hands, where they do not have to have a professional perform the measure, which is for a lot of people is pretty intimidating to have someone pinch their body part, right, or perform a measure where they’re required to know what their body weight is. And that’s been private and personal information for people. And that can pose as a barrier for them getting assessed and therefore getting going on an appropriate weight loss or exercise or lifestyle program.

Speaker 2: 5:33

Here’s something that that’s obviously interesting if you’re an elite athlete or if you’re me and you happen to get to live in a university town and think that you were an elite athlete, even though you really weren’t, you found a way to get yourself into the bod pod as they called it right. Or the egg. And I had used calipers my whole life. I love nutrition. I love fitness. And I thought, here’s my body fat level. And I go in there and it was at least three percentage points higher than what I had ever measured. And it was really interesting because as you mentioned, they also told me all about how they have to fine tune that machine for really each athlete. Like every person is different. You can’t just fire it up for one person and fire it up for someone else. You get a different result. At the time they told the story of Tim Tebow, he’s a different calculation requirement. Then one of the cornerbacks is, and if you put the same calculations in there, you get wildly different and actually inaccurate results. So it’s a complicated thing. It’s really important. But when I saw what you did, first of all, it seems like a no brainer . It seems incredible. But how were you able to put something onto an app that can be accurate? It seems like if it’s so difficult to get the bod pod to work, which is this really expensive, complicated piece of machinery, how can my cell phone accurately tell me what my body fat percentages ,

Speaker 4: 6:41

That’s actually a good point. So when we start comparing across different methods, there’s a few percentage points different. When we go from skinfolds to underwater, weighing to the bod pod, to bioimpedance to DEXA. So we started cycling through, and if we’re trying to track changes, we want to make sure that the person is being measured with the same technique. Every time we can’t just use those interchangeably and assume that one measure taken on one machine is going to be the same as something we would get from a different method. So we started looking at that and some of the assumptions that you mentioned, people are all different. And so there’s changes in muscle mass that come naturally, as we age there’s changes in body fat, that happened because of the normal aging process there’s differences between men and women and muscle mass and fat mass there’s differences in bone density and the density of fat free mass. Maybe if we look at different racial and ethnic groups and children versus adolescents. And so these are all things that ASCO and I deal with almost on a daily basis, as part of our research is trying to figure out how to more accurately measure what someone has made of accounting for all these external factors. We work a lot with underwater weighing or with the egg, like the bod pod, like you mentioned. And we figured out that we can measure how big someone is based on the amount of space that they take up in a picture. So just like the underwater weighing tank is measuring fluid displacement or water displacement, and the bod pod is measuring air displacement. We figured out that we could actually measure somebody’s size or body volume with about 99.8% accuracy from a picture just by looking at how many pixels they displaced or how much space they take up in the image. And from there, we can take that volume measure and estimate density based on how heavy they are, and then convert that to fat, using some pretty standard lab techniques that we have. And then boom, we get numbers that are right in line with what we would get with the egg or with the bod pod or with underwater weighing or skin folds. And the data that it was all based off of at the sample that we had collected were adults 18 up into their eighties. We had a pretty good representation of men and women. We had different race and ethnic groups. And so we had data that we had collected that was pretty representative of the general population. We had a couple athletes in there. And so we knew that we were onto something and we’ve kind of refined the algorithm a few times to account for differences in age and sex and race and fitness level. And I think we actually have a product that we can use it in a research setting to get comparable values to what we get from our lab based techniques. But the benefit like you kind of already mentioned is that it’s portable and it does exist on a smartphone. And the measurements that we can get are so quick and so accurate that a coach could take this and they could scan their entire team one right after another boom, boom, boom, boom. And you could go through the entire basketball team or the entire football team in minutes where it would take hours, days or weeks to go through an entire series of data collection on a big athletics team like that.

Speaker 2: 9:25

That’s obviously tremendously exciting. So it sounds to me like we obviously have proof of concept. Has there been any challenge in the industry to say, Hey, I don’t really think that’s going to work, or there’s an issue with their methodology or so far proof of concept is sound no challenges, no issues.

Speaker 3: 9:42

We’re so new to this. I mean, our product has just been released and the feedback we received from the research community that we’re acquainted with and professional community had been positive. I’m sure that there are going to be some challenges along the way. But the good thing about the creators of this device are also the ones that are involved in the lab and doing research. And we’re going to work continuously to make our processes even more accurate. There are a few areas in which we’re planning to do the research in already and continue to advance our process. I wanted to mention too, that one of the reasons why some of those techniques that you mentioned have to be modified to count for a certain individual or different individuals is because body composition itself and what optimal body composition may be. That’s individualized as well. In other words, what’s optimal for me is not what’s optimal for everyone else. And sometimes it’s with a mentality of the drive for thinness. We get this stall that, well, everyone should be this certain body weight or this certain size or this certain look, that’s not necessarily the case. It’s individualized. And now we have this device that we’ve created will given the ability for people to measure and take the personal measures to where they better understand what their body composition is and they can make the right decisions.

Speaker 4: 10:50

Actually, James, you mentioned something about the skepticism that we’ve gotten from the industry or from the potential users that we’re trying to hook up with. And I appreciate the skepticism. If somebody came and told me that you could measure how much muscle I had from a picture, I think that I would be pretty doubtful that that was actually possible to , and some of the people who doubted that it was even possible. I think it actually turned into some of our bigger advocates because we have the data and we’ve gone and talked to different gyms and different fitness centers on a couple of universities. And we’ve had people come in and go, yeah, man, I almost actually ignored your email when you contacted us about partnering and using the app or our fitness assessments, but then downloaded it. And sure enough, the number that came back with the app was just about where I thought I was. And it’s just about what we got from our bioimpedance device that we already have. And so, yeah, I believe that. And one of the things that we do too, we have our research conference abstracts that we send right along with our emails and we posted them all on social media. So people can have the data. We’ve got our research articles out there to Apple, believe it or not to give them kind of a shout out for the app store when we submitted everything to the app store so that it could go live and people could start downloading it. They actually flagged us. And they said, you can’t do that from a phone man , get outta here. And so they actually required us to submit all of our research data and publications and everything that we had supporting it, which they expected us to come back and be really upset with that . It was dragging out the approval process. But on our end, I appreciate that because that means that somebody can’t come in behind us and say like, no, we have an app that can do that from a picture, too guys, check this out and not have any research or data to back it up. So we actually appreciated that skepticism and we appreciate the hesitation to jump two feet into using the app too . Cause we’d be doubtful. Also

Speaker 3: 12:33

The biggest critics that we’ve had have been ourselves when we first started this, we were blown away at the simplicity of it. And we had to continue to analyze the data over and over again, to verify what we were seeing because we’ve been doing this sort of stuff and validating different body composition techniques for years and to have come to this has been remarkable and we were blown away.

Speaker 4: 12:52

Good that I made a mistake. Actually, when we were analyzing the data, I sent him a screenshot and I said, Hey man, this correlation is really hot, but I don’t think that I did this right. This can’t actually be true.

Speaker 2: 13:03

Right. And in correlation obviously indicating that the relationship is close, this is moving in tandem. And then that’s an important finding your data’s there. The app is here before we dive into the app because I wanted to set the context for how exciting this is. And if you’re a listener who loves nutrition, you’re probably already really excited in . You’re thinking I’m going to download the app right now. And if you’re new to it, we’re going to talk about why this is really exciting. Even if you haven’t ever thought about your body that way. But first, why don’t you both give us a quick background of what you did before this, because you’re coming at this from a scientific angle. This isn’t like you left your profession as a pilot to discover a body fat eater. Tell us about your backgrounds.

Speaker 3: 13:38

My personal background is I’ve been doing research in body composition and really addressing the question of how we accurately predict or measure the different parameters of physical fitness. So body composition is one over then. We also have aerobic and muscular fitness and flexibility and all the things that really make what comprises a fit person. So I’ve spent the majority of that and body composition, where we validated different techniques for different people, from athletes to clinical populations to really bring them what we do in the lab and put it in the hands of practitioners and consumers. Most of that is involved. Other techniques like skinfold or circumference measures or different prediction equations with body mass index and have a certain level of accuracy to them. But this has been the most accurate, actually that I’ve come across.

Speaker 4: 14:23

When I was in high school, I was about 300 pounds and lost a good chunk of that weight through diet and exercise. And the struggle that I had through high school and through college through undergrad was weight loss, wasn’t linear. And so there were plateaus and there were setbacks. And if I knew what I knew now, back then, I would have been much more successful in the way it would have come off much more quickly. And I think for a long time, the research that I wanted to get into was what are the health risks cause of obesity and having higher body. And then how do we use exercise and a healthy eating strategy to help lose that weight? And so before I got to Alabama, that was a , where a lot of my research was, was the health risks associated with having higher body fat. And then how do we help lower that risk with exercise and then ESCO. And I teamed up about five years ago with our research and really started figuring out how do we measure these changes more accurately? Because the barriers that we kept running into, like he mentioned, where we have this research study, we have one unit on campus. Like we have one decks and machine that we have access to, or we have one underwater weighing tank. And so the logistics of having one machine that’s shared space that all of the researchers are using that every participant would have to go through it . Then we have to schedule a time out. It’s a tremendous time burden. It’s a transportation burden. It’s a cost burden like for our DEXA machine, there’s a radiation safety concern that presents another barrier. And so we were like, there has to be a way to work around this. And so we jokingly agreed a few years ago that we were going to try to move the entire exercise fizz lab into a phone. And so this is kind of our first step. And we had tried to validate other methods and had done research, comparing the accuracy on other techniques. And like you mentioned, this is the one that we feel the most confident about. And we have the strongest data to support. You can move from the lab out into the field without sacrificing too much accuracy. And you can do it compared to DEXA for about 50 to $80,000 cheaper. So that’s a win too.

Speaker 2: 16:15

So that brings us to where we are now. Right? You have a long background in this you’re experts in the fields. You’ve discovered something, you’ve proved a concept. You have the research to back it up. And I think we approached this podcast, or at least I wanted to this way to overcome the natural skepticism that is there. But in reality, as you guys both mentioned, I think if you’re starting something new, you really would rather have a lot of skepticism because that means you are truly innovating something brand new, because it’s almost unbelievable. So with that, let’s talk about how this actually works. So if I go download this app on my phone, which I think right now it’s only available on the iPhone. Is that correct

Speaker 4: 16:50

Platforms? You can get it on Apple and Android.

Speaker 2: 16:52

That’s good because I have an Android and I was going to say, don’t , don’t leave me Nicole .

Speaker 4: 16:57

Again , we’re optimized for tablets too, so you can get it on an iPad.

Speaker 2: 17:00

I love it. So I go and I download this and you can look right now, I’m looking on my phone. I see it on the app store right now. And it’s right there. I see my Android and I see it on the internet, on the Apple app store. And it’s called me with a blue logo, made health and fitness. And now what happens? I download it. Let’s walk me through it. What do I need to do? How does it work? What’s going on? Yes.

Speaker 4: 17:17

We download the app with the download. You get a free scan to try it out right now. So you get to go in and actually test to see if these numbers look like what you’re expecting to. Cause we debated. Did we just have people like trust us and download this and pay for it and then decide to go? Or should we give them the proof like watch this actually does what we’re claiming it does. So download the app is free trial. You can get a scan, check it out to track your data. Long-term , there’s an upgrade for that. So it is a paid app. When you go in, you set up your user profile, we ask you to enter your age and your sex and your race, your height and weight. And then we have just a couple of basic fitness questions that we have you answer also. So how many days a week do you typically exercise? And then how many push-ups can you do to be kind of a crude marker of muscular fitness? Now , from there, your profile set up that all the program actually takes as a single image taken from the front view. So if you turn your camera to selfie mode and take a total body selfie from head to toe , we have an automated image analysis program that scans your image, filters out the backgrounds and identifies all the landmarks that we need on the body. And once we’ve identified those landmarks and kind of pinpointed them, it takes about 20 seconds for us to actually calculate body fat percentage. And then because you’ve told us your weight, when you set up your user profile and we can back calculate and figure out how much of your percent body weight is fat mass in , in raw pounds and then fat free mass in raw pounds. And the cool thing about the app too, is that we can also tell where most of that fat you can have it where you’re storing it. So we can tell whether it’s being stored kind of around your midsection. So in the Android region, like belly fat, we can also tell the users if it’s being stored kind of around their hips and thighs. So kind of gyno weight in the lower body,

Speaker 2: 18:56

Which is just remarkable, like hearing you describe this, you’re thinking that’s incredibly right now, my process is I go grab my caliper. I do a couple of skinfold measurements. I look at the table, I find my age. I get a range that works right every week you do that. And it certainly works enough. It’s a benchmark as you’re mentioning, but with this, I can take one photo. I presume each week I could take one photo and I can watch my progress. So let’s just take a hypothetical male and say that male weighs 200 pounds and they’re 15% body fat. So they weigh 170 is lean muscle mass and 30 pounds is fat and they want to lose some weight. Obviously, if they’re going to lose weight and maintain their muscle, they’re going to see that their body fat number drop as they lose the weight, but their fat free muscle mass, as you’re mentioning, stay roughly the same. And that is now worth full circle. That’s the benefit of not just looking at the scale is if they go from 200 to one 90, but they’ve maintained most of their muscle mass they’ve actually changed their overall body composition. And they’re watching it in real time with an app that is going to track their progress. It becomes a record keeper.

Speaker 4: 19:55

Absolutely. The cool thing about the app too, when you’re taking those pictures to track changes over time, the device doesn’t store the app, doesn’t store the images. So when we’re analyzing those images, the app doesn’t see them like a person never actually sees the picture that you take. So it’s not stored. And we did that for privacy reasons. We didn’t want images getting out or to be a hack or something happened to where everybody’s personal health information. And in these images of people are floating around the internet. So we decided to just completely walk away from that. And so we take the image, it goes up to the cloud, it’s analyzed. And then the only place that had ever exists is on your phone. And so if you don’t have it stored to your camera roll, it goes away completely, which we did again, very, very kind of strategically and changes over time. We’ve been have been really cool to look at. Obviously we just finished Thanksgiving and we’re kind of going into the holiday season and we were tracking changes in our body, composition the holidays in our group message. Cause I think you have Thanksgiving and everybody goes, Oh my gosh, I gained like seven pounds this week. This is crazy. And you take a scan and you realize that 95% of that is waterway . And so it’s not that big of a deal because the app is sensitive enough to capture those changes to where the scale may have increased. And so you are heavier, but most of that is being tracked as fat free mass. Cause you haven’t gotten any bigger in a week to where they would cause significant changes in body fat. So that is one of the cool things about the app is that we’re sensitive enough to detect those really small changes. And we can pinpoint which part of you is changing fat mass or fat free mass with really good accuracy,

Speaker 2: 21:24

Which again is just remarkable. As you just mentioned, right? For anyone who’s been in the fitness world, maybe you tried to lose some weight you’ve done. So for a while you start eating again, you get some surplus calories and you see the scale shoot up four pounds and you’re thinking what is going on, right? And of course, that’s that water weight that you’re mentioning, but this alleviates the fluctuation of the scale. A lot of people step on the scale every day and it moves a lot and they overreact or under-react. And what you just said in reality is often the most important takeaway that number is not that important. What’s important is what’s happening with my fat free muscle mass, what’s happening with my lean weight, et cetera. And I think this is really exciting for someone like myself who loves nutrition, because this does have the opportunity to really change everyone. Like you mentioned, if you’re an elite athlete here at university of Florida, what happened during COVID? The players were not on campus. They weren’t near the coaches. They were having to work out on their own. The nutritionist had no idea what was happening with their progress. They had no way to measure it. Same thing at the university you’re at. So this is such an interesting application because you can think of this applying to everyone, whether you’re 75 or you’re 18, or you’re again, a lead athlete, we can warrior all across the spectrum, knowing what your lean body mass is, is such an important thing. But for a long time, it seems like really only maybe the bodybuilding community or the elite athletes or those would ever view their body that way.

Speaker 4: 22:39

That’s absolutely correct. A person doesn’t have to wait months down the line to get a DEXA scan or an underwater weighing measure or any other more invasive body composition techniques. They can take it right onto their phone and do it routinely and make decisions earlier on to make some changes. If they see increases in fat mass decreases in fat free mass, when they’re running the opposite, they can detect those changes much earlier. Yeah, I think COVID has really brought a lot to the forefront. Like a lot of the limitations and things that we were doing in the industry in athletics and in the fitness industry, it really brought them forefront. And I think we’ve done a good job of pivoting hard, right? So COVID hit last spring, everyone got sent home, all the athletes were released and we were like, okay, well how are we going to keep them training? And like on their plans, working out the way they’re supposed to, how do we track progress? So teams were sending wearable devices to track workouts. They were videotaping workouts, but the one thing they couldn’t capture was actual changes in muscle mass and fat mass. And so now we have that, you could send the athlete home in the off season and put them through a workout program and have them do weekly check-ins with the app. And you can measure at least to make sure that they’re maintaining muscle mass and not seeing big shifts in fat master in the off season and from the fitness industry. From that perspective, I think this has really opened up a lot of opportunity for online coaching. So we have a number of people that we’re working with that do personal training or do group fitness classes, they’re zooming or streaming them for their members, but they don’t have access to their facilities. So they can’t come in in person to do check-ins or fitness assessments. They don’t have those same luxuries that we used to. So they’re teaching online, they’re doing personal training online, and now they can track online also because with the app, a person can take a picture from their home that you can be working with a client and they can take a picture at home on their own device and then share the results directly with their trainers. So we can export that via text message or through email, and you can send your results to your trainer every time you step on the scale, you can snap another image and send them a real time , updated live body composition number. And you can do that weekly. You can do a biweekly , you can check in as often as you want to. So now we’ve eliminated that barrier and we’ve also eliminated the barrier of time when people eventually do go back to the gyms and when they do get back in person, we don’t need to spend an entire session now meeting with somebody for a fitness assessment and to spend 45 minutes getting ready for an underwater weighing we’re going through all of our skinfold tests. You can have somebody scan at home and send the results before they get in for their fitness assessment and then be ready to talk about the results when they get there. And so I think this has really opened up a lot of opportunities for us.

Speaker 2: 25:11

Yeah. Again, it’s one of those things and , and I’ve done obviously a lot of podcasts here at the Cade with people doing amazing things. And this one is maybe one of the most immediately useful and societal changing right now. I think you have less than a couple hundred downloads. You just released the app. But if you look at other fitness apps, they have tens of millions of downloads. And obviously again, I think yours has the potential to go beyond that. So if you’re looking to get on the ground floor of something as , Hey, I was in on this app early, maybe this is the one to download and try it out. Let’s ask the tough question then here at the end. So the investor side of me always wants to know, look, this sounds so good. This seems so useful. It actually lines up with something I do in my own life. Everything about it seems too good to be true. What are some potential hurdles that would prevent this from working three or four years from now, we look back and say, you know, this just didn’t work. What are those hurdles? Or are there none

Speaker 3: 25:58

When we’re doing the research on it to come up with the algorithms and then research going forward, we’re really good at controlling how the picture was taken, the lighting, the clothing, but now the app is in the user’s hands. So it’s up to them to make sure that that everything in the image is appropriate, where we see an accuracies or where our process doesn’t work is if the body is not in the right position or if the lighting is inappropriate or if they’re wearing baggy clothes or if there’s too much noise in the background. So it’s very important that the user follows the instructions that are on the app. And once all those assumptions are met, then our accuracy is as good as, or better than any of the other techniques that are on the market and much simpler. Yeah .

Speaker 4: 26:35

And ASCO. And I were very careful when we were planning like what we want the app to be and what we want the company to be. And so we had really hard meetings about, we saw our growth kind of strategically and where we wanted to be in five years. And I think we’ve heard this phrase, like stay in your own lane. We don’t want to be in a position where we’re delivering fitness advice or exercise prescriptions or programming within the app. We envision this as being just a measurement tool. And so we want this to be the go-to first option for body composition now, but then every other test that you can do in the lab, aerobic fitness, or muscular strength or endurance or power, whatever you want to measure in the lab, we want this to be also a part of the app. So we have plans to expand to the research side of things and develop additional features, but we don’t want to try to edge out personal trainers or the group fitness staff, or we don’t want to try to edge out and try to be the next Fitbit. We actually want to partner with the next Fitbit. And we don’t want to edge out and try to muscle in on my fitness pal. Right? Cause those are probably the two giants right now. We’ve got a few 30 million and 20 million active users on those two platforms. We don’t want to try to edge those folks out. We want to have people use this in addition to them. So if you have a fitness program or you have an app that’s already tracking your workouts, or if you have something that’s established and it’s working, we want to be the go-to for measuring your progress in every aspect. And so I think where this goes wrong is if we get away from that and start trying to be things that we’re not our research is in validating this device for tracking changes, but not causing the changes through the exercise or through the diet or through whatever workout program you’re on. It’s a great point. We want to show that what a person may be following that exercise or diet program that it’s actually working and doing what they want it to do. We’ve talked to, we teach our students this in class. We say, look, your prescription has to be individualized. Like you can’t train everyone the exact same way. You wouldn’t put everybody on the exact same deal planet . Everyone is different. And so we wouldn’t assume that we could just box up a workout program within the app and give it to everybody and expect to get the same results. And so we really believe since we’re teaching our students that , and since we believe that medicine and your exercise program should be individualized, keep working with the experts that are giving you the individualized program, like keep working with your strength and conditioning coaches. Absolutely. And keep going out and working with registered dieticians and personal trainers. Absolutely just use us to track the changes. And I think that’s the one piece that all of these other programs and these other apps are missing is that they’re great at the programming piece, but we want to be the ones that are tracking the changes.

Speaker 2: 29:08

And that’s what makes it is so important in life. Pretty much, no matter what you’re doing, you have to have an accurate way to evaluate your progress. And that’s what you’re talking about. And in fact, I love in a world of free ideas and free exchange that if you’re really good at what you do, you’re going to have proof behind that. And now if you’re a strength trainer, you can tell the prospective client, let me show you how good I am at having my clients gain muscle over time and then change their body. And their body composition here is the data, right? And pulls out a sheet and it’s tracked everything. That’s happened with a thousand people that they’ve used on this app. Here’s their body composition changes in the first six months. I work with them.

Speaker 3: 29:45

How many trainers take before? And after pictures, now we can quantify what the picture is showing. Yeah.

Speaker 2: 29:49

And you can see it. You can show it to a person that’s so long. It takes here’s what the experience is. Here’s someone in your similar range and that’s obviously very powerful and that’s accurate. As you’re saying accurate data is what allows us to get better, be more precise, do things more efficiently, really exciting stuff, right? Let’s end the show with something that we always do here at decayed . And of course you were a Cade finalist for the Cade prize this year. And it’s important for you guys to pass on some words of wisdom. So I imagine once upon a time, neither of you probably dreamt of being an entrepreneur per se, but yet you both find yourself now in that boat, give us some tips for those who maybe don’t see themselves as entrepreneurs or those who are going through it right now. What are some words of wisdom?

Speaker 4: 30:27

I got one actually right here. So looking back over the past five or six years, the best things that have happened to me and for this project and for the business are the breaks that didn’t end up panning out. Every roadblock that we ran into. So we try to recruit PhD students. They decide to go somewhere else. We apply for grant funding. We don’t end up getting it. It goes to someone else, right? So if one of those breaks would have happened over the past five or six years. So I do get the student that decided to go to another school, or I did get a grant that took my research in a different direction. The app wouldn’t be here, right? Because I’d be working on something else. Like my research agenda when I first started in Alabama was different than it is now. And so now five or six years later, and we have a startup , we haven’t had we’re on a podcast, like look at how different this is , ended up based on where we started. And when you keep running into these roadblocks and people keep telling you no, and you keep getting rejected and rejected and rejected, those could end up being the biggest breaks that you will ever get is thank you for telling me know so that I will end up being where I’m supposed to be. I mean, man, if you think about that, I’m getting goosebumps right now. But I mean, that is really like the best piece of advice. If you keep getting rejected, that is probably a good thing. Because if you believe in what you’re doing, like the next opportunity is right there.

Speaker 3: 31:44

That’s a great point. And along those lines, just go, just move, just keep going forward and keep pushing forward. When we started this, we had no idea. And we were professors we’re in a lab, we’re in a classroom. We’ve had a little bit of practical experience, but not near as much as academics. We were reluctant to even get started. But we went forward and the barriers that we thought were there were not even there in the first place. We had tremendous support. I mean, support came out all over from our Dean and our administrators at the university of Alabama partners showed up and we surround ourselves with a great team and we’re continuing to build our team and learn along the way and just trust the process and everything will work out. It gets stressful, but we grow through stress and we just keep pushing through, keep moving our Dean.

Speaker 4: 32:26

You use the phrase when we pitched this to our Dean, he said, man, that sounds crazy. It sounds great. You guys do your thing, whatever you need from us just goes , zoom, zoom. So we started laughing. We were like, who says that in a meeting? But he’s like, yeah, you guys just go zoom, zoom and let me know. Or I can. And so we went at zoom, zoom, and everybody, we kept turning around and saying like, Hey, we have this idea and they go, man, nobody’s done that before. So I don’t even know where we can help you out, but go for it. And so I think that energy is contagious. And so we went zoom, zoom, and that’s our running joke now is keep going forward. And that energy is like, people will see that. And they’ll be like, man, I want to be a part of what those guys are doing over there. Even though we have no idea what we’re doing, because nobody, nobody certainly that we know has been where we are. And we’ve never even imagined that we would be here either. So yeah, it goes, zoom, zoom, man, everybody will catch on and they’ll want to help point to bring up quickly. We’re passionate about this. This is our life. This is what we spend our time doing. This is what we enjoy doing. And that passion that’s what drives our energy. And that’s what really makes us want to continue to go to, and we know that we have a bright product and we know we have a great vision for the future. And those things are very important.

Speaker 2: 33:32

Yeah. Great idea. And the execution of it is often the intersection of thousands of life experiences and learning points before it, that culminate into where you are. And then you have to have the optimistic view of the future to overcome setbacks, hurdles, things that seem bad and turn them into things that can work out to your good. And both of you have definitely echoed that. Well, my guest today, Michael fetal and Mike ESCO, the co-founders of made health and fitness app that tracks of course, body fat, amongst many other things. This could potentially be the next big thing. And you heard it here first on Radio Cade. Thanks for joining us both today. It was a great discussion for Radio Cade. James Di Virgilio

Speaker 1: 34:13

Radio Cade is produced by the Cate museum for creativity and invention located in Gainesville, Florida. This podcast episodes host was James Di Virgilio and Ellie, Tom coordinates, inventor interviews, podcasts are recorded at hardwood , soundstage and edited and mixed by Bob McPeak. The Radio Cade theme song was produced and performed by Tracy Collins and features violinist, Jacob Lawson.

Josh McCauley, the founder of COMB, discusses how his innovation could help provide environmentally-friendly housing to 20 million people worldwide that can't afford to put a roof over their heads.  COMB is a new system of construction consisting of interlocking blocks made from recycled plastic, utilizing mankind's abundance of ecologically damaging plastic waste to provide environmentally sustainable and economically viable housing to everyone.

Josh McCauley, the founder of COMB, discusses how his innovation could help provide environmentally-friendly housing to 20 million people worldwide that can’t afford to put a roof over their heads.  COMB is a new system of construction consisting of interlocking blocks made from recycled plastic, utilizing mankind’s abundance of ecologically damaging plastic waste to provide environmentally sustainable and economically viable housing to everyone.

TRANSCRIPT:

Intro: 0:01

Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade the podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida, the museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace.

James Di Virgilio: 0:39

Welcome to Radio Cade. I’m your host James Di Virgilio on today’s episode, we’re going to talk about something that may be controversial. Everyone loves their primary residence. And generally we think of building it out of brick or stone or wood or a variety of other materials that have been used for a long, long time. But what if I told you that using recycled plastic could result in a better home? Not just because it’s economically more efficient, but that it’s actually better. My guest today, Josh McCauley , the founder of COMB is doing just that. And he is here to convince all of us that this is in fact, a reality and a possibility Josh, welcome to the program.

Josh McCauley: 1:20

Hey, thanks, James. Happy to be here.

James Di Virgilio: 1:21

So tell us about this new system of construction. It’s fascinating to me at first, you look at it and think there’s no way on building a home out of plastic. What is it that you’re doing and how are you doing it?

Josh McCauley: 1:31

COMB is a new system of construction that consists of interlocking blocks that are made from the recycled plastic. So the goal is to utilize our abundance of ecologically damaging plastic waste in a long-term application to provide environmentally sustainable and economically viable housing to everyone.

James Di Virgilio: 1:49

Walk me through this. What does this look like? Is there a place I can go online to see this, I’m listening today? Are there pictures of what this home may look like?

Josh McCauley: 1:57

Uh , yeah. On my LinkedIn profile, there are a couple of pictures up of , uh , renderings and really, I guess the easiest way to describe it would be to picture a honeycomb sort of the basis of the name. The main wall block is a hexagonal shape block. And so all the other blocks sort of are designed around that. And so the overall effect is kind of a honeycomb appearance.

James Di Virgilio: 2:19

And so that’s obviously a very strong structure engineering wise. And the idea here, right? You might be thinking, well, what kind of market is this for? Are we talking about the million dollar market? Are we talking about the inch level market? But your idea at least initially is to attempt provide housing to people that basically throughout the world don’t really have housing at all.

Josh McCauley: 2:34

Yeah, absolutely. My ultimate target market is the over 20% of humanity that is currently living without adequate housing. 1.6 billion of us not having our fundamental human right met . So any market outside of that is really just sort of a way to get to that market by selling COMB to people that can afford it. I hope to be able to give it to the people that can’t.

James Di Virgilio: 2:57

Sure this sort of like the Tom strategy Tom’s shoes once upon a time started as a nonprofit , he sold out of the shoes, but really couldn’t make enough of an impact on giving free shoes to kids in South America. Somebody tells them , Hey, sell the shoes for a profit, take all your profits, pass that onto the kids in South America, you can give them a lot more shoes, right? So you have to have a market. You have to have someone who’s going to buy your products. You can eventually potentially provide these things pro bono or et cetera. So let’s talk about that market. How much does it cost to build a home like this? What would you market this for?

Josh McCauley: 3:29

It would really depend on the size because each block would have a certain cost. And so I’m estimating that for a roughly 1000 square foot home. Ideally the cost for those blocks would be under $10,000 and that price would only go down the more of these blocks that I can produce. And so at full-scale sort of global production, I would ideally like this to be the most affordable way to provide housing, maybe even removing that comma from it and not even top out over a thousand dollars.

James Di Virgilio: 4:02

And so you mentioned a thousand square foot house, right? For $10,000. So let’s just imagine it’s on a small plot of land. How is this with regards to the durability here? If you live in the state of Florida, you have hurricanes. If you live in the Midwest, you have tornadoes, How strong is this structure?

Josh McCauley: 4:17

It’s extremely strong. As you pointed out earlier, that hexagonal shape has so much structural integrity, that it allows each block to basically support the surrounding blocks. So it does away with any need for internal framing of walls. And so there’s nothing in the case of a hurricane for a wind to push between where if you picture a studded wall, your strength is in those studs. And then the cladding between it is all weak point. And even beyond natural disasters, sort of catastrophic events building with wood really doesn’t make any sense to me realizing that we are living in the 21st century wood rots and it warps and bugs eat it. And I believe that especially when it comes to the idea of viewing our collective resource, use the fact that it on average takes nine mature pine trees, standing 80 feet with a two foot diameter to frame out a thousand square feet. It’s much more beneficial to leave that resource as a tree sequestering, carbon filtering, water, producing oxygen and absorbing carbon dioxide from the environment, then to cut them down, to build usually a highly inefficient structure. So the goal is to turn the attention to what most people would consider pollution. But with the understanding that pollution is nothing but a resource that we’re not currently harvesting and making the best use of.

James Di Virgilio: 5:39

All right. So there’s clearly an environmental angle that is here in the history of environmentally advantageous services and products. The initial hurdle overcome is, is it better than what I could already purchase? Is it cheaper than what I could already purchase? It sounds like in your case, you’re suggesting the answer to those two questions course are yes, but the third question is, do I desire it more human nature would tell us that people have to actually desire owning this beyond just their altruistic motive. So in your opinion, when you showed these renderings to people, what is their reaction? Are they excited by this? Do they feel like it’s something they could live in? Is it may be just too far out there for them to grasp living in a home made from plastic? Like what are the reactions to this?

Josh McCauley: 6:21

Yeah, I’ve had varying reactions. I would say that nine times out of 10 people are excited by it, which is exciting for me. And there’s always going to be the trailing end of any sort of new technology or innovation of people that are just so conditioned to accepting the way that things are, that they will be the final adopters of a new technology. But overall, I would say that everyone that I’ve shown renderings to and shown models to have found it to be a really exciting idea. And I’m thinking that fundamentally trying to change the way people think about things is much more difficult than showing them a better way of providing some sort of proof of concept. And so that’s sort of where I’m at now with that one out of 10 people is I’ll prove it to you, yeah.

James Di Virgilio: 7:13

So Josh, tell me then what does it take to actually have a house we can go look at, Hey, look, I built one. Here it is, go check it out. How far away are you from that?

Josh McCauley: 7:21

Ideally I would have one built within the next 18 months. The hurdle that I’m up against at the moment is as I think most entrepreneurs would say is funding and really the major cost and making one of these is actually having the molds made for the blocks. And so once the molds are made, it would only take a few months to produce enough blocks to actually build one. And the building process itself would only take one or two days.

James Di Virgilio: 7:49

And these, I imagine are things you could potentially 3D print, correct?

Josh McCauley: 7:53

Yes. Actually the scale prototype blocks that I’ve made I 3D printed, the main hurdle with that is the size constraints of how large a block can be printed. And also the amount of time that it takes. I remember when I first got my 3D printer, I had watched a couple of videos online of 3D printing. And then I turned mine on, I started a print and I was kind of taken aback by how slowly it goes. I guess the videos I had seen were maybe a little sped up. And so there’s kind of a trade-off of that technology catching up with something like rotational molding or blow molding that can be done more rapidly.

James Di Virgilio: 8:26

So what would it cost you right now? Let’s say, Hey, Josh, I’ve got some funding for you. I want you to build one of these. So the worlds can see it. You said $10,000. I heard that number earlier. Is that the number that it would take to get your first one put somewhere in a physical location?

Josh McCauley: 8:39

No, I estimate the with $150,000, I could have all of the molds that are necessary made and a short production run completed. That would allow me to then build one.

James Di Virgilio: 8:51

All right . Let’s talk about something very interesting. So you’re involved in building construction , which is at the University of Florida here in Florida, very prestigious program. You yourself, history, education, major. How did you get into construction? How’d you get into this? How did this idea come about? What was the origination of this?

Josh McCauley: 9:09

Yeah, well, my education, as far as going to college or anything like that, didn’t really play a part. I left college to be a musician and I did that for about a decade and I don’t know if it was inspiration or motivation, but what spurred all of this on was a really profound dissatisfaction with what I saw happening in the world with a real sense of helplessness and feeling like I personally could not make any sort of effective change and really just channeling that kind of frustration into the idea of solving as many big problems as I could with one solution being overwhelmed by looking at these problems separately, I found that looking at them comprehensively, looking at the wholeness of the situation allowed me to view where they all overlap, whether it’s a lack of adequate housing or plastic pollution or construction waste, or the waste of resources where all of these problems overlap, I think is actually where inventive people can be looking so that maybe we can have less piecemeal solutions to these singular problems that aren’t actually singular, but are interdependent of one another.

James Di Virgilio: 10:19

So how did you get the knowledge to be able to build a structurally sound building? Did you have help? Did you seek out other experts?

Josh McCauley: 10:27

After I had designed it, yeah. I did speak to some professors of structural engineering at UGA, but it came to me very similarly to when I was playing music, I would hear music in my head and then it was just a matter of making those sounds audible to other people. And with this, it was seeing it. I had just come from a conversation with a good friend of mine, and we were talking about earth ships, which I don’t know if you’re familiar with, it’s a building technique that uses car tires and you have to pound dirt into them, but it provides a highly environmentally friendly and sustainable building technique, but it’s extremely labor intensive and time consuming. So after that conversation, I’d really like to be able to do something like this, but I don’t have three months or really the muscles to beat dirt into a tire with a sledgehammer on the drive home from talking with him, intuition maybe would be the best way to put it, but I didn’t study engineering or anything like that, other than personal interest and quite a variety of topics that all sort of pointed to one thing.

James Di Virgilio: 11:30

And so when you went to the structural engineers and you said to them, here’s my idea. I’m going to build this home out of recycled plastic, like a honeycomb shaped, et cetera. Did they tell you that, Oh, absolutely. This can be done and this can be strong.

Josh McCauley: 11:43

Yeah. And it really helps having the 3D printed model of the wall structure because you can basically jump up and down on it and push it and pull it and it doesn’t move it can’t move. And so it was definitely an affirming moment, having people that had dedicated their lives to understanding structural integrities, look at this and say that I was onto something. Yeah.

James Di Virgilio: 12:04

And had anybody to your knowledge designed honey comb , like structures before these structural engineers that you met with or what you’ve researched on the web, but someone else done something like this before.

Josh McCauley: 12:15

Honestly, the closest thing that I’ve ever seen to it would be Buckminster Fuller’s geodesic dome. And although the geodesic dome is based on what he called 10 Segretti, which is instead of using compression where things are stacked together, he used tension to hold together the dome, but only similar in the sense that he utilized the same sort of geometric principles of structural integrity, especially the hexagonal shape. But to my mind, I haven’t seen any other structures that utilize it quite the way that COMB does.

James Di Virgilio: 12:44

Which is pretty fascinating to think that someone outside the construction area has done though. And also not surprising. In fact, most of history’s great innovations have come from people that were not directly involved in the industry itself. Josh, you said you were a musician, you said you’ve done a variety of things. You obviously have a lot of passion about providing housing for people. What has to go right in the next six months to a year for COMB to be able to make this a reality?

Josh McCauley: 13:11

Honestly, the only thing holding me back right now is just a lack of funding. What needs to go, right, I guess, is for the right person that has that sort of money be interested, at least almost as interested as I am in making it a reality and finding someone who is also coming from a place of compassion and cooperation over competition, and an understanding of the unity that should exist among humanity and a real sense of as the Buddha would say, there is no other that every single one of those 1.6 billion people without homing is me. And so that’s really what I’m looking for is a partner with the same sort of vision, but also with money.

James Di Virgilio: 13:53

Sure. You got to have funding and got to have a team that can get things done, right? Josh, leave us with some words of wisdom. You obviously have dreamt big here. You felt a need to help out your fellow man and woman you are taking on this challenge. There’s lots of other people that have similar thoughts and ideas in a wide variety of things, but perhaps they’re not so bold. What would you say to them since you were embarking on this kind of journey?

Josh McCauley: 14:15

I would just impress upon them that we can make the world work for 100% of humanity. We have the technology, we have the resources. And really the only thing that is lacking is the will to implement them is the will to change things that are poorly designed that are a constant hindrance to wholeness and that lead to fragmentation, whether that’s in our society or between man and nature. I think that if a person can maintain, focus on what they can do to help the most people, then it’s just a matter of rolling up your sleeves and doing whatever it is that you have to do to get to that point.

James Di Virgilio: 14:58

He is Josh McCauley the founder of COMB, also a finalist for the Cade Prize, which rewards inventors and entrepreneurs for demonstrating a creative approach to addressing problems in the world around us. Of course you have definitely done that. Josh, thank you so much for joining us on the program,

Josh McCauley: 15:13

James. Thank you. I really appreciate it. It was great talking with you, really enjoyed it.

Outro: 15:18

Radio Cade is produced by the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville, Florida. This podcast episodes host was James Di Virgilio, and Ellie Thom coordinates, inventor interviews, podcasts are recorded at Heartwood Soundstage and edited and mixed by Bob McPeak. The Radio Cade theme song was produced and performed by Tracy Collins and features violinist, Jacob Lawson.

Every day Veterinarians help animals heal, and part of that process is keeping an eye on the animal's respiration, heart rate, and temperature using wires and probes. This can be difficult and dangerous, as animals are uncomfortable being attached to wires and can lash out at the vet. Vik Ramprakash, CEO of Structured Monitoring Products Inc, has created a  solution, VetGuardian. A wireless device that sits a few feet away from the animal and requires no connection points to monitor the animal's vitals. Now, veterinarians can provide 24/7 monitoring that is non-invasive, while keeping the animal and themselves safe.

Every day Veterinarians help animals heal, and part of that process is keeping an eye on the animal’s respiration, heart rate, and temperature using wires and probes. This can be difficult and dangerous, as animals are uncomfortable being attached to wires and can lash out at the vet. Vik Ramprakash, CEO of Structured Monitoring Products Inc, has created a  solution, VetGuardian. A wireless device that sits a few feet away from the animal and requires no connection points to monitor the animal’s vitals. Now, veterinarians can provide 24/7 monitoring that is non-invasive, while keeping the animal and themselves safe.

TRANSCRIPT:

Intro: 0:01

Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade the podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida, the museum is named after James Robert Cade , who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace.

James Di Virgilio: 0:37

Welcome to Radio Cade. I’m your host, James Di Virgilio. Today, we’re going to talk about wires. Do we need them? Most of us are used to existing in a world now without wires, whether it’s Bluetooth or other mediums, but how about wireless medicine? What if we can detect heartbeats and other vital signs without having anything touch your body at all? My guest today is Vik Ramprakash. He is the CEO of Structured Monitoring Products Incorporated, and he is working on just that. Vik, welcome to the program. So Vik, tell us about what you’ve developed. This seems almost futuristic, right? As a kid, I can remember watching movies and films where in the future, there’s no doctor, it’s just a machine sort of looking over you and nothing is touching you and its sensors, but you are doing this in real life.

Vik Ramprakash: 1:22

Absolutely. So basically if you put it this way, when you go to doctor’s office, the very first thing they want you to do is to check how you’re doing initial assessment, like at your heart rate respiration and your blood pressure. So think about every time they have to connect you to wires. And I think we live in this 21st century where things are getting more and more wireless. So one of my initial thoughts and ideas was like, what if we could do away with this virus? So that’s how I started this process of thinking about it and making something towards that goal.

James Di Virgilio: 1:52

That seems extremely difficult. How difficult was it to create something that can detect a heartbeat or your breathing without contacting you?

Vik Ramprakash: 1:59

I would say I’m not the inventor for this technology. It’s University of Florida where this technology was born at . So taking a step back, my background is in remote sensing technology. So when I started working with this technology, it’s basically working with Landsat imagery, satellite imagery, and try and review and see how things work out. So if we could think of the same way University of Florida’s electrical engineering department, they started working with sensors and Dr. (inaudible) Lynn out there has focused on Doppler data centers, which is the same kind of sensors , a useful weather technology. What he was able to do was to miniaturize it almost to a size of a credit card size, and his application was to use it for the human side. Now, here I am with a remote sensing degree and I was doing my MBA at University of Florida. I said, then I met him through, off the technology licensing from the university and we hit it off. And we said, well , this is, this technology is really cool, right? So you have this, which you have patents on, which could detect vital signs with no contact. And I said, why don’t we using this to get into the market? We start from there and then we said, okay, let’s look at an application. Where can we get this out? This is about a few years ago, but probably about five, six years for my wife just gave birth to my son and he had some respiratory issues. So I was like, if I could really see him, it be a button, a video camera, like the baby monitor and whether we could just see how he’s doing, like, yeah, obviously you can see him through the communicator and see how he’s doing, but can we really see how he’s breathing? So I think that’s the Genesis of the idea of how, if you can detect somebody’s breathing with no contact was the first step of looking through this.

James Di Virgilio: 3:36

So you can monitor your son 24/7. Not that it’s always important to be constantly monitoring your own vitals that can lead to anxiety, but you could, if you want to do , and there’s no invasion on your child who is sleeping there in his crib, he doesn’t even know anything is happening. It’s just a way for you to monitor what’s happening. Right?

Vik Ramprakash: 3:53

Exactly. That’s the concept we started off with and it actually worked on , when we started initial analysis, we had a lot of research gone into the technology. We worked with the Florida High-Tech Corridor Technology folks. They gave us a grant for $50,000. And then what we started looking at when we started going to metal conventions, you know, it’s a great idea. There’s a lot of people trying to do the same thing. What you were trying to do as you noticed is that of Japan and South Korea and even MIT has got something pretty similar to what we were doing, but here’s the thing, right? It’s the human variable that is you need to get right. A hundred percent of the time. You cannot say 99 of a hundred times. It’s not going to work because it’s a child. And which Sharon wants to know that the device didn’t work. When you really want to know how the pleading of the child is, right. I’ll set up an alert if the building’s not doing good or something like that. So we started looking for other avenues and that’s how we got into the veterinarian side. And that’s how we started focusing on how to get it out and retain an application.

James Di Virgilio: 4:49

Now, I grew up having a Jack Russell terrier as a dog. Those are small dogs. They tend to think that they’re huge dogs. And we named him Napoleon because he felt like he was a world’s conqueror. And there was really nobody that he would back down to. So if you had to take him to the veterinarian, it was not a pleasant experience. The vets are always a little nervous that he was going to wind up not liking what they were doing. Maybe he was going to snap at them. So income’s your solution for veterinarians. They don’t have to actually contact my dog, Napoleon, to take his vital signs, right? They can just put this device in front of him. He’s just sitting there. He’s relaxed where they’re with him and it’s going to wind up at least checking on his vital so they can get a baseline for what it’s looking like.

Vik Ramprakash: 5:26

Exactly. And that’s the concept we’re building towards . So, so to again, take a step back. So when I was at a medical convention, trying to show the device for baby monitoring, I met Dr. Bregman. Who’s now on our board advisor for the company. And he came up and asked me like, Hey, can you do this for animals? Right? So can you detect animals breathing ? And I said, for a minute, I wasn’t sure how it would work for him. And then he explained to me how on a day-to-day basis that he sees almost like 10 animals a day or something, and that’s an industry average, and there’s two things going, right? So you have vet techs who get the animal intake process, and then he sees them. And if you can imagine them, they come in, he has to take the vitals and then he starts analyzing what needs to happen. Next? The second big thing is surgery. Now, practically every companion animal, you have dogs or cats have to be able to neutered or spayed, and now comes to a point like you need to monitor them post -surgery. Usually what they do is they have specifically one or two days, they focus on surgery, surgery days is what they call it, and these animals are all lined up for surgery. And when they do a surgery, he does one then comes the next one and the next one, and then it’s a post-op surgery. What happens at the point of time, they need to monitor how the animals are doing. At this point there’s no other way, other than just going physically checking how the animals are doing, right? So you go in and check. You visually see them. Now, if it’s an intensive case, then what happens is that the foreign buyers check on the animal every 15 minutes, get the vitals down . And then you go to the next animal. So this is his main point with other ingredients . So you have an intake process where sometimes, you know the animal very well. That’s fine. But what happens when it’s a feral cat, or anything of exotic pets? Are you going to put your hand and try to touch them? Are they going to respond back the same way? Then you have never meet a veteran who’s not bitten. So we’re trying to move away from a less stress point of view for animals, as well as the right nutrients , do the intake process. And then also the postop recovery. And also the third case, we also found out by Dr. Bregman . He told us is that overnight hospitalization of animals. So if we talk about veterinarians who are not involved in emergency clinics, basically what they do is if the animal comes in, then it’s pretty much a case where they can’t handle. They’ll usually refer them to an emergency clinic down the road, or sometime three miles away. Right? So the best way to now with our device with guardian is you’re able to monitor the animal throughout the night. And because it’s also got a video feed, the vet doesn’t have to be at the clinic so you can go home. He can take his phone out and see how the animal is doing. If the vitals are spiking up, they can go back, check on the animal. But the biggest difference is it’s not like one of those cases, like you leave the animal all night . You don’t know how the animals doing it , worrying about it. Then you come back the next day and hopefully animals alive. So that kind of case will be eliminated because here you at least know that they’ll be able to see the animal. And we also have a reporting mechanism. So end of the day, they come back the next day you have all the history of the animal. Was there any pain recovery? If the animal was moving around? All that analysis can be done.

James Di Virgilio: 8:29

Okay . So I’m a veterinarian, I have 15 animals that are overnight staying at my office and I go home. How many devices right now from vet guardian would I need to be able to monitor these animals? Is it one per animal at this moment?

Vik Ramprakash: 8:43

Yeah. Right now it’s one per animal. And usually they will not have more than a few animals because it’s like if they have so many animals, it’s kind of hard to monitor them at the same time. So it’s one per animal at this point in time and in the future I would love to improve the technology, so you get more than one at the same time using our devices .

James Di Virgilio: 9:00

And as it stands now in my veterinarian office, if I go home for the night and I don’t have this technology, I’m assuming the animals are monitored either by things I’ve hooked them up to like it would be at a hospital or maybe they’re not monitored at all until I come back the next morning.

Vik Ramprakash: 9:15

Exactly. And this is the thing, right? They cannot leave an animal hooked up to any wires. And this comes back to the first point you made if humans don’t like wires, if you don’t like to be hooked on to wires the whole night, how do you think animals are going to react? So the vet has limited choices. Either. The animal is sedated with Verizon , but he needs to come and check at least once or twice and to see how that is or to just leave the animal over night with no other information on the animal until he comes back the next day morning.

James Di Virgilio: 9:43

Yeah. My dog Napoleon would have lasted maybe two or three seconds before tearing off all of those wires. So when you talk to veterinarians about this, is this something that they are just automatically excited about? Like, this is obviously an improvement. I would want to adopt this or is there some hesitation or are they skeptical or is there a reason why they would say, yeah, I don’t need that. It’s nice, but I don’t need that.

Vik Ramprakash: 10:04

So here’s what I love about it. So when I start talking over it and about this device, initially, they’re not able to visualize what it is, right? And it takes a few minutes when I start explaining. So there’s no connection, there’s no wires at all. And then I really see that aha moment when you see the eyes go up and they just, wow, you’re telling me that there’s a device, but I can just keep it in front of the animal and gets his vitals with no wires. I mean, that just blows their minds. So that really, really helps them a lot. Now, the old school veterans who have done the same way of working with animals, that’s fine. But what also recognized is that this product is something which will grow into the industry. It’s like, yes, there are attendings who are buying the device at this point in time. They like using it. And for example, we have one of them attend San Diego Zoo. We talked to Damon out there and he says, yeah, this is exactly what you said it is . You set it up, you set it on the animal and you walk away, then pick your phone up and see how the animal is doing. Think about taking a lunch break, right? You finish the surgery, you set the animal up . You want to take a break. We want to grab the coffee. You pick up your phone and see all the animals doing in those 20 minutes. So that the points that you learned at this point in time, how retains a benefit from using the deceive.

James Di Virgilio: 11:12

And if you want to see this device, if you’re listening to the podcast and you’re thinking, what does this look like? Or how does it work? You can go to vet guardian.pet, or you can just Google vet guardian and it’ll pop up as one of your top search results. And they have a nice video on there where it shows you what it looks like, how it works, and you kind of get a better feel for what the device itself looks like. Now let’s just talk for a second Vik about the cost . So I’m a veterinarian. I’m excited about this. I’ve had my aha moment. This is going to improve my practice. Are you finding that the cost of the devices in the range where they’re saying, yeah, this is definitely worth it, or is it sort of a luxury where they say, hey, at the price point, it could improve my practice, but maybe it’s just too much for me to take on.

Vik Ramprakash: 11:50

It’s actually a great point. Here’s the thing, right? So we price this the same price as they would buy a surgical unit. Now a surgical unit costs anywhere between $3,000 to about $6,000. They use it for , for surgery basis. So think about a device pretty much the same price point. We’re not talking too expensive, not in the 10 thousands or something like that, but here’s the point that is really important. You can now start using the device to post monitor animals. The only way they do right now after surgery is just physically looking at the animals, how it’s doing. And it’s a pen and paper based process. Every 15 minutes, if the animal is doing well, they’re not down the hardware , respiration and temperature. They come back every 15 minutes. And this is a purely a paper-based method to think about a process. Now that they’re able to do this all automatically, all information is created, finally, in a PDF file for that animal patient record. And then you can also start charging your customers because now you have a way of telling them, look, this is a post-op medical recovery process we follow, and it just charges another five or $10 on the bill to the customer. So the pretty much within six to seven months, they make up the money for all their spent on the device

James Di Virgilio: 13:03

And all the free time that they mentioned. So , so is there anyone else doing this? This idea obviously seems great to me having heard lots of ideas, this idea, it seems like it’s obviously simple to implement and it’s going to save me time as a veterinarian . It’s going to save my staff time and I’m going to get better results and not a secret per se, but in the medical community, including with humans, paper-based charting is still the norm. And what you just mentioned is also true of humans making rounds, right? I’m a finance guy, I’m an investor. I live in a world of algorithms that automatically chart for me, everything that happens. There’s alerts, there’s highs there slows, but with humans, we’re still jotting down a lot of what has gone on and there is not a centralized track record. So you’re also improving record keeping, as you mentioned with this device. So is there anyone else doing this? This seems like other people must’ve thought about this. Do you have competitors?

Vik Ramprakash: 13:51

If I had any competitors getting into the animal side or not? At this point in time, we seem to be the only ones in the market. We get to know what’s happening because we go to trade shows. We talk to people around, via tying up with some of the distributors out there, which are pretty prominent in the vet industry. As far as I know, when it comes to complainant animals, where the very first ones are doing this.

James Di Virgilio: 14:10

So what is the biggest hurdle for this not being successful? So to speak, what would trip you up aside from just a failure of the technology itself? What would not allow this to gain mass acceptance?

Vik Ramprakash: 14:21

Okay. So what are the three? The two or three reasons either the product was not accepted because it’s (inaudible) behind its time. Our two is so much investment put into the company that you’re not getting the value of return and we don’t get the value of return . Then obviously, even though you have general acceptance, you’re not able to pay the kind of dividends what people are looking for. And then it fails. They’re able to raise more money to keep everyone happy. All the money we raised is from the government like state funds and two from family and friends. And we hit milestones every single time. We said, we’re going to do something. Now we could have raised money earlier. And I’m not saying that I didn’t try, but what I’ve always found is that the more we invest our own time and efforts, the more value, we are able to get out of the company at this point in time. So basically what’s happening is we ended a point where we need to scale up and scale up quickly. And we have to start working towards getting to a larger market. Now let’s say it does not happen. We don’t get a larger market. The fallback is we continue to make sales and we continue to grow. Not to the expectation we have, but we grow to a point where it gets mass acceptance. And other reasons we’re doing that is we’re trying to tie up with a local couple of universities around the country. One is Mississippi State University and Louisiana State University to take the device and have the Podesta to publish papers on it. What we want to do is the next generation of veterinarians to start using the device in their vetting, in schools and when they come out of the schools, they really get to know how to use the device. And this would be a general acceptance. And we hope that you would create a requirement like you would need the device as you would need a better status corpse or something like that.

James Di Virgilio: 15:55

Well, it certainly sounds like you have a good plan. And again, to me, it sounds like you have something that is an obvious improvement. We here at the Cade look forward to tracking your product . Now, taking a step back and talking about yourself, you were born in India, you came to the U.S. And studied at Ohio State and now you’re here inventing things. What led you to want to become a problem solver on your own? Sort of, hey, let’s take on these challenges versus just taking a more traditional track where you have a job instead.

Vik Ramprakash: 16:24

Yeah. So I think of being an entrepreneur, I think it’s more like you were born with an artistic gift or something. So I didn’t know that I wanted to be an entrepreneur. It wasn’t my idea, but I had an effect of like a , how do I make things better in life? I mean, the question was always about why, why are things this way? Why are things that way? So that always drives me to figure out, okay, what can we make things better in life? So the simple things which, you know, take it for granted, for example, I was reading this book about how the initial cars were created in the mid 1950s. When you open one side of the door and close the other side of the door, the other door on the other side would open up. So things like this is just invention and things get better and better during time. So I just fit into the mold of someone who wants to make things better. And for coming back to the wife’s example, it’s a small thing. I mean, people can live with wires, there’s no problem, but there’s some segment of the human population who don’t like wires. So why not give them something which they do and I’m trying to solve the problem.

James Di Virgilio: 17:21

It’s interesting to hear you talk about asking the why question. And obviously you mentioned the story of human innovation is really improvement, which is very true when it comes to efficiency, especially, and I’m already thinking, we start with this kind of device, right? But then in the future, you may have artificial intelligence working on you entirely. And then a human is maybe somewhere else. And you could think of a wide range of applications where that’s beneficial, whether it’s in the military field or it’s in a disease scenario during a pandemic. Now you’re not going to have doctors and nurses contacting as often their patients directly, if they don’t have to and of course you can imagine a ladder of improvements from there. So leave us Vik with some words of wisdom, you’ve barked on this journey, you’ve acquired a lot of experience. You’ve had a lot of highs and lows like any other entrepreneur, what are some words of wisdom you would share with our audience about really anything that you’ve encountered that you feel is just a really important thing that others could benefit from?

Vik Ramprakash: 18:15

So there’s one thing I just, I mean, this happened like last year we were using the device and Akron Zoo, we’re getting the vitals of a lion, a sedated lion. They had just finished surgery and they said , look , let’s use a device and get the vitamins . So we set this up and then we were lucky enough to hold the paw of the lion. And when feeling this huge paw a thought occurred to me, and I tell this to a lot of people who I meet nature has made this land , right? I mean, it’s taken evolution and got to a point where it just create the most powerful beast in the world. And here we are mankind, I’m able to get the titles with no contact. So it just put me in a phrase that no nature at some point may have slowed down the evolution of nature of what it does, but humans continue to evolve and we can evolve to the pattern and we continue to work with nature and make things better, I think will just completely be a better society as we more ahead.

James Di Virgilio: 19:09

And that is definitely the goal right of innovation in the first place. As you mentioned, see the world around you, look at what can be improved, take that chance and embark on the journey of trying to improve it. Vik, thank you so much for joining us today. I’d be remissed if I did not mention, of course, that you finished fifth, amongst many, many competitors who were very, very competitive in the Cade prize, which rewards inventors really from around the South and entrepreneurs who demonstrate a creative approach to addressing problems in their area of expertise. Vik, you are the CEO of Structured Monitoring Products Incorporated. Thank you so much for joining us on the program today.

Vik Ramprakash: 19:44

Thank you. Thank you, sir.

Outro: 19:46

Radio Cade is produced by the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville, Florida . This podcast episodes host was James Di Virgilio and Ellie Thom coordinates inventor interviews, podcasts are recorded at Heartwood soundstage and edited and mixed by Bob McPeak. The radio Cade theme song was produced and performed by Tracy Collins and features violinists , Jacob Lawson.

What happens if you pair artificial intelligence with drones? Among other things you make life easier for tree growers, who can now count, measure, and more efficiently take care of their crop. Dr. Yiannis Ampatzidis and Matt Donovan are the developers of Agroview, a Florida startup invention and a 2020 Cade Prize finalist. They explain using basic drone images, Agroview’s AI and data fusion method provides very accurate information on thousands of acres in hours for what normally takes agricultural producers weeks.

What happens if you pair artificial intelligence with drones? Among other things you make life easier for tree growers, who can now count, measure, and more efficiently take care of their crop. Dr. Yiannis Ampatzidis and Matt Donovan are the developers of Agroview, a Florida startup invention and a 2020 Cade Prize finalist. They explain using basic drone images, Agroview’s AI and data fusion method provides very accurate information on thousands of acres in hours for what normally takes agricultural producers weeks.

TRANSCRIPT:

Intro: 0:01

Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade the podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida. The museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace.

Richard Miles: 0:38

Spying on trees, what are they doing out there? It turns out if you pair a drone with artificial intelligence, you’ll find out all their secrets. I’m your host, of Radio Cade. Today my guests are Dr. Yiannis Ampatzidis and Matt Donovan of Agroview, a 2020 Cade Prize finalist. Welcome to the show, gentlemen.

Matt Donovan: 0:54

Thank you, Richard.

Dr. Yiannis Ampatzidis: 0:56

Thank you for having us.

Richard Miles: 0:57

So first of all, I have to confess that I’m a sucker for any topic that has the word drone in it. My wife got me a little drone a few years ago and I have to become highly proficient and wasting lots of my time taking pictures pretty much of nothing, but they’re pictures from a thousand feet. So it’s cool. Right? I’m guessing you all have to be slightly more productive with your time and the technology. So why don’t we start Yiannis, if you could describe for us what the core product of Agroview is, which as I understand it marries drones with artificial intelligence to take lots of pictures of trees. So why don’t we just start out? Why trees? What are those pictures tell you? And more importantly, what does it tell the person growing trees who presumably is going to buy this product?

Dr. Yiannis Ampatzidis: 1:34

Yeah, that’s a really good question. First of all, let me start from the beginning of Agroview, so there’s some tools, Agroview is a cloud-based application. So actually it’s like a software that analyze and visualize the images from drones, but also for ground based sensing system . So why do we developed Agroview for tree crops and vegetables is because we identify that there’s same gap. There are not so mainly tools and solutions for specialty crops, like tree crops and vegetables, regarding on drones. And then the main idea here is to convert the data that we collect the information to some kind of practical information, useful information that the growers , the managers can use. There are samples for row crops like wheat, soy , bean , cotton , but very limited solutions that are available for specialty crops. That’s why we developed Agroview. And again, the main goal is to convert data. For example, the images that we collect from drones to information, to something that we can really use.

Richard Miles: 2:41

So the real secret sauce here is the AI, right? Because obviously drones have been around a while. UAVs have been around and under development getting rapidly better since the nineties. And I’ve heard about all these potential applications, including agriculture. It never thought exactly how’s that going to work? So Matt is this sort of the first time, or you are the first company to actually take the idea of using AI algorithms. You have these images, which we’ve been able to get for a long time. And actually as Yiannis said, do something practical with them.

Matt Donovan: 3:11

Well, I think as Yiannis mentioned in some of the more popular crop or more attended crops like corn or wheat, there’ve been utilizations of this, but in the specialty crop market, like citrus almonds, like specialty tree, fruit crops, not so much. And that lack of attention of providing AI tools is really the gap that Yiannis mentioned before. So while we’re not the first to try it, I think in the specialty crop market, we’re the first to really prove that what the Agroview platform does. Yiannis and his team have actually gone through the large scale commercial test. It’s not a lab specific, it’s not a controlled environment and they’ve published openly the results that Agroview achieves. And that’s something that’s novel and unique about the Agroview platform is that it’s really gone through the scientific rigor that a lot of products will make claims that often they can’t prove. So in that respect, we look at it as the first platform. That’s proven the ability to take data from a drone, but also to take data from ground sensing systems and then have the AI sort of crunch everything together. And as Yiannis said to take multiple layers of data, but then produce a valuable piece of information, which the grower can then use to take action on and ultimately starts to get into the business impact that information then turns into actionable intelligence as it were. And hence our agriculture intelligence, the name of the company had come about is to have Agroview, create actionable intelligence that makes a business impact, but something else that’s a grander vision of Yiannis is to start making impacts to the ecosystems that are around the growing environment and the environment in a longer view and in a more grand scale to create sustainability in those growing regions.

Richard Miles: 5:07

So one thing that impressed me when I watched the video of Agroview and the product that you have in the market is just merely knowing how many trees say citrus trees. For example, you have, it’s a valuable piece of information to get, I guess, crop insurance for a number of different reasons. And to note where your gaps are, where you might have a row of trees aren’t doing well, but Agroview does more than that, right? I mean, it doesn’t just count trees and say, okay, you’re missing four trees or three trees there. There, there are other things that you capture about the health of the crop itself or that how the plant is doing that, I guess, affects decisions on fertilizing or whatever. So Yiannis, how does that work? You mentioned ground sensors as well in order for this to work to its maximum capability, you’re pairing a UAV with cameras and are you also then deploying an array of ground sensors so you can capture other data like how tall the crop is or how it is, is that how it works?

Dr. Yiannis Ampatzidis: 5:58

So with the dome , we can collect a lot of information, as you said, we can count crops, plants, which is very important and we can detect gaps, income gaps, and also develop a stress index. And we can also estimate plant nutrient concentration, which is very important for a precision fertilizer application.

Matt Donovan: 6:20

And that’s using the UAV imagery, Richard.

Dr. Yiannis Ampatzidis: 6:23

Yeah, the UAV spectrum of data, which we really collect from my multi-spectral camera imaging. So doing that, you develop these maps, that they have different zones with different colors and these maps can be applicable or they can be used by precision and variable rate fertilizers. And that means there’s a variability in the field. So you don’t need to apply the same chemicals. The same inputs in general, it can be anything else can be water to the crops, but you applied based on the need. And this is where the savings comes. And this is how we can also try to reduce any negative environmental impacts . So we apply in this case, fertilizers as needed to the specific areas. We can even go down to the climate level. This is what we do with drone images, but on the same time we can analyze data collected from, for example, sprayers and fertilizers that we are developing new smart technologies, sprayers, and fertilizers that at the same time that they spray, they collect data that we convert back into information and example can be, we can also detect and count trees , but also assess the health that can be connected with the data collected from drones and all this information can be used also for yield prediction, which is a very important task for logistic purposes.

Matt Donovan: 7:47

So the drone imagery is an input into Agroview. The application map is an output from Agroview into the field for sprayers. But when the sprayers are spraying, we equip smart sprayers with additional data collection items that then become inputs that creates a richer and more detailed set of inputs for the agroview system to assess, which makes it much smarter. And the amount of data that we start to look at as inputs coming into Agroview that the artificial intelligence algorithm is dealing with starts to be massive. But that’s the whole point. Precision agriculture is making that impact of taking those individual units of data, whether they come from a drone or they come from collecting from the sprayer, which is a nice dual use, right? It’s an output from Agroview, but we also utilize it as a smart opportunity for us to collect more information, to then provide additional details for the AI to assess. And it creates a richer set of information moving forward, and it builds and builds and builds. It goes from 2D in the air to 3D on the ground. And the collection of that data over time gives us a 40 view over the course of time that really sets Agroview apart.

Richard Miles: 8:58

So that’s really kind of the beauty of AI, right? It’s not like you have a bunch of smart coders. They write a great program and then it has to be constantly updated by smart coders. The AI kind of gets smarter on its own just because you’re getting this massive inputs of different types of data. And you’re combining your interests solution.

Matt Donovan: 9:13

Terrific point. It’s almost a fully automated platform in that sense.

Richard Miles: 9:18

Several months ago, I talked to the president of the National 4H Council and she was telling me the history of agricultural technology goes way back to really Abraham Lincoln, who founded that land grant college system. And as a requirement, it made the sharing of agricultural technology widespread. And one of the great results of that is that farmers have generally always been early adopters of technology because they recognize the value right away because it affects their costs. It affects their ability to successfully harvest crops. And so on, Matt maybe you can take this, what sort of reaction have you gotten from? I’m sorry, I just got to use the pun from farmers outstanding in their field. Are they reacting to this like, Oh, this is great or do they still have questions or a little bit of skepticism or their cost issues involved is just an intense capital investment Say in Agroview or similar technologies, or what kind of feedback are you getting from them?

Matt Donovan: 10:11

Well, the farmers are certainly looking for the proof they are adopters, but as a customer persona, if you will, they’re very much proof in hand. And certainly be honest, works directly with a lot of growers who have seen the Agroview system. And it can give you some feedback. I think from a market perspective, they’re looking for proof. They will adopt the Agroview system itself is in keeping with a lot of the way that their products are priced on a per acre basis. So we’ve adopted kind of the norm of what they follow with pricing to try to show them that value. So far, there’s a little bit of wanting to calibrate what Agroview is able to produce using UAV imagery or ground collected data with what they already know. The beauty of the system, actually in that large scale, scientifically proven test was a commercial plot and it was ground truth by Yiannis and the team, the published paper that was done took into account the ground reality often referred to as ground truthing methods to compare it to what the UAV collected images were. So what we’re finding is if the growers give us the chance, we can show them that the data that’s collected via the drone alone is very comparable to the information they see on the ground and in the palm of their hand, as it were lots of work to go, but that’s what we’ve seen so far. And the good news is the algorithm is very accurate with regards to that. So I think what they they’re seeing out of the Agroview system pairs up nicely with this sort of healthy skepticism of should I adopt and get these promised c osts savings. And the reality is, is very positive results, but also with a pinch of making sure that they are putting money into an advanced technology, that’s going to be as good as what they can see and feel on the ground. They’re very intuitive. The data element is actually something that I think really is an added element for them b ecause growers are extraordinarily intuitive about what’s going on in their fields. But that data element I believe is, is the gap that we’re really filling in the market.

Richard Miles: 12:23

So that’s a really good point, Matt, and give me a feel for what in best case scenario, if a grower adopts the technology uses it correctly, there are no malfunctions, what are the potential cost savings to them? And I guess as a corollary of that question, what’s the next best alternative, because as you said, growers have highly intuitive sense of how their crops are doing, what would prevent a skeptical grower from saying like, look, this looks really cool and snazzy, but you know, honestly I can get my truck and in an hour drive around my fields and get the same info. What are the magnitude of cost savings? Obviously that would take a lot of time driving around and doing it in person. What is your value proposition in a best case scenario,

Matt Donovan: 13:01

Let me break it into sort of three components. One is , is that these tree counts are critically important for a lot of decisions that they will make. But tree count is also a regulatory requirement in order for a grower like a citrus grove, for example, to get crop insurance through the USDA, they have to do an inventory. And so right now the current method of trying to count trees is a couple of dudes jump in a truck, an old dusty truck, probably with no air conditioning and a couple of clickers like handheld clickers. And they drive up and down each of the rows, clicking on the right, clicking on the left. Now, as far as that process or method is used, it’s extraordinarily error prone, a hot summer in Florida to try to keep your concentration in a hot humid orange grove in Florida in the middle of the summer is not an easy task. Um , and it’s also very carbon heavy, which gets into the environmental impact. But from a practical perspective, a thousand acres of survey manually costs $15,000 and takes four to six weeks from the Agroview perspective we’re in and out of that same thousand acres in two or three days, no truck touches any of the inner parts of the grove. So it’s carbon neutral and the information is so much more accurate. So just on the tree count alone, we have proven 99 plus percent accuracy. So just on the practical side of getting insurance and account, that piece of it is there. Of course, the health statistics, the height of the tree, the canopy, the stress, and the overall health of the tree goes towards a much richer mosaic of information for the grower there. And then the decision between the tree count and the health qualifications, if you will starts to factor in what they’re considering potential yield, but the tree count and its accuracy becomes so important to any formula that they’re using. It’s a highly weighted variable. I mean, plug in the wrong tree count and into whatever estimating formula that they’re using, whatever method that they might be using tree count can throw off what they may think is coming at harvest by a lot, one degree off now means way off in the future. The nutrient analysis, probably the biggest impact. And that’s something that on a qualified costs, the Agroview system is going to just absolutely make something that’s 90%, less than cost . I mean, it’s massive savings. And the methodology for us to do nutrient analysis is so comprehensive because it accounts for the whole field, which right now they utilize a very expensive lengthy time process to collect leaf samples, send it off to the laboratory. Again, us flying for a thousand acres in two days is what takes weeks and weeks in tens of thousands of dollars just to render the information that the Agroview system can produce within 48 to 72 hours.

Richard Miles: 15:58

Wow. That’s quite impressive. Yiannis, are there any technical limitations in terms of other types of applications that this could be used for? Like for instance, right now you’re going after specialty crops like citrus trees, for instance, could this be used for cattle? For instance, I had a guest on a couple of weeks ago talking about the next generation of beyond visual line of sight UAV that can travel much farther distances and could a Texas cattle rancher who has a gazillion acres and thousands of heads of cattle could eventually this sort of technology be used for them to keep track of the cattle and the health of the cattle and so on, or is this really limited to stationary crop ?

Dr. Yiannis Ampatzidis: 16:37

Yeah, that’s a really good question before I answer this and let me emphasize a little bit with tree count. And I just want to make clear here that this is very important especially for Florida because of citrus greening growers got to remove a lot of the trees. That’s why they don’t really know how many trees they have in specific blocks before it was easier that you put it that way. You know that you have maybe 10 acres, you planted 160, let’s say the record. So you can estimate. But now with the greening, citrus greening, you might have 50% of them may be gaps. So there’ll be trees that they h ad to remote, right? So this is also another potential. You need to know how many gaps you have. You need to know if you want to r eplant, so how many trees you need to go order from a nursery. So that’s why tree detection is our first task, different AI models. I t’s not just a simple AI. I usually say that has different levels of intelligence. So going back to your question, y ou a re totally right. What we try to do with, w ith other crops like tomatoes, s quash, watermelon, w e even try to detect diseases. At the early stage, early disease development stage, which is the most critical. So to detect t he disease with no visual symptoms on very small symptoms, this is the critical step. I know a lot of growers spray proactively just to be sure that there will be no infection, but sometimes a re infections. T here a re diseases. So if you detect that, t he early stages can save a lot of money. You can control, you take the best management tactics, and then you can control the disease. Before that spreads throughout the field that can save you a lot of money. We’ve seen examples t hat a d isease can totally d estroyed the entire crop. So now about the cattle, we can do something similar, like how we develop AI based models to detect diseases in crops. We can do something similar with lifestock, using drones, using g round-based sensing systems. We can, first of all, identify individual animal and then collect some information. And actually we have a different project that we develop wearable devices, smart devices, to collect information from individual animal. It can be a horse, it can be cattle. So connected that with, as you said, d rone i maging, it can really help and you can develop a fully automated system. Again, like Agroview that analyze o f the data because the beauty actually comes from there. We can collect huge amount of data, but what you really do, the data is important part, r ight? In this case, if you have r eminds o f like hundreds of thousands of images, this is the big data issue, right? That’s why you need big data analytics. That’s why you need AI. It’s very difficult for t he human brain to understand and analyze big data. But using AI, you can simplify and automate this process and you can have the critical information at the end, let’s say t hat t his i s detection o r something like that in almost in real time or in mer real time. And this is the goal right now. This is where w e’re going. W e a re not going to stay only for, let’s say crops, but we’re developing similar technologies for livestock in general.

Richard Miles: 20:04

That’s really fascinating. I mean, as you said, the problem no longer really is the ability to collect data. We have all sorts of ways we can collect data. It’s what do you do with the data and the masses of data that you’re going to get and turn that into something very useful. I’m glad to hear that you are looking at livestock, just one story of the world we live in. Now we have a goofy little cat who just would disappear all the time. So we finally got him a pet tracker, right way too big for him it is made for a dog. It looks kind of ridiculous, but it turns out when we went live with this, the first time we got it, it was hilarious. Cause our son was in the Navy out in Guam and our daughter was in Hawaii, working in a hotel out there. And the night it went live, we all were watching from around the world. What’s this cat going to do was going about 11 or 12 miles a day. I mean, just all over place. And we could see where he was in the neighborhood. And so I’m sure you’re going to go after more than just the cat market. Cattle is much more lucrative than house cats, but you know, I had to step back and go. This is amazing that people scattered around the world can all look at where this little house cat is going. And imagine now what you can do with information wearables, for livestock and collecting obviously much more than just your location, all sorts of metrics on their health and so on.

Matt Donovan: 21:12

Well, it really points to the name Agroview really comes from all of the precision agriculture you need in one view. So like you and your family watching your cat would be akin to whether it’s a grower or a livestock operation, to be able to see that information in one view, that is what the Agroview system is. As Yiannis said, trying to crunch through all that data and then present it in the case of most of this, which is kind of a map driven view, a map driven interface that you can get those stats 11 miles a day, that your cat was going. Probably might’ve been accompanied by a little map if it had it, if all of its little travels. So again, it’s simplifying massive data into a very understandable view that can be seen by not just you and your four family members, but it could be multiple team members of the farm operation. All of them can have access to it the same way that you don’t have to be in the same place, but that data is provided in one view, the Agroview as it were.

Richard Miles: 22:14

So one of the things we find really interesting on Radio Cade is I always like to kind of know a little bit about the background of the inventors and entrepreneurs that we talk to because they’ve all have very interesting paths to the invention or the business. So Yiannis, let’s start with you. You’re currently an assistant professor at the University of Florida Institute of Food and Agricultural. Sciences, otherwise known as IFAS, but you’re originally from Greece and you move to the United States about 10 years ago. You know , I’m just curious, what were your first impressions of the United States and just want to turn around and go home. And then after that, how did you make your way to studying agriculture?

Dr. Yiannis Ampatzidis: 22:45

Okay. Moving to the US in 2010, I was at the Washington State University. So I had an opportunity to join a team, a really good team, as a postdoc research associate. And I think beginning and need some time to readjust that it was a totally different lifestyle, but I love it. And I liked the team and we work also developing precision ag technologies and they like the culture here and the connection between the universities and the industry where you really enjoy to develop technology . So applied research and develop new technologies that someone in really use. So after that, I moved to California, was the assistant and associate professor at the Engineering Department at the Cal State system. In 2017, I moved at the University of Florida at them Agriculture and Biological Engineering Department as an assistant professor. And then here in all these three States, I work with specialty crops. So tree crops and vegetables. Yeah . I really love my job. I think we have a lot of opportunities to develop new smart technologies and especially utilizing AI. So overall I’m super happy here. I enjoy my job and I love it. So no complaints at all.

Richard Miles: 24:04

And Yiannis did this run in the family where your parents involved in agriculture at all in any capacity?

Dr. Yiannis Ampatzidis: 24:10

Yeah, my grandparents, for example, they were farmers. My father was not a farmer, but he also likes to grow grapes, make wine. So I grew up in a small family . I always liked also engineering. Let’s say I like to build stuff and this two came together. So that’s why ag engineering.

Richard Miles: 24:31

So it sounds like from an early age, you kind of had a fascination with the idea of growing things and studying that, or was there a particular moment that you remember in school that you’re like, wow, this is really cool. I want to know more about this.

Dr. Yiannis Ampatzidis: 24:42

I would say that it was mostly building or developing things. I remember even when I was like five, seven, ten, any project that I had to build something, it was like really something that I enjoy . So starting from there, then I like mathematics programming. That makes it very easy for me to follow this path. And of course, as I grew up, I knew about agriculture. It’s very important. We need food, we cannot live without food. So.

Richard Miles: 25:10

We can’t live without wine ether Yiannis,

Dr. Yiannis Ampatzidis: 25:13

Thats true, especially the Greeks.

Richard Miles: 25:15

So Matt let’s turn to you. You come from a different background. You’re currently the CEO of Agricultural Intelligence, which is a company that is taking Agroview to market. And you come mostly from a business background, but tell us about your path. Where were you born and raised and how did you get into the business arena?

Matt Donovan: 25:29

Well, I’m a native Floridian. I was born in South Florida. I was raised in the West Palm beach area. I lived there for the majority of my young life and after I got married and had a job opportunity, I moved to Gainesville, Florida where I reside today. I had grown up in a small business. My father ran a small business. So as much as growing wine or grapes and attending to crops, might’ve come somewhat through Yiannis background, mine was more of a growing up in a family that ran a business. I went to the standard things. I graduated college, started working in the corporate world and got married and found a place to live here in Gainesville, Florida. So I’m a native Floridian and got involved in various corporate work. And after a decent career doing that, I , I started my own management consulting company. And after I was doing a management consulting engagement, I came up with an idea for a piece of software. And so I wrote the piece of software myself, and it became a part of the telecommunications area. And I ran that company for 15 years and I am now lacking the coding skills required, but thankfully folks like Yiannis are much more talented in those areas. So that’s my side of bringing some healthy background as an entrepreneur and the corporate work that I’ve got to try to lead the business side of Agriculture Intelligence and bring Agroview to market.

Richard Miles: 26:52

It sounds like a great partnership that you have going and perfect segue to talk about where you are now as a company, you’ve made a lot of progress. It seems like in the last year, in addition to becoming a Cade Prize finalist, you were one of the outstanding entries that we had this year. You’ve gotten a number of other awards and recognitions. Where are you as a company right now? And what are your next steps? So for instance, how many employees do you have and are you raising money or give us a snapshot of where you are in the life cycle of Agricultural Intelligence and Agroview as a product.

Matt Donovan: 27:20

Yeah. As a product were kind of that pre-revenue just starting to accumulate some sales. As I mentioned before, the growers are still vetting and calibrating the technology and trying to adopt that we’re competing for several larger contracts, which will be good for growth. The natural revenue growth, we are seeking funding still officially. There’s a small team of four that are mostly oriented around moving the product forward and sales. So it’s a relatively small team, but we’re looking to rapidly grow over the next year. So any healthy investors that want to do a proven product, we’re out here to have a conversation with.

Richard Miles: 27:57

Well, I can tell you one story you probably will enjoy. It was about probably a little over 10 years ago, a company similar to yours, they’re in the software space, but in healthcare for employees in the same building you’re in right now, Matt in the innovation hub, they’ve done very, very well. And they’re getting ready to have a very successful exit to very, very soon. So I’ve seen it happen. It can be done for sure. Along those lines. I’d like to ask both of you, you’ve got enough experience under your belts now in taking this idea, as far as you have, you’re not done yet. You’re still in the middle of the journey, but it’s the legions of other researchers and entrepreneurs out there. What sort of advice would you dispense at this point to them? Like for instance, are there any mistakes that you’ve made that you think, you know, I wish somebody had told me about this, or why didn’t somebody warn me about this particular obstacle that I might encounter? So Yiannis, why don’t we start with you? Any regrets or any wisdom or advice you would dispense to maybe someone about a decade behind you wanting to do the same thing?

Dr. Yiannis Ampatzidis: 28:53

Sure . I had another startup at Washington State University. We had a really good idea and actually the growers tried to motivate us, to commercialize the technology that we developed and offer it as a service to the grower. There’s something similar happened with Agroview the mistake was that we thought two of us actually, that we can also run the company. We have our, day jobs that as a professor or researchers. And we thought that, okay, maybe at the same time we can build and run the company, it was a huge mistake. We didn’t have the time. Sometimes we didn’t even have the time to answer the calls or emails. This time I was like, no, I’m not going to make this mistake. I need to find a great guy who ran a really good company and good CEO. And I was very lucky to meet with Matt. So I think, yeah, that was one of the mistakes. I will never forget. We cannot do everything. So we need to identify what our skills, what our capabilities and then partner with others,

Richard Miles: 29:50

It’s a valuable mistake and a valuable lesson to learn. And it’s actually occurs more often than you would think. Researchers thinking like, well, how hard can it be to take this idea to market? Cause it’s a great idea. And almost invariable . It is a great idea, but that getting it to market and getting it capitalized and so on is, is tough road. And uh , a lot of people don’t make it. Matt, how about you? You’re in the business world by definition to sort of they’re winners or losers or ups and downs. Tell us a little bit about what lessons you learned.

Matt Donovan: 30:17

I think the list of mistakes that I’ve made is so much greater than, than that. I would just actually focus on something. When I was in the corporate world, I was lucky to have someone who mentored me and of the various lessons as sort of a younger business person, was something that my mentor said was contribute every day. Find a way to make a contribution sometimes it’s to yourself. But if you’re contributing, you’re often making something actionable. That’s tied to someone else’s goals. And often you don’t realize it when you’re younger, contributing to other’s goals are actually the most important thing you can do to achieving the overall goals and ultimately any organization, any products, every company is comprised of people, the actions they take. And those two things are normally something that every single day you need to contribute to. So I sort of took that on as a life lesson that I believe helped me maybe avoid more mistakes than I would have made otherwise. And occasionally I look for those nice days where making that contribution every single day and the discipline of trying to contribute to every day kind of adds up over time. And the old saying is it’s a marathon, not a sprint. And making a contribution is, are literally each step you take in that marathon. So make a contribution every day, some way, find a way to make a contribution and keep going. That’s the essence of it.

Richard Miles: 31:57

That’s great advice. Yiannis and Matt, you guys are doing great. I want to congratulate you again for the success you’ve had so far. You do have a great idea. I do think that you will succeed because I think you’ve done a lot of thinking about this and where the need is and how this is going to be used. So I look forward to having you back on your show after you’ve had your half billion dollar exit or whatever, whatever that can be. How about when you do your IPO, right? We’ll have you back on the show and you can tell us some more lessons, but I want to thank you both for your time and wish you the best .

Matt Donovan: 32:24

Thank you. Richard.

Dr. Yiannis Ampatzidis: 32:25

Thank you Richard.

Outro: 32:28

Radio Cade is produced by the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville Florida. Richard Miles is the podcast host and Ellie Thom coordinates inventor interviews, podcasts are recorded at Heartwood Soundstage, and edited and mixed by Bob McPeak . The Radio Cade theme song was produced and performed by Tracy Collins and features violinist Jacob Lawson.

Over 20 years in the making, Redhill Scientific's patented process creates nitrate fertilizer on-site and on-demand with a simple combination of air, water, and electricity, replicating the natural nitrate creation process found in thunderstorms. Their non-thermal plasma nitrogen fixation system uses zero fossil fuels, releases zero carbon, is more fully utilized by plants, and reduces the chance of evaporation or nitrogen run-off. Growers can directly apply the fertilizer to plants via spray or irrigation.  But that's not all, Noel Munson, CEO of Redhill Scientific, tells us how their thin-film plasma reactor can change not only our planet, but Mars as well. 

Over 20 years in the making, Redhill Scientific’s patented process creates nitrate fertilizer on-site and on-demand with a simple combination of air, water, and electricity, replicating the natural nitrate creation process found in thunderstorms. Their non-thermal plasma nitrogen fixation system uses zero fossil fuels, releases zero carbon, is more fully utilized by plants, and reduces the chance of evaporation or nitrogen run-off. Growers can directly apply the fertilizer to plants via spray or irrigation.  But that’s not all, Noel Munson, CEO of Redhill Scientific, tells us how their thin-film plasma reactor can change not only our planet, but Mars as well. 

TRANSCRIPT:

Intro: 0:01

Inventors and their inventions. Welcome to Radio Cade the podcast from the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention in Gainesville, Florida, the museum is named after James Robert Cade, who invented Gatorade in 1965. My name is Richard Miles. We’ll introduce you to inventors and the things that motivate them, we’ll learn about their personal stories, how their inventions work and how their ideas get from the laboratory to the marketplace.

James Di Virgilio: 0:38

Welcome to Radio Cade. I’m your host James Di Virgilio. Today we’re going to talk about a triple bottom line innovation an innovation where the potential for societal environmental and profitability becomes a reality. It’s something that’s wide ranging. It’s something that’s complicated, but it’s something that’s very, very powerful. My guest today, Noel Munson . The CEO of Redhill Scientific is going to walk us through what he’s creating and how it’s been created. Noel, welcome to the program.

Noel Munson: 1:05

Hi James. Thank you for having me.

James Di Virgilio: 1:07

So we’ve spent a lot of time in the pre-show just to get me to sort of understand what this application is, where it’s going, but let’s start at the 30,000 foot view. Tell us what you have created and why it’s needed.

Noel Munson: 1:19

We have created a very small, very robust, very cheap to manufacture plasma reactor. And the core of the technology was developed over several decades at Florida State University with a mix of National Science Foundation and institutional money. And since we have licensed seven patents from FSU, we have added our own private equity into commercializing that technology.

James Di Virgilio: 1:51

Now, this technology involves plasma plasma reactor, right? When I think of a reactor, I’m thinking of something I’ve seen in a nuclear film, or I’ve been to Chernobyl. So I’ve seen something there, but walk us through what this reactor is like and why it’s such a great innovation.

Noel Munson: 2:04

Sure. Thanks for asking. These reactors are single pieces. They are very small, approximately three millimeters in size, a millimeter not centimeter, and they are very similar to a fluorescent light bulb. When you see a fluorescent tube bulb in your office, you are looking at a plasma reaction. It’s called a cold plasma reaction where you are exciting electrons off of a molecule. And then in the case of that light bulb, they are then fluorescent gas. In the case of our plasma reactors, we are introducing water into the reaction inside the chamber, and we are creating chemical reactions with that water. Most specifically, we are creating large amounts of hydroxyl and the hydroxyl, which is O H the hydroxyl, if are then also feeding the air into the reactor will create nitrate, which can be used as fertilizer, as well as nitrite and peroxide, plain old hydrogen peroxide. So we can use the discharge from the reactor to do a number of things. We can create nitrogen fertilizer for use on crops. We can create a sanitizing sprayer that can be used in essentially any format to perform highly effective. Sanitation needs such as disinfecting surfaces or someday even wounds. However, your only ingredients are tap water and electricity. And then the third thing we can do with those reactors is we can break down organic contaminants in the US alone. There are over 2 million EPA noted cleanup sites that are not being addressed. It’s $120 billion market. And basically nothing works very well. It’s very expensive, very time consuming. Your typical gas station cleanup is going to be about five years and cost half a million dollars. Our value proposition there is that we can take benzine or kerosine or phenols or dyes or even Phols and PFS so-called forever chemicals. And we can bring a machine on site and run it on demand to mineralize those contaminants right there at the site to a point where you can take your gasoline contaminated water and put it down the sewer because there’s no more gasoline in it.

James Di Virgilio: 4:35

So right now, if I’m a commercial farmer and I have a huge commercial operation, and I need to fertilize all of my crops, how am I doing it?

Noel Munson: 4:45

If your a big farmer like corn, wheat, or rice, you are buying solid nitrogen fertilizers created using something called a Haber-Bosch process, which was developed in World War I to make explosives. And you are taking these solid or liquid or gas nitrogen ammonia sources out to your field and you are spreading them on your crops. So that is a recurring expense that commercial farmers have. They’re also going to lose most of that fertilizer because ammonia is volatile at atmospheric temperature and pressure. So it’s a best guess, is the plant going to be able to absorb this fertilizer before it either runs off and pollutes the water in your rivers and in your ocean, or it evaporates back into the atmosphere. What we’re doing is creating teaspoons of nitrogen in a form that the plant can directly use as nitrate and spraying that through a process called fertigation onto the plants. So our losses are expected to be only a few percentage points rather than 60 to 90% of the fertilizer. The fertilizer we use in the United States is largely made overseas, approximately 85% of it. It’s a $50 billion market globally, and it releases approximately 1.7 trillion pounds of CO2 into the atmosphere each year. So in terms of single measures at scale, that could put a dent in global warming without wrecking our economies. We believe we have one of the enabling solutions for that. Additionally, our solution does have aspects as we look forward to colonies in space or going to Mars, because instead of shipping your fertilizer all the way from earth, you’ll be able to create it directly from the Martian atmosphere in your colony while you’re up there.

James Di Virgilio: 6:45

That’s truly amazing. In fact, we’re doing a large podcast series on space, and I’ve had a chance to talk about some of those problems, but now you’re creating an environment where back to my large-scale farm, if you mentioned two thirds or more of complete waste from an outsourced, the set of nitrogen, I bring in to wind up fertilizing my plants. And now you were telling me that I could actually produce this on my own farm there locally. I can reduce the runoff. You mentioned almost by a hundred percent, almost a full magnitude back down to where you mentioned, it’s a fraction. And then I’m also going to wind up doing something that’s much better for the environment as a whole. It sounds almost too good to be true, right?

Noel Munson: 7:24

I have devoted four years of my life as an entrepreneur bringing this to market. So I certainly believe in it. What you’re describing though, is with factory produced fertilizers, we for the past hundred years have what people call death based agriculture. We are using hydrogen that came from a diatom that died millions of years ago and made crude oil or natural gas to create ammonia. And then we’re dumping that ammonia on the fields. The UN estimates that just to keep up with rising affluence, we need to double our food production by 2050, which means that our nitrogen use and the consequential pollution and atmospheric releases of CO2 are also going to double. If not more, just because of the rest of the world is getting a little wealthier and is buying food rather than growing food. Now life-based agriculture of which this technology would fall under. We are borrowing the atmospheric nitrogen that you’re breathing right now, and we’re borrowing water and we are feeding it in teaspoons to the plants at a level that they can absorb. It does create some differences in farming, for instance, a grower who is practicing drip irrigation and they’re pertinent in their fertilizer, into their drip irrigation. Like you would see in a greenhouse or with row crops is perfectly set up to accept one of our machines at the top of their irrigation system, a farmer who is growing say corn or wheat or rice and broadcasting, huge amounts of fertilizer on in that field. The first generation of our technology is not concentrated enough to really address that far.

James Di Virgilio: 9:15

But in the future, in theory, it would be correct. Like we’re talking potential wide-scale disruption of the fertilizer industry, as we know it.

Noel Munson: 9:24

Yeah . So in terms of unit economics, right now, if you’re paying say 5 cents, a kilowatt hour for electricity, the pound of nitrogen that we create in one of our machines is going to run you somewhere between $3.50 And $10 a pound, but you can buy your Rhea for 30 cents a pound. And then once you’ve applied that to the field, your actual cost is somewhere around 70 cents to a dollar per pound. So you’re talking an order of magnitude in efficiency. Now that efficiency difference is in large part because Haber Bosch is a mature hundred year old technology that has been optimized for production. There is nothing in our chemical reaction, preventing us from achieving those sorts of efficiencies. It is more of a technology maturization process where we move from early adopters to your mainstream growers, to your poor, not sustenance farmers, but your growers who have some level of mechanization, even if it’s just a tractor and the ability to buy fertilizer. So for that kind of grower, it is not inconceivable to think of a small machine about the size of a cooler with a solar panel and provides nitrogen fertilizer to their crops, their rice, their potatoes, whatever it is they’re growing. Farming is still the most common profession on earth. There are approximately half a billion farms of which about 350 million of those are at some level of mechanization and potential customers for our fertilizer.

James Di Virgilio: 11:10

So if we imagine a world in the not so distant future, now I’ve had a chance to travel in my time around the world, quite a bit. I’m picturing a farmer in who’s in the middle of nowhere and has access to even very little electricity. But if they can get ahold of this device, they could essentially fertilize their farm in a way that obviously is much more environmentally friendly and is right there on demand in their hands. So what would be the objection if we had a contrarion on the show right now that said, Hey, this is great. Noel, but this is the reason why this won’t work. What would they say? Is there any objection to this sort of technology?

Noel Munson: 11:45

They would say that current nitrogen fertilizer is ubiquitous in terms of its availability and dirt cheap, and they’d be right. But what they would be doing is discounting the environmental pollution. The unrecovered costs of creating that fertilizer, which is burning fossil fuels. And so there are ways to do that sustainably. There’s something called sustainable Haber-Bosch where you use electrolysis to get your hydrogen source. There is so-called blue ammonia, which still uses petroleum to gain the hydrogen. And then they, at that point, run it through the Haber-Bosch process. And our process is equal to those processes already in terms of the unit cost . But what we don’t have yet is any sort of scale. We’re a new company. And that brings me to what is Redhills model? Well, we’re intended to be primarily a commercial research facility, but in order to gain traction, we have some self manufacturing capability through equity partners who have joined us and we’ve been able to bolt on their manufacturing. So we will be validating these claims with our own product lines, but in order to achieve world changing scales, we need manufacturing license agreements through larger companies. If somebody wants to spray paint, one of our machines, green and yellow, that’s just fine. with me.

James Di Virgilio: 13:17

So you’re in this scenario where you’ve proven your concept. You have prototypes that work, and now obviously you have to get these out to manufacturers and then you have to overcome the hurdle that anything that lumps into environmentally friendly tends to fight the hurdle of what you mentioned. Oh, well, that would be great, but it’s going to actually wind up costing me more than what I’m doing now, despite the downsides to the environment, which maybe I don’t see right away.

Noel Munson: 13:41

Correct . And this isn’t my first rodeo in that field. My last company was an institution scale, solar power development firm up in Virginia, which is these days, the go-to firm , if you want solar panels on your school. But we learned early on with the solar business and this lesson applies to Redhill as well, that we never sold a solar panel because of the environment, not one, there was always somebody in the decision chain who said, why? Particularly if you’re a church or a school, why would we spend our very valuable dollars to pay more for electricity than we’re spending right now? Right? Same argument would go for fertilizer . So we at this end had started from a point of, let’s not make the most efficient process, let’s make an equivalent or better process. And then the environment happens to be something we get to sleep well about at night.

James Di Virgilio: 14:39

Well, that’s very wise. I think that you’re connecting a large dot there that is sometimes missed and also is really a reality that decision makers face when implementing something. I think that’s a very wise observation. Now I know that you’ve done a lot things in your careers. You mentioned you’ve started other companies you’ve invested your time and other things let’s talk for a second. Just about being an innovator when you were growing up, did you imagine your future as being an innovator and a creator or what did you see for yourself?

Noel Munson: 15:05

I wanted to be and still want to be an astronaut.

James Di Virgilio: 15:08

I like that still want to be. I like that because that dream is not over.

Noel Munson: 15:12

and I am lucky enough to be touching what I consider a technology on the critical path for colonizing the rest of the solar system. And that is you got to feed your colonists. You got to keep them healthy and you got to clean up. No city exists without sanitation. And we have a technology that can be scaled to any size to address those three things. Now, Elon Musk is worrying about the transportation side of the house, but he’s not worried about what they’re going to eat and how they’re going to live and what their quality of life is going to be. That’s going to be up to other innovators of which we’re hoping to be one.

James Di Virgilio: 15:53

So it’s possible that we’ll see you on one of the first expeditions to colonize Mars kind of spearheading your innovation there on the planet potentially.

Noel Munson: 16:00

I would be a happy man. If I can be a farmer on Mars or even a janitor ,

James Di Virgilio: 16:05

That is amazing. I love it. Let’s finish up today’s episode with some words of wisdom. You’ve already mentioned several on the show. Of course we could spend, I think, an hour or more getting more from you. So I hate to only be able to take one, but for all of our listeners out there who are also innovators and entrepreneurs, or maybe aspire to be, or don’t aspire to be yet, what is some advice you would give them, given all of your experiences? What’s maybe the most important one or two words of wisdom on how to solve problems as effectively as you have.

Noel Munson: 16:30

I’m going give you two. And the first is whether you’re working for someone else or you’re working for yourself, latch on to a vision and a dream that gets you out of bed. Something where if you’re not whistling to yourself on the way to work, you’re doing the wrong thing. And I’ve had good jobs. I’ve had great jobs and I’ve had terrible jobs. I’ve had employers who were quite happy to get rid of me, but I’ve had some good successes as well. And I’ve never been happier than when I’m working for myself. With that comes a huge amount of risk. You have to be willing to put your roof and the roof that’s over your children and your spouse on the line to chase these dreams, which is a very long-winded way of saying if it was easy, someone else would have done it already and there’d be no money in it. So find something new. And which leads me to my second point. And I’m going to give a shout out to the commercialization offices, not just at Florida State, but they’re at UF and around the country and around the globe. If you’re an entrepreneur and you think you have what it takes to take an idea to market, to create a business model where it doesn’t say, and then a miracle happens equals profit, go talk to those guys. They have big stacks of intellectual property. They will readily tell you that patents of course expire. And so their biggest challenge is finding an entrepreneur with the skills, the access to funding and the wherewithal to take one of those patents and do something with it. They will be your biggest advocates and friends.

James Di Virgilio: 18:08

Oh, those are great pieces of advice. Noel, and I would be remissed if I didn’t mention a congratulations for finishing second for the Cade Prize, the Cade Prize rewards inventors, just like you and entrepreneurs who demonstrate a creative approach to addressing problems. And obviously you have been doing that. Thanks again for such a wonderful conversation and teaching us about a very, very interesting innovation that you’ve created.

Noel Munson: 18:28

It’s been my pleasure to be here. Thank you very much for having me.

Outro: 18:30

Radio Cade is produced by the Cade Museum for Creativity and Invention located in Gainesville, Florida. This podcast episodes host was James Di Virgilio and Ellie Thom coordinates inventor interviews, podcasts are recorded at hardwood, soundstage, and edited and mixed by Bob McPeak. The radio Cade theme song was produced and performed by Tracy Collins and features violinists, Jacob Lawson.