【聯合報╱By CLAIRE MARTIN╱馮克芸譯】
Device for Gardening May Aid Small Farms
A lemon tree springs from the soil in Jason Aramburu’s backyard in Berkeley, California, alongside rose bushes, birds of paradise, strawberry plants and squash blossoms. The garden is thriving, but its upkeep requires almost no effort from Mr. Aramburu. Instead, a 30-centimeter soil sensor does much of the work.
The plastic-and-stainless-steel device, topped by a tiny solar panel, determines the amount of water to be delivered to the garden each day, using Mr. Aramburu’s Wi-Fi network to communicate with a valve attached to his irrigation system. If the air is humid, or if rain is forecast, the valve limits or cuts off the supply.
If the soil lacks nutrients, Mr. Aramburu receives an alert on a smartphone app telling him to add fertilizer. The sensor initially analyzed the clay-filled dirt of his yard and recommended which plants would thrive there.
The soil sensor and the water valve are Mr. Aramburu’s creations; he will soon begin selling them through his new company, Edyn. But his plan for his business goes beyond enabling people in upscale areas to cultivate things like exotic kale and heirloom beets. He also intends to sell sensors to farmers in developing nations at a low cost to help them grow food more efficiently and sustainably.
Through Edyn, Mr. Aramburu, 29, is trying to tackle the problems of drought and the global food shortage. Although the concept of for-profit companies addressing social issues isn’t new, entrepreneurs with a flair for humanitarianism were stymied by capital constraints until fairly recently.
But in recent years, such business efforts are beginning to be stoked by venture capitalists and nonprofits wielding grant money.
And schools are embracing social entrepreneurship as an area of study: Oxford’s Said Business School, for instance, holds a social entrepreneurship conference each year. Harvard Business School’s social enterprise club is one of its largest extracurricular groups.
For Mr. Aramburu, the social entrepreneurship seed was planted by his parents, a doctor and a nurse working with low-income patients in San Antonio, Texas. They instilled in him the importance of giving back to society, he says.
After graduating from Princeton University in New Jersey in 2007 with a degree in ecology and evolutionary biology, Mr. Aramburu studied soil science at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute in Panama, and then worked at a Manhattan-based tech start-up. He came up with the idea of making and selling a charcoal- based alternative to fertilizer, called biochar, in 2008. To develop this product, Mr. Aramburu received funding from nonprofits. Mr. Aramburu fine-tuned his biochar and began selling it to gardeners in the United States. He also developed relationships with 5,000 small farmers in Kenya, eventually selling the biochar to them at a much-reduced price.
Mr. Aramburu had noticed that generations of entrepreneurs before him were more focused on making money than on solving global problems. But among younger entrepreneurs, that tension appears to be lessening. “I don’t think we can continue the business as usual of just trying to maximize profits,” he said.
After using some of his own profits from his biochar venture to start Edyn, Mr. Aramburu raised $1.6 million from investors in Silicon Valley. One investor, Yves Behar, the co-founder of the industrial design firm Fuseproject, also signed on to design Edyn’s soil sensor, valve and smartphone app.
According to Mr. Aramburu’s calculations, as demand for the sensors and valves increases in the United States and the company begins producing them in larger batches, manufacturing costs will drop, making it financially feasible for him to sell the devices at a minimal cost to growers in the developing world, as he did with the biochar. In countries where farmers don’t have Internet access, the sensors will use cell networks.
Mr. Aramburu also hopes to make an impact closer to home. He says the devices can significantly reduce water use — a potential boon for drought-plagued parts of the United States.
Mr. Aramburu’s idea for Edyn sprang from his biochar work and was cemented when he read a United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs report showing that the earth’s population will hit 9.6 billion by 2050.
Mr. Aramburu wondered how he could “use technology and the Internet to help farmers and other people grow more food.”
中譯
在美國加州柏克萊市，艾倫布羅的後院長出一株檸檬樹，還有玫瑰、天堂鳥、草莓及節瓜花。花園欣欣向榮，卻幾乎不需他照料，主要由一個30公分長的土壤感應器代勞。
這個塑膠與不鏽鋼製的感應器頂端是個微型太陽能板，透過艾倫布羅的無線網路把訊號傳送到澆水系統的一個閥門，決定了每天輸送到後院的水量。如果當天濕度大，或預報會下雨，閥門會限制或切斷供水。如果土壤缺乏營養，艾倫布羅手機上的一個應用程式會收到警訊，提醒他施肥。感應器在起頭時會分析後院的土壤，並建議種植哪些植物。
這個土壤感應器及水閥是艾倫布羅發明的，不久後將由他的新公司「艾登公司」銷售。但他的事業規畫不只是協助高檔地區民眾種植羽衣甘藍和傳統甜菜根之類的東西，還打算把感應器低價賣給開發中國家農民，協助他們以更有效也更永續的方式種植糧食。
現年29歲的艾倫布羅正藉由艾登公司協助因應乾旱及全球糧食短缺問題。創辦營利事業以解決社會問題的概念並不新，但直到幾年之前，悲天憫人的創業家卻一直受限於資本問題而無法如願。
然而近幾年，創投資本家和非營利機構開始對這類企業挹注經費。許多學校把社會企業當作重要的研究領域，牛津的薩依德商學院就年年舉辦社企研討會，哈佛商學院的社企俱樂部是該校人數最多的學生社團之一。
對艾倫布羅而言，社會企業家的種子是雙親種下的。他的父母親在德州聖安東尼市擔任低收入病患的醫師及護士。艾倫布羅說，雙親對他灌輸了務必回饋社會的觀念。
艾倫布羅2007年在新澤西州普林斯頓大學取得生態學及演化生物學學位，曾在巴拿馬的史密森熱帶研究所研究土壤科學，後來又任職於一個總部在紐約市曼哈坦的科技業新創公司。他2008年想到了製作及銷售「生物炭」的點子，那是一種取代化肥、主要成分是炭的肥料。研發工作受到一些非營利機構資助。他後來把生物炭略加改良，開始賣給美國的園藝族，他同時與肯亞的五千名小農建立了關係，最後以低了許多的價格把生物炭賣給他們。
他注意到，前幾代創業家在乎賺錢甚於解決全球問題。但在較年輕的創業家中，看來這種賺錢與解決問題二者之間的拉扯比較輕微。他說：「我認為我們沒辦法像過去那樣，只想把利潤拉到最高。」
艾倫布羅以從生物炭賺來的一部分錢創辦艾登公司，之後向矽谷投資人籌得160萬美元資金。其中一名投資人，工業設計公司Fuseproject的共同創辦人比哈爾，也受艾登的委託，設計土壤感應器、水閥及智慧手機應用程式。
艾倫布羅估計，隨著美國市場對感應器及水閥的需求增加，生產規模擴大，製造成本將會下降，讓他可以像生物炭那樣，以極低價格把這些產品賣到開發中國家。在農民無法上網的國家，這種感應器透過行動電話網絡運作。
他同時希望這些產品能影響家鄉附近地方。他說，這些設施會使用水量大減，可能造福美國為乾旱所苦的地區。艾倫布羅創辦艾登公司的構想源自開發生物炭的工作，且在他讀到聯合國經濟及社會事務部的一份報告時進一步增強，報告中指出，至2050年全球人口將高達96億人。
他當時就想，他該「如何利用科技及網路，協助農民及其他人種出更多糧食」。
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