Faculty Mentor/s:
Khanjan Mehta, Creative Inquiry
 
Students on the team this summer:
Asgar Ali ‘23, Materials Science and Engineering
Belle Sullivan ‘22, Environmental of Engineering
David Tauman ‘23, Civil Engineering
Will Yaegar '24, IDEAS
 
Project Description:
Mushrooms grow fast! Commercial production of mushrooms can improve local food security, reduce malnutrition, and augment livelihoods. After tremendous success in Cambodia, this team is designing a commercial mushroom production ecosystem in Sierra Leone. After three years of work, the team has successfully jump started oyster mushroom production with a local project manager now running operations. It’s time to figure out how to stabilize and grow operations from 10 kgs/month to 1,000 kgs/month. Further work includes 1) problem-solving on mushroom growth issues as they arise in Sierra Leone, 2) (re)designing facilities for larger production volumes, 3) developing business / operational models for larger production volumes, 4) developing the market and marketing strategies for mushrooms, and 5) writing grant proposals and finding partners to scale operations. All majors are welcome. We specifically need students with 1) experience working with mushrooms, 2) business/operations and marketing strategy development and execution 3) solid writing skills to pull together a bunch of proposals.
 
 
Month/Year Project Began:
June 2019