Caleb Harper is the Principal Investigator and Director of the Open Agriculture (OpenAG) Initiative at MIT Media Lab where he leads a diverse group of engineers, architects and scientists in the exploration and development of future food systems. Caleb’s research focuses in the areas of: control environment design, actuated sensing, control automation, data-driven resource, energy, and biologic optimization. His group, together with strategic partners, is developing an open-source agricultural hardware, software and data, common with the goal of creating a more agile, responsive and collaborative food system.
Prior to joining the Media Lab in 2011, Caleb worked professionally as an Architect designing and developing data centers, health care and semi-conductor fabrication facilities. Additionally he has consulted with multiple international development agencies including USAID, World Bank, Inter-American Development Bank and the Delhi Development Authority on high-density urban development projects.
Caleb is a National Geographic Emerging Explorer and a member of the World Economic Forum (WEF): New Vision for Agriculture Transformation Leaders Network (2015-2016). His work has been featured by, Time Magazine, Wired, The Economist, National Geographic, The Smithsonian, Huffington Post, IEEE, and TED.
Agriculture
Food Production in a Technology-driven Economy
The Open Agriculture Initiative at the MIT Media Lab aims to drive a paradigm shift from the industrial to the networked age of agricultural production—giving rise to a computationally-based food systems revolution that will account for the ecological, environmental, economic, and societal implications of producing food. Making agricultural practices radically transparent will improve access to fresh, nutritious foods, reduce spoilage and waste, and create communities built on a shared platform and shared data.
Hunger, Health and the Future of Food
Session Description: Feeding the world is, according to some, well within our grasp. Vast new indoor farms are being built around the world. Some say it will allow us to “program plants.” And genetic alteration of food sources opens other new horizons. For now, distribution remains the biggest challenge–how will we get the food where […]
Conferences
Techonomy 15
Technology as scapegoat has driven fears since at least the industrial revolution. That is as true as ever today, with fears of privacy intrusion, our devices inducing inattention, withdrawal from human contact into screens, job-killing robots, and innumerable business models being destroyed.
