Alan Fleming and his team from Cape Town, South Africa, were shortlisted from more than 800 entries for their Fish Farm to the Siemens Stiftung Empowering People Award. The international competition aims to identify the most promising technological solutions and products suitable to solving problems of basic supply in developing countries. The top three winners will be announced at the Award Ceremony on October 30th, 2013 in Nairobi and will receive a total prize money of Euro 100,000.
With marine fish stocks depleting, the demand for sustainably produced, community based fish continues to rise. On a global scale aquaculture is characterized by high investment, low employment and high technical skills and installations.
To help combat the problems in this area, the team devised an innovative fish farm. The solution is a patented micro-intensive fish farm designed within the confines of a 12-metre shipping container. It is able to deliver 2–4 tons of fish, such as tlapia, per year. By placing a series of tanks, filters and pumps inside a container, the product immediately supplies an affordable, commercially viable, transportable, and replicable aquaculture business into poor urban or rural communities in affected regions. The technical complexity of the innovation can vary in the design, and features can be added on depending on local conditions.
The fish farm is a simple and environmentally compatible way of ensuring food security, creating jobs and generating profits. Waste water can be sold to local farmers as fertilizer.
“The entries on our shortlist illustrate in an impressive manner how simple technical solutions can dramatically change living conditions for the better. They create opportunities for small businesses, new ways of generating income and improvements in daily life”, explained Rolf Huber, Managing Director of the Siemens Stiftung. “We will therefore support the further development of selected technical solutions and we hope that partners from around the world will join us in this initiative.”
The ready-to-implement solutions identified via the competition will also be compiled in a central database, which will be freely accessible online. The aim is to bring together developers and implementers of technologies for development and to facilitate the exchange with potential investors and developmental organizations.
Should the fish farm win, the prize money would launch the commercial production of viable and certified containerized fish farms, which could be placed in poor communities worldwide by funders, corporates, civic organisations and government entities looking for real solutions. Future prototypes could also be further developed.
About the fish farm:
Costs: A price of US$40,000-00 per fully-fitted containerised fish farm includes:
- Aquafeed for six months to first harvest
- 12m insulated high-cube shipping container
- Solar panels to enable the fish farm to run off-grid
- 1 week technical training and assistance with the set-up and commissioning of the fish farm
Further required conditions:
- A minimum supply of reasonably clean water of 250 litres per day
- A level ground area for the placement of the container(s)
You can vote online for your favorite solution to receive the special community prize: www.empowering-people-award.siemens-stiftung.org
