Hey y'all - Just got back from a 3 wk hike in Oregon wildernesses, so my response to the script is a bit delayed. Cool to see that gardenmesh project is active and developing in sudoroom and CCL communities. If I understand the script correctly, it roughly claims: (a) home gardening (similar to "victory gardens", https://en.wikipedia .org/wiki/Victory_garden) is the solution to feeding 9 billion people (b) if low-cost sensors where available, you would enable the creation of more "[...] sustainable home-use vegetable and community gardens in food deserts across the US [...]". Re: (a) - I'd at least expect a reference to Victory Gardens, a pretty successful effort that, without any sensors of sorts, has said to have produced about a third of veggies in the US during ww2 (via wikipedia, Kallen, Stuart A. (2000). The War at Home. San Diego: Lucent Books. ISBN 1-56006-531-1.). Re: (b) - First, I have some doubt that a cheap sensors enables the creation of victory gardens. I imagine that a lack of desire, willingness or skills to grow your own veggies cannot be solved by getting a "cheap sensor". Do you really think that a Garden Gnode in North India is going to help create a sustainable community garden? Secondly, I think that the idea of a "cheap sensor" suggests that there is a producer of cheap sensors and a group of consumers of those sensors. To me, this no longer embodies the idea I liked about this project in specific and sudomesh/sudoroom in general - a community project in Oakland that brings folks together to openly educate each other, socialize, experiment and get stuff working. In my mind, the idea of "cheap", creates some expectation that this project competing with other sensor producers (along the lines of Jehan's comment), which would create a dynamic of "if it doesn't work, call customer service", instead of, "if it doesn't work, come over, share what is going on and help figure out how to fix it." Also, if you choose to go for "cheap", I would like to mention that the cost of a sensor is not just the cost of the hardware. It also includes, software/hardware design and implementation, education, production, communication, office space, legal, customer service, etc etc. Taking into account these costs associated with traditional commercial exploitation of a market, you might find that a $50 sensor bought at walfart is not as expensive as you might think. I hope my comments are somewhat constructive and I am curious to hear thoughts of the community about this. thx, -jorrit On Sat, 2017-08-12 at 03:07 -0700, Divine Adesida wrote: Rough Script: Hi All, Sorry, this is late. I had Jury Duty for most of the week. Everything I re-wrote/edited is in *Italics* and *bolded*. I also deleated a few things. Please feel free to use whatever you'd like. Cheers, Divine *Script*: Cell 1: My name is Mario Gabiati, *I'd like to share an idea that I believe will help** us* feed *the *9 billion and growing number of people across this globe. Cell 2: (we were planning to show some poorly producing community garden plots here as b-roll while I talked more about the program). Feeding 9 billion people on 100% industrialized agriculture is impossible *and unsustainable, but that is the path the global agricultural industry has been on until recently, with studies showing that more and more people* are turning to home gardening as a way to get fresher, more* nutritious *foods in their diets.* In the U.S., the* popularity of community and home gardening has increased over *200%** since 2008 (link <https://garden.org/learn/articles/view/3819/>)*, and now over a third *(Where does this statistic come from? Please cite your data)* of US households are growing *home-use vegetable gardens**. Now with the growing trends of home-use vegetable gardens, how can we feed the 9 billion plus people across the globe?** By learning to feed one. For me, this issue hits home as I have my own home-use vegetable garden and have always had trouble sustaining vegetable growth. I'd always wonder if I was using the right soil, if my vegetables had enough water or if the soil was receiving enough sunlight. Basically, I needed help or my vegetable garden wouldn't survive. **I began looking for monitoring devices that would analyze the data I needed from my garden and be easily accessible when I needed it, say to buy the next batch of garden soil. Unfortunately, everything I found sold in stores or an Amazon was too expensive, ranging *anywhere from 50-100 dollars! Imagine, however, if one could *monitor these home-use vegetable and community gardens* *with* nothing more than a $5 sensor and* a* smartphone? Cell 3: (*M*: *now that I'm writing this out, we may want to change the order - the intent was to briefly touch on the world-wide implications of this technology, and our desire to bring it to nations where home gardening may mean the difference between surviving and starving. D: This isn't a bad idea I've kept it in because of the way I structred the above. *). *That* very low price to build our sensor means *affordable* technology in building *sustainable home-use vegetable and community gardens in food deserts across the US and Western & Eastern Europe.* *This technology could also be brought to places* where growing one's own food means the difference between survival or starvation; places like *Northern India and China, areas of the world where agriculture is the backbone of the economy and a high percentage of the population use cell phones.* Cell 4: (this will be b-roll of us installing the prototypes at East Bay Vivarium on Friday and/or lush community garden plots with our sensors in them). Incredibly easy to install, just activates and place - already I'*m receiving* real-time data. Cell 5: (*Info-graphic - yes!*). This technology requires no configuration, it simply begins serving data as soon as it's installed, giving *an individual* real-time access to their garden's data. *Eventually, with the permission of each sensor's owner, our team would aggregate all the data received from every available* and* active* sensor to begin building comprehensive micro-climate maps that give suggestions on the * types* of plants and vegetables* that grow best in each *sensor's specific *region*. Cell 6: (closure, a reiteration of the feeding 9 billion theme) Feeding 9 billion people isn't such a huge problem *when it begins with learning to feed one. **Would you buy a sensor for $10 if you knew a sensor just like yours would be given to a family in India, Yemen or Rwanda?* *(**I picked countries that have a high % of their population that usages cell-phone, but also have a high agricultural backbone would actually use the technology)* Please visit our website below to learn more! On Mon, Aug 7, 2017 at 6:53 PM, Mario Gabiati &lt;mgabiati(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Hi Divine, Thank you for getting in contact, YES, I am very interested in your help! We were busy at the lab making the prototypes, so I apologize for not getting back to you then! Here is a link to the gardenmesh video I showed you in the meeting (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WJJiGtuPJF4). This version doesn't have any of the text overlays that you saw but I think it's helpful anyway. I have copied my cameraman Vassil, and the sudoroom listserve so we can all benefit from your wisdom! I obviously have no professional tools, but to help visualize what we want to put together, I've made a little 6-pc storyboard, nothing is set in stone though. The main points we want to make in the video about the idea are 1) the very cheap price, 2) the access to your own real-time data without any configuration, 3) our plan to build philanthropy into the business model - buy one, give one to a needy community, and 4) how this data can be used to make better choices In order to clench the NatGeo grant, we have to make it all pertain to feeding 9 billion people. Rough Script: Cell 1: Hi, I'm Mario Gabiati, and I'm here to tell you about a great idea that will help us feed 9 billion people, which sounds like a big problem, but it starts with feeding just one. I was having a lot of trouble feeding myself from my own garden because I was guessing all the time; guessing what plants would do well in my garden, guessing they'd be okay when I left for work or on vacation. I wanted to find something that would let me monitor my garden when I was away or sleeping, but nothing on the market could monitor everything I wanted, and were much more expensive than I wanted to spend; anywhere from 50-100 dollars! Cell 2: (we were planing to show some poorly producing community garden plots here as b-roll while I talked more about the program). Feeding 9 billion people on 100% industrialized agriculture is impossible and probably unhealthy, and studies show that people are turning to home gardening as a way to get fresher, more wholesome food. The popularity of community and home gardening has increased substantially, and now over a third of US households are growing food! But what if we could grow even more food in our homes and community gardens using nothing more than a $5 sensor and our smartphone? Cell 3: (now that I'm writing this out, we may want to change the order - the intent was to briefly touch on the world-wide implications of this technology, and our desire to bring it to nations where home gardening may mean the difference between surviving and starving). The very low price to build our sensor means that we can bring this technology out of the US and bring it to places where growing your own food may mean the difference between survival and starvation or malnutrition. Would you buy a sensor for $10 if you knew a sensor just like yours would be given to a family in Venezuela or Yemen? Cell 4: (this will be b-roll of us installing the prototypes at East Bay Vivarium on Friday and/or lush community garden plots with our sensors in them). Incredibly easy to install, just activate and place - and already I can receive real-time data about my garden. Cell 5: (Info-graphic? white-board animation? i can use all the ideas you have!). This technology requires no configuration, it simply begins serving data as soon as it's installed, giving you real-time access to your garden's data. With your permission, we can aggregate this information with all the other sensors on earth and begin building comprehensive micro-climate maps that can help give you suggestions on what kinds of plants and vegetables to grow in your specific area. Cell 6: (closure, reiteration of the feeding 9 billion theme) Feeding 9 billion people isn't such a huge problem when it's fun and easy to grow a percentage of your own food and these sensors make growing your own food much easier at a price that brings it into the reach of billions of people! Please visit our website below to learn more information, and lets mesh! [image: Inline image 1] Anyway, this is what I've got so far, let me know what your thoughts are! Thank you! -Mario On Sun, Aug 6, 2017 at 3:51 PM, Divine Adesida &lt;divine.adesida(a)gmail.com&gt; wrote: Hi Mario, It's Divine. We discussed that I would help with the script for the video this afternoon. Did you want to send me what you had? Cheers, Divine -- Divine Adesida -- Divine Adesida _______________________________________________ mesh mailing listmesh@lists.sudoroom.orghttps://sudoroom.org/lists/listinfo/mesh