Huge congratulations to Alejandro Vergara on winning the Top Young Bioeconomy Talent 2022 at the All Island Bioeconomy Summit!

In BiOrbic, Alejandro is a PhD student working with Prof. Kevin O’Connor and is an integral part of ‘Farm Zero C’, BiOrbic’s flagship project that aims to produce the world’s first carbon neutral dairy farm. Alejandro is also the founder of Carbon Harvesters, an ag-tech start-up, based in Dublin, that spun out from the Farm Zero C project in 2022. Carbon Harvesters is an ag-tech start-up that monitors farms’ emissions on a weekly basis, promotes the implementation of economic climate mitigation strategies, and certifies the verified emissions reductions to monetize those as market premiums or through the carbon offsets market – increasing the resilience of rural communities.

Well done too to Ajay Menon and Laura Healy on being the two runners up to this award! It speaks wonders for the centre to have all 3 finalists from BiOrbic. Looking forward to what our researchers can continue to do in the future.