Two members of the CTAHR ‘ohana were among the six finalists chosen for the 2019 Titans of Tech – Startups by Pacific Business News—a professor and a former faculty member and collaborator!
Soojin Jun (HNFAS, pictured) and his company Jun Innovations were chosen for the amazing supercooling technology that he and his team invented—using a combination of pulsed electric and magnetic fields, it preserves foods at below-freezing temperatures without the formation of ice crystals, which allows them to retain their structure, taste, texture, and nutritional benefits. Using this technology, foods can be more easily transported without waste, and there are even exciting implications for biomedical uses such as organ transplant and blood storage.
Adelheide “Heidi” Kuehnle, a former horticulturist in TPSS and still a collaborator in the field of anthurium breeding, was chosen with her start-up Kuehnle AgroSystems, Inc., which produces bioactive chemicals through a proprietary method of culturing microalgaes. These biofunctional compounds are used by companies around the world for personal care and agricultural products, including cosmetics, supplements, feed additives, and crop protectants.
There’s one more CTAHR connection among the finalists: the company Smart Yields, which was co-founded by TPSS alumnus Michael Rogers, though Michael is no longer part of the company. Smart Yields crowd-sources data from temperature and soil moisture to fertilizer inputs through environmental sensors so that producers can learn manage their farming more efficiently. CTAHR brings high tech back down to earth!