Paul Hardey – VP Hortitecture Lighting Solutions at Illumitex
Bio: As VP Hortitecture™ Lighting Solutions, Hardej applies his vast experience in developing and managing vertical farms to Illumitex’s turnkey lighting program, including turn-key installations, energy grants and equipment financial services. Heading the Illumitex solutions team, Paul consults by providing lighting farming systems to many leading vertical farms around the world. Prior to joining Illumitex, Inc. in Austin, TX he co-founded FarmedHere, LLC where Hardej served as Chief Technology and Development Officer at this innovative Chicago-area vertical farm. Hardej developed the first U.S.D.A. organic-certified indoor vertical aquaponic farm in the U.S. by designing organic compliant processes and multi-level indoor aquaponic and hydroponic grow systems with LED grow lights.
Hardej studied Architecture at Warsaw’s Polytechnic University and at School of Architecture at University of Detroit. He also studied interior design and merchandising at the International Academy of Merchandising and Design in Chicago. Prior to becoming involved in Urban Agriculture, he designed and developed many award-winning real estate projects including restaurants, offices and multifamily housing. Philanthropic endeavors are important to Paul and he is involved in numerous non-profit organizations.
Presentation title: How to Address Architectural Construction and Building Code Challenges to Vertical Farms
Presentation abstract: Urban vertical farms by definition represent a new land use category in cities – farming and food processing combined with light manufacturing. Contained to a building, located in a densely populated and highly regulated areas of major cities, vertical farms are a new type of labor and energy intensive business.
Urban and / or vertical farmers often do not have any experience in building, construction or real estate development. The presentation by Paul Hardej, one of the pioneers of urban vertical farming will tell a true story of what it took to develop one of the world’s first and largest vertical farm – FarmedHere. I
The AVF Summit 2016 brought together multiple stakeholders in order to:
» Discuss circular economies and inform on their application
» Present on state-of-the-art technical developments within vertical farming such as growing techniques, LED lighting, building integrated agriculture, mushroom production and insect-farming and more…
» Develop a perspective on policy, sustainable finance and business models
» Encourage industry standards and collaboration
» Network
The AVF Summit 2016 is brought to you by the Association for Vertical Farming in partnership with GreenTech and is sponsored by Fluence Bioengineering, Valoya and Blue Planet Consulting.
www.vertical-farming.net
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Filmed on June 13th 2016 in Amsterdam at AVF Summit 2016 by Ideal Entertainment
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