OVOPOD
Giving Nature A Helping Hand
The Problem - Climate Change & Deforestation
Greatly accelerated by human activities and natural phenomena since early 1900s, deforestation has been negatively contributing to the greenhouse effect and climate change.
Deforestation is a key contributor to climate change. When forests are cut down or burnt, their stored carbon is released into the atmosphere, mainly as carbon dioxide (CO2), causing about 10% of worldwide greenhouse gas emissions.
Moreover, destruction of forests, our carbon-sinks, has reduced the planet’s overall ability to capture and store CO2, thus accelerating CO2 built up in the air, which traps heat in the lower atmosphere driving global warming. This leads to extreme weathers, such as droughts, heat waves, fires, floods and storms.
Other than climate change, deforestation has many consequences for natural ecosystems, and it poses serious problems to the resilience of our planet, such as reduced biodiversity, increased soil erosion, habitat loss, and wildlife extinction.
Our inspiration - Drone Reforestation
Drone reforestation concept is a scalable and cost-effective approach recently launched by a few high-tech, innovative start-ups.
Reforestation offers one of the best ways to help reverse the climate and extinction crises. However, reforestation using human labor alone is just too slow and can’t meet our urgent global needs.
In recent years, drone technology has been used to drop seeds for rapid reforestation, especially in areas that have suffered clearcut logging or been ravaged by wildfires. Having the hard labor done by a drone accelerates the pace of reforestation by at least an order of magnitude over having humans alone do the work. At the same time, it brings the cost of most tree restoration efforts down by 75% to 85%.
Experts say aerial sowing is cheaper and easier than traditional hand planting, but it may not be as effective. Drone reforestation companies have designed and developed different seed vessels (pods) consisting of a combination of nutrients, fertilizers, pest deterrents and other seedling boosters that help the seeds take root more effectively which can last months in the field. Without being physically buried in the ground, the expected minimum survival rate is between 5% and 10%.
Our Innovation - A Smart (AI) Dissolvable Pod
OVOPOD, our patented seed pod with geospatial sensors, will be transferred via drones, and not just dropped on the ground. It will be planted in the soil guaranteeing a much higher survivability compared to current drone delivered offerings.
An environmentally friendly, light-weight, high-strength outer dissolvable metallic shell, nesting a dissolvable Polyglycolide (PGA) container enclosing seeds, wet soil, and nutrients are pneumatically fired from an air gun on a drone and driven into the ground to a depth of few inches in the soil.
Our proprietary materials with artificial intelligence (AI) have inherent ability to learn from the environments in which the seed pods are planted, delivering nutrients as they disintegrate. They respond accordingly to help the seedlings grow faster and healthier, leading to a survival rate as high or better than hand planting.
Expanding Our Footprint
We aim to bring the most cost-effective, efficient, and innovative approach to the reforestation industry. We are targeting to plant 250,000 trees in Year-1, 1 million trees in Year-2, and 1 billion trees in Y-5, giving nature our helping hand.
We have pledged part of our proceeds to “SMILE”, our charitable foundation, a small step for us to alleviate child poverty, promote gender equality and child education, sustainability, all in all, a project to benefit children, women, and the environment.
