Our support to Karim and Frederik’s project heading to Stockholm Junior Water Prize

Presentation of Karim and Frederik’s project on Modular Internet of Things (IoT) Aquaponics Control Unit

On Wednesday 5th July, Karim Malik and Frederick Steinmann, both 17-year-old students and winners of the Stockholm Junior Water Prize | Switzerland, were invited to Skat Foundation headquarters at Benevolpark, St. Gallen, to showcase their exceptional project during a coaching session. The presentation took place in a hybrid format, where a panel of experts from different fields within the water sector offered valuable feedback. Their insights and expertise aimed to further enhance Karim and Frederick’s project as they prepare for the highly anticipated international final, scheduled for the end of August during the World Water Week.

Karim and Frederick have constructed a novel, fully modular, and uniquely affordable IoT-Aquaponics Control Unit which has been tested for real-world use. They incorporated open-source software and low-cost microcontrollers to create a functional node at 10% of the cost of comparable options in the market, making an important contribution to the field of food security.

As proud representatives of Switzerland, Karim and Frederick are set to participate in the international contest, Stockholm Junior Water Prize, in August of this year. Let’s cheer them on!

About the project

With the increasing risk of food insecurity worldwide, aquaponic gardening emerges as a productive and reliable means of ensuring fresh produce is available year-round. The high cost of adequate control systems for this application, however, poses a financial barrier of entry for the implementation of this technology in developing communities.

This project features a West African community where water scarcity is a principal concern and fishery is no longer sustainable as an example for the implementation of aquaponics. In this research work, it was hypothesised that a low-cost and modular solution could be implemented using a single-board-computing approach with common micro-controllers. Past literature is examined, shortcomings are noted, and a finalised solution utilising a node-based architecture built on ESP-32 and Raspberry Pi platforms with cloud based databases is presented. A novel, fully modular, and uniquely affordable IoT-based approach to tackle the high costs of aquaponics control units is demonstrated for real-world use.

Learn more about Karim and Frederik’s project: HERE