Meet the jury

Tiffany Tsui has a long career in green development and works as an independent advisor for governments, companies and universities. Her biggest strength is connecting interdisciplinary topics. Tsui considers herself ‘the spider in the web’. In addition, she co-founded Novafresh+, a venture focusing on sustainable supply chains and urban food production.

“Each jury member of the Urban Greenhouse Challenge has his or her own expertise and I judge the interdisciplinary totality: how different aspects work together as a whole. That might be the hardest challenge for students: bringing all disciplines together into one concept. Especially since for example architecture students are trained very differently from biology students. The key is to build the concept around one main question, to which all disciplines then contribute. Sometimes teams paste together concepts that they think the jury likes, but then the red line - and their ideals - are missing. That shows. In addition to a good proposal, teams must ‘sell’ their idea by establishing their own characteristics and emotional connection with the audience. Some teams did that very well and created for example their own photos and images to give the concept more authenticity. That can help bring a concept to life.”

Chris Monaghan is the innovation and ventures director at Metabolic, a company focusing on sustainability and the circular economy. Metabolic consults companies, governments and NGOs on how to create sustainable strategies and they address critical challenges by creating new ventures. Monaghan is an expert in circular economy, sustainability, team building, and creating business models for new organisations.

 “I joined the Urban Greenhouse Challenge because I am passionate about agrifood topics and I really like the set-up of the challenge: an international competition where students design an urban greenhouse for an existing piece of land. During the challenge, some teams impressed me by taking circularity to the next level. They did not just consider the greenhouse as a closed system, but as a gear wheel in a larger system: the neighborhood or broader community. Their plans include processing waste and turning it into chemicals and proteins for the surrounding area. While most teams focused on food sales, some made their urban greenhouse a site for R&D, technological innovation, or education. I think that is a smart business plan that can be profitable. And that kind of activity is important too: it has to be more than a pretty building.”

Dr. Sigrid Wertheim-Heck is a researcher in consumption sociology at Wageningen University & Research and professor in food and healthy living at the applied university Aeres. She focusses on the transition towards more sustainable food systems and studies the relationship between metropolitan development, food provisioning and food consumption. Wertheim-Heck worked and lived in Asia for several years, during which she experienced local conditions.

“I have embraced the Urban Greenhouse Challenge from day one. It offers a great opportunity for students: they are confronted with the strength of their own knowledge and learn to apply it in conjunction with other disciplines. That way students develop teamwork skills. The brilliant ideas formed during this competition stress the importance of such challenges. One team for example came up with a great idea to encourage social changes. In Asia, farming has a low social status and is looked down on. One team presented their greenhouse not as an alternative to traditional farming, but as an instrument to reunite farmers and city dwellers. Their greenhouse highlights the importance of farming and presents novel technologies in the field. With their concept they want to make farmers proud of their profession and make farming trendy.”