Problem: In 2021, a mere 30% of the world’s cotton harvest was gathered by machinery. This means that over 60% of the 2021 worldwide supply of cotton was harvested using the same methods as American slaves in the 1850’s. A significant amount of the hand harvesting includes forced labor.
Solution: The integration of existing technologies can provide a modular, robust, swarming team of small-scale, low-cost harvesters. Thoughtful system design will ensure the harvesters are simple to operate and maintain while still containing leading edge technical capability.
How to: The project is focused on developing a single row, robotic harvester that meets key performance parameters and system attributes to allow operation in the most technologically remote areas of the world with little or no logistics tail. The single row harvesters can intuitively communicate to swarm harvest in teams from two to two hundred independent systems.
Background: My father has been the REDACTED for a few years now. We have been talking about how much cotton gets wasted in the field near our house for years now, but this grant strikes me as a perfect to see if a prototype could be built.
Pluses:
1. He is not an EA (though he is adjacent, mostly from my prodding), so it’s an opportunity to drag a non-EA to work on our projects.
2. He has no desire to develop the business after making prototype and proving use case, so the patent would come back to the FTX future fund as investors.
3. He has a lot of experience doing exactly this, so he will most likely be able to execute.
Cons:
1. It’s expensive because he intends to hire employees to work on it full time.
2. He isn’t an EA, so he may not perfectly represent EA interests in this (somewhat mitigated because I will also be working on it.)
3. He has no desire to develop the business after making, so we’ll have to have someone do that (or give away the tech for free.)
His name is REDACTED, and he works at the REDACTED in case anyone wants to look him up!
A significant amount of the hand harvesting includes forced labor.
I think this is key. If most of the harvest is not forced labor, then the cotton bot may just steal the least terrible employment opportunity from these people and they have to fall back on something more terrible. Then again it can maybe be marketed specifically to the places that use forced labor.
Cotton Bot
Economic growth
Problem: In 2021, a mere 30% of the world’s cotton harvest was gathered by machinery. This means
that over 60% of the 2021 worldwide supply of cotton was harvested using the same methods as
American slaves in the 1850’s. A significant amount of the hand harvesting includes forced labor.
Solution: The integration of existing technologies can provide a modular, robust, swarming team of
small-scale, low-cost harvesters. Thoughtful system design will ensure the harvesters are simple to
operate and maintain while still containing leading edge technical capability.
How to: The project is focused on developing a single row, robotic harvester that meets key
performance parameters and system attributes to allow operation in the most technologically remote
areas of the world with little or no logistics tail. The single row harvesters can intuitively communicate to swarm harvest in teams from two to two hundred independent systems.
Background: My father has been the REDACTED for a few years now. We have been talking about how much cotton gets wasted in the field near our house for years now, but this grant strikes me as a perfect to see if a prototype could be built.
Pluses:
1. He is not an EA (though he is adjacent, mostly from my prodding), so it’s an opportunity to drag a non-EA to work on our projects.
2. He has no desire to develop the business after making prototype and proving use case, so the patent would come back to the FTX future fund as investors.
3. He has a lot of experience doing exactly this, so he will most likely be able to execute.
Cons:
1. It’s expensive because he intends to hire employees to work on it full time.
2. He isn’t an EA, so he may not perfectly represent EA interests in this (somewhat mitigated because I will also be working on it.)
3. He has no desire to develop the business after making, so we’ll have to have someone do that (or give away the tech for free.)
His name is REDACTED, and he works at the REDACTED in case anyone wants to look him up!
I think this is key. If most of the harvest is not forced labor, then the cotton bot may just steal the least terrible employment opportunity from these people and they have to fall back on something more terrible. Then again it can maybe be marketed specifically to the places that use forced labor.
I also filled out the form, so apologies if this is a double entry!