Our Story
It all started with a love of bugs and their power to shape the planet. After all, E.O. Wilson is quoted as saying:
In early 2020, immediately before the COVID-19 pandemic set in, Sharon Eastburn-Hidalgo conducted an investigation and wrote a paper for the New Jersey Youth Institute that proposed using the black soldier fly as a potential tool in the fight against climate change due to its voracious appetite for food waste--a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions, particularly when buried in landfills. The more she read, the more she became convinced that this method of remediation and carbon sequestration could become the model for a viable business, as black soldier fly startups have gained traction (and investment) in many parts of the world.
Sharon presented her investigation at one of the very last public events held in New Jersey in March of 2020, yet the pandemic did not slow her progress in studying the effects of black soldier fly remediation on the food waste problem. Entering the Spelman CleanTech Competition, her team was among 20 finalists selected from around the world for her design of sustainably-sourced boxes made from bamboo that provide shelter for black soldier fly larvae while they process food waste. While not ultimately selected as one of the three winners, the ideas kept coming and the movement stayed alive.
Enter 2021, when the periodical cicada emergence made headlines when several students from the Princeton High School Insect Eating Club held a series of outdoor events that highlighted the benefits of entomophagy, although an insect that only emerges every 17 years cannot be considered a dependable food source. Regardless of the actual practicality of eating cicadas to prevent global warming, these events generated a great deal of local and regional publicity:
Appearance on ABC Channel 6 in Philadelphia
Story from NBC Channel 4 in New York City
Two appearances on NJ.com; the second about cicada tacos went viral!
Later that same year, teacher Mark Eastburn received an email from the Samsung Solve for Tomorrow competition, which challenges students to consider means to combat the world's greatest challenges through the power of science, technology, engineering, and mathematics (STEM). A team of students from the Princeton High School Research Program, including Yurai Gutierrez Morales, Mayda Jiguan, and Ngan Le, started to test whether oil extracted from black soldier fly larvae could be used in the production of household products like soap. This resulted in our team's selection as a Top-10 National Finalist, represented in a three-person team of Ngan, Matthew Livingston (co-founder of the Princeton High School Insect-Eating Club), and George Kopf. Here is the video that made that recognition possible, where Ngan and Sharon briefly appear:
After winning a National Grand Prize in the 2022 Samsung Solve for Tomorrow, continued work on this project allowed us to win First Place in the 2023 New Jersey Student Climate Challenge, and our entry video can be viewed below:
Our persistence and success were featured in 2024 with a video that was sponsored by Samsung and recorded by Pressure from NYC:
In 2024 we also gained international recognition through Samsung's presence at the 2024 Paris Olympics:
https://csr.samsung.com/en/storyView.do?contentsId=197
On a side note, another team of Princeton High School students won a National Grand Prize in the 2024 Solve for Tomorrow Competition, where Yurai, her sister Diana, and Mayda Jiguan all contributed. Here is our entry video:
And here is a follow up video on our win from NJ Spotlight, where collaborators from Morristown, NJ were also included:
From this point, we hope to keep branching into a brighter future, where our strengths combine to create solutions to some of society's most pressing challenges!