Established by Pablo Vidarte, Bioo is a biotech company focused on the biotechnological transformation of our beloved planet through unique proprietary technologies that can generate electricity from nature.
The organization’s founder, CEO, and Managing Director, Pablo, is also an inventor, writer, and entrepreneur. With his transhumanist way of thinking, Pablo wants to revive the natural world we have left behind in line with technology and progress. He created his first computer program at the age of 10, published his first book at 14, and at the age of 16, he created his first software company. Later he created a hardware company about geolocalizers, which he sold, and then he finally founded Bioo.
He also worked on creating external combustion engines, thus improving a system NASA left back in 2002. He was also invited to the Singularity University’s first summit done by NASA and Google in Europe.
While studying engineering in Barcelona, Pablo started his career leading the engineering in geolocation hardware, evolutionary AI software, and systems for organic hydrogen generation in rivers for clean fuel applications. Later at the age of 19, Pablo left the university. His areas of expertise include engineering, electronics, and business administration.
Pablo’s creations in Bioo include biological batteries plugged into the ground to generate electricity naturally through microorganisms in the subsoil nourished by organic matter and other developments like using living plants as biological batteries. Over the years, Pablo has received more than 20 globally renowned awards. He was also included in the Forbes Under 30 Europe list at 20. Since its inception, he has led Bioo to win prestigious awards, including the most innovative company in Europe by the European Parliament, the most disruptive company of the year by Google in South Summit, and a representative in the Universal Expo of Energies of the Future.
Disruptive Products
Biological batteries in controlled environments have been around for ages, but sadly we can’t use them in a natural open system as they quickly become contaminated and stops working. However, at Bioo, Pablo and his team’s research discovered several mechanisms to ensure long life by creating a perfect environment for the ideal microorganisms. So, instead of incorporating external microorganisms, Bioo attracted those it was most interested in and that already existed in the soil, naturally.
Pablo states, “If humans first used fossil energy and then sought out renewables to prevent the world from getting worse with renewables, we were now looking for a way to recover it. Bioo represents that next step: we wanted to be part of the next biotech revolution by generating natural energy, without harming it but rather incentivizing it.“
With a passion for bringing together nature and technology via innovative solutions that improve quality of life, Bioo has developed two technologies and three different commercial lines;
Technologies:
● Generating Energy from Nature: Bioo takes advantage of the organic substances in natural soils and decomposes them with microorganisms, which it uses to create free electrons and generate an electric current. These batteries can absorb at least 334,4g/m2 of CO2, reduce up to 50% of all irrigation costs, and up to 4 degrees in temperature while generating energy. Bioo uses the generated energy to power light points in parks, gardens, and green roofs.
● Using Plants as Biological Switches: Bioo is harnessing the antenna effect of the plants to turn them into biological switches naturally without damaging them. This way, Bioo can activate lights, sounds, and screens and create automation out of a symbiosis of nature and the human being.
Commercial Lines
● Urban Spaces: Under Pablo’s leadership, Bioo transform spaces by creating the first biotech buildings in the world, as well as parks, streets, and more. It does this by providing biological batteries in the shape of panels named Bioo panels to transform green spaces, avoiding costs in irrigation and maintenance, reducing CO2 emissions, and generating energy to power light points. The best part is these panels are hidden below the ground while preserving the natural ecosystem on top unaltered. No living being gets damaged during the process.
● Lifestyle: Bioo creates daily life products to transform personal homes and offices, like Bioo Lux, a lamp and a plant pot made from translucent ceramic and using its biological switch technology to turn on the light.
● Agriculture: Bioo is working to develop biological batteries that can power autonomous systems in agriculture, with sensors to optimize irrigation, and with the vision of activating many other solutions in the ag-tech industry directly from the same soil farmers are already taking care of.
Tackling the Pandemic
The pandemic has only been a struggle for Bioo from a commercial standpoint. “We have a line on the market dedicated to transforming urban spaces, and suddenly they ‘got closed.’ We progressed extensively with the agricultural line and developed new solutions for our interior environments. The whole team already had a lot of flexibility regarding home-working. Still, it dramatically had to evolve to absolute flexibility, which may sound obvious for most companies. Still, when you have labs with living things in them (plants and microorganisms), things get tricky.”– stated Pablo.
Transforming the World
Bioo believes social responsibility is a crucial pillar for every company. For example, it not only aims to transform cities and make them greener and more innovative, but it also wants to see that in every single person working with it. So, whenever, Bioo hires someone, it pays planet insurance along with the standard medical insurance. Everyone at Bioo calls it the 69 trees policy, which means the company will fully plant 69 trees for every employee to compensate 100% of the individual’s footprint.
“We need other companies and even countries on a public level to replicate this same model, not as a sustainable claim but actually as something that creates a change. Imagine if this same insurance was given to every newborn child on Earth as we have social security in Europe. CSR is a great way to give an example, but we all need to push it, and there are many other ways to achieve it. We always say in Bioo that innovation doesn’t need to be a special department but has to be an intrinsic part in every single area, either in the research department, operations, sales or HR.”– States Pablo.
The Future
Bioo aims to expand in the world’s leading cities, covering parks, gardens, and transforming ordinary buildings into the first biotech buildings on the planet. It is eying to cover thousands of light-points per city powered by mother nature herself and also to incorporate its biological batteries in agriculture as a standard solution instead of the present-day chemical batteries provided by most distributors. Bioo has the goal of reducing up to 1% of the total CO2 emissions predicted by 2050, being an 80% by the impact from agriculture (involving a 20% of the IoT ag-tech sector) and a 20% from urban spaces (by covering an area equivalent to the 10 main metropolitan areas of the world). Pablo says, “It’s achievable, but of course, it will take time and resources, but we have the tools to achieve it.”