Maarten Vandecruys

Maarten Vandecruys is the Founder and CTO of Urban Crop Solutions. After graduating from Vlerick Business School in 2014, he started up Urban Crop Solutions. During his endeavour to find solutions for the challenges that global food production is faced with, he became intrigued by technological solutions, and landed on indoor farming as the next agricultural revolution. During the early years of the company, Maarten and his team invested heavily in crop research, perfecting their technology, while advocating for indoor vertical farming. In 2017, Maarten was invited to give a TED Talk to highlight the impact that globalisation and the modern food supply chain has on the planet, and how indoor farming alleviates this burden. As the industry advances into more sectors beyond directly-for-consumption plants, the time is already ripe for the indoor farming pioneers to scale their businesses. Today, Urban Crop Solutions offers complete end-to-end indoor farming solutions, supporting their clients with contract research trials, business planning, as well as the engineering and construction of indoor farms. Their own award-winning indoor farming solutions can be commissioned and scaled anywhere in the world, from remote islands to crowded metropoles. The state-of-the art UCS Research Centre houses multiple growth chambers in which the team of plant scientists develop recipes for applications ranging from staple foods to space exploration missions.