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A Bright Future as VOW joins The Future Project
from 2020 Gazette
ACADEMIC EXCELLENCE
A Bright Future as VOW Join The Future Project
The Future Project at The King’s School aims to motivate and engage the next generation of scientists and engineers. It does this by partnering with private companies who then work with students from The King’s School and collaborating schools such as Baulkham Hills HS, Cherrybrook Technology HS and James Ruse Agricultural HS.
George Peppou and Tim Noakesmith, co-founders of the company VOW, joined The Future Project as collaborating partners in May this year. As CEO of VOW, George has a background in biochemistry, and is a serial inventor and entrepreneur. He has over 30 patents in a wide range of areas including medicine and power generation. Prior to forming VOW, George founded GrowLab – an agrifood accelerator at Cicada Innovations, which invested in agrifood start-ups.
Tim Noakesmith is a technology entrepreneur and was most recently the global humancentred Design Lead for Cochlear. He brings this, together with other experience in product strategy and service design to VOW, as their CCO (Chief Commercial Officer).
VOW, a recent start up, has already drawn much attention both in Australia and internationally. They are a future-focused food company who, by using the latest in biotechnology, are working on creating new food products. In a bid to alleviate the demand on the world’s looming food shortage crisis and assist in developing a more sustainable food source, they are using animal cells, but not the animal.
In a world first, VOW have produced kangaroo cells in tissue culture in the laboratory – here in the Science Centre at The King’s School! VOW are also building a “Noah’s Ark” cell library to store a range of cell samples on which they can draw to create new food products, with different flavours and nutritional content. They are currently working with food regulators and hope to have a product out by the end of 2020. They are also in talks with well-known Australian chefs to develop top quality dishes.
Both Tim and George are also passionate about education and are looking forward to working with students on real research projects. Students will be fortunate indeed to have these young, inspiring role models and to work with them on cutting edge research, using and developing the latest in technology and processes. The links here for cross-curricular applications are numerous – including Food Technology and Business Studies, and highlights what we envision The Future Project 2.0 to signal as leaders in not just Science Education but Education.
