MycoHAB is a pioneering foundation focused on addressing food security, generating sustainable building materials, fostering job creation, and promoting a carbon-negative ecosystem by harnessing the power of mycelium technology.
Our platform provides a holistic solution that combines funding opportunities, breakthrough myco-research and application know-how to create a sustainable impact that can be leveraged across territories.
”Build it to understand it.
Dr Andreas MershinFounder
History of MycoHAB
MycoHAB, through the utilization of mycelium technology, presents an opportunity to contribute significantly to the green economy.
MycoHAB was incubated within Standard Bank Group (SBG) as an innovative collaboration with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology’s (MIT) Center for Bits and Atoms. MycoHAB now operates independently from SBG and MIT.
MycoHAB continues to explore innovative ways to make dreams possible, focusing on fostering prosperity while benefiting the environment and its biodiversity. This forward-thinking approach aligns with the ideals of driving growth and investing in people.
Our focus areas
Next-gen materials
Mycelium composites are green and economical alternatives to traditional materials. Using readily available waste, the end products are structurally compelling and often superior and can be used as raw material at the end of life.
Food
Mycofood production requires less energy, time, land and water to achieve foods of nutritional protein values comparable to meat. Lucrative markets exist, and global demand for mushroom-based food is growing.
Bioremediation
Mycelium technologies can be used to clean up the environment and provide devastation relief by breaking down and removing materials, contaminants and toxic compounds through mycoremediation and mycofiltration processes.
Our founders and core team
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Dr. Andreas Merchin is the head scientist for research and development of MycoHAB and board member of the MycoHAB Foundation. As a research scientist at the MIT Center for Bits and Atoms, he leads the Label Free Research Group and is the principal investigator and recipient of its mycotecture sponsorship from the Standard Bank Group. His research has resulted in patents, papers and start-ups globally across biophysics, material sciences and perceptual engineering.
Carolyn is a co-founder and co-inventor of MycoHAB’s first MIT patent. With a wealth of experience as an accomplished and diversified strategic development professional, Carolyn specialises in providing tangible solutions to a variety of operational, management, business and strategic challenges. With a track record of solving numerous seemingly intractable problems, she is a visionary, innovative to the core and willing to take on the ‘impossible’ for the good of humanity, the planet and all life on it.
Dimitrios Ioannidis is a partner in the law firm of Roach, Ioannidis & Megaloudis, LLC. in Boston, Massachusetts. He has represented a remarkable cross-section of international clients, including foreign Governments in matters in the USA, financial institutions in the U.K. and Switzerland, many large foreign corporations, and U.S. security companies, including one with a significant presence in Iraq. He was a consultant to U.S. security firms on projects including the 2004 Olympic Games and another bid with the U.S. State Department. Also, he was retained as an expert witness on several cases, including a case for the U.S. Attorney’s office in Boston, Massachusetts, and a large U.K. banking institution, where he testified in the Supreme Court of Judicature, Queens Bench Division of London, U.K. He is a co-founder of Osmocosm.org, a nonprofit seeking to set the standards on olfaction.
Christopher Maurer is an architect, innovator and founder of redhouse studio – an architectural firm that focuses on research, equity, and design. Their biocycler technology uses living organisms to recycle and remediate waste construction and demolition materials for environmental justice. He has worked in North America, Europe and Africa, leading projects for clients that include the Clinton Global initiative, UN Millennium Development Program, and Madonna’s Raising Malawi. In collaboration with renowned astrobiologist, Dr. Lynn Rothschild from the NASA Ames Research Center, he is developing self-growing off-planet habitat for NASA through the NIAC program.
Sam joined MycoHAB in 2021 as the Namibian Executive Sponsor and is mainly responsible for the onsite operations and team management.
As the second eldest of four children – with a truck driver dad and a mom, who herself grew up in a shack – life hasn’t always been easy but Sam’s parents worked hard to put a roof over their heads and food on the table. This is the story of every Namibian child – a story MycoHAB intends to change for the better which is why Sam is passionate about this project.
Sam has a LLM, LLB, BCOM Economics degree and is an associate member of the BCI.
OUR STRUCTURE
MycoHAB Foundation
MycoHAB is a non-profit foundation focusing on the research and development of mycelium-based structures to create a new generation of building materials to benefit communities within Africa and abroad.
While mycelium research and technologies are growing exponentially, until recently, large-scale deployment only existed in widely dispersed and isolated pockets where the science, resources and finances were readily available. This made it inaccessible and too expensive for individual organisations (or countries) to tap into.
To make a tangible and sustainable impact requires a cohesive and inclusive approach that bridges information, application, know-how and funding, which is what led to the MycoHAB Foundation being established in 2021 in Mauritius.
The MycoHAB Foundation is governed by a council of members and aims to redeploy profits generated from the commercialisation of the intellectual property developed from our research into new research areas, skills development and training.
It will also mobilise and invest funding from philanthropic organisations, high net worth individuals and companies into mycelium research and development, application and advancement.
OUR STRUCTURE
MycoHAB Mauritius
MycoHAB Mauritius is a wholly owned subsidiary of the MycoHAB Foundation, based in Mauritius and operating as a global company.
MycoHAB Mauritius is the commercial centre of MycoHAB operations and enables the MycoHAB concept and its toolkit of technologies to be deployed in other countries in Africa and beyond. This structure enables us to accelerate mycelium research, myco-technologies, bioremediation and innovation to solve some of the world’s greatest challenges, in addition to investing in skills development, jobs and industries, and creating new, futureproof circular economies.
MycoHAB Mauritius partners with scientific communities, research institutions, organisations, civil society, technical agencies and the private sector to develop new applications for the mycelium technology already developed and patented.
OUR STRUCTURE
MycoHAB Namibia
MycoHAB Namibia is the commercial subsidiary of MycoHAB in Mauritius and aims to make a positive and lasting impact in Namibia through initiatives focused on long-term social, economic and environmental upliftment.
The need for affordable and sustainable housing, as well as meaningful and lasting economic growth in the region, saw us start work in Namibia in 2019 under the name Biohab. Renamed in 2022, we have partnered with the Buy-a-Brick Foundation and the Standard Bank Namibia Community Trust, innovating for a sustainable future.
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MycoHAB Namibia
Learn about our pilot project using encroacher bush as a substrate to cultivate mushrooms and create building material.
