Bison Underground, a startup founded by current and former OU students, won an award for their invention designed to revitalize farmlands and increase agricultural production.
Bison Underground was founded in August 2021 by Steven Adams, a current Ph.D. candidate at OU. Bison Underground's mission says that it is “driven by the team's shared passion for solving climate issues.” The team was recently awarded $250,000 in prize money by the Global $5 Million XPRIZE Carbon Removal Student Competition for their carbon removal invention.
XPRIZE's award is one small part of the $100 Million XPRIZE for Carbon Removal supported by the Musk Foundation. The program was launched to find, fund and advance early-stage carbon removal concepts and innovative solutions to “the world's greatest challenges.”
“We’re excited to be able to get started, and have some funding that will allow us really to bring our system to life,” Adams said, “Because, so far, it’s more of an idea, it’s a schematic and calculations. And now we get to bring it into the real world, so we’re excited to do that.”
Out of 195 university-affiliated proposals, Bison Underground was one of 23 winners and one of the only all-American teams to receive a share of the $5 million prize.
Bison Underground was developed as a startup at the OU Tom Love Innovation Hub. Start-Hub, the student point of entry to OU Startup Programs, guided Adams in developing Bison Underground's business model and connected the team to multiple prototyping and technology commercialization programs available at the I-Hub.
“The hub program is fantastic,” Adams said, “You’re a student or faculty with an idea, and you have no idea how to start a business, and they take you from that stage all the way through with their several programs. It’s fantastic as far as a resource for anyone associated here on campus, for students especially.”
One of the goals of Bison Underground's prototype is to remove atmospheric carbon with its carbon sequestration processes. The group also hopes their invention will rehabilitate agricultural conditions, create greater global food security and expand economic opportunities for agriculture.
“Ideally as quickly as possible we’d like to have a working system and machine for farmers to purchase,” Adams said, “If the technology starts working, then we want to get it into the hands of the people that need it the most as quickly as we can.”
Bison Underground's team of geologists, engineers, microbiologists and environmental scientists plan to use its $250,000 award to design, build and test its prototype across Oklahoma's geographic regions over the next year.
“Climate, pollution, new economy, food security, farming and sustainability. All of those categories are gonna be part of our economy for the foreseeable future, and so within that there is a lot of opportunity,” Adams said, “I just encourage everyone out there, especially students who are contemplating what to do with their lives and careers going into the future should consider taking advantage of these opportunities. There are a lot of problems out there, but all of those problems are really opportunities for them to create a business and create a solution.”
