Where we’re at


For those of you who don’t follow keenly Khepri’s news, today, we propose to you a quick reminder of the projects on which we are working at the moment and the events we took part in.


In Laos:

 

During our last visit to Laos in December 2012, Khepri’s team got to know Pascal Lovera, an entrepreneur based in in Laos for over 10 years. After conducting humanitarian actions, he turned to preservation of the local flora by creating a company for the production and conservation of orchids in Vientiane. In parallel, he has just become the representative of a famous NGO in Laos and has therefore to setup an economic activity for remote villages in the Savannakhet province for UXO victims. To this end, he wishes to work in association with Khepri in order to develop cricket farms, which demands only little physical effort and little time daily. Cricket farming in Lao PDR can double a family’s revenue and help reinsertion by having an economic activity.

 

During this same stay, we have been interviewed on the subject of entomophagy in Laos by the team of “Echappées Belles” from the national channel France 5[1]. At this occasion Khepri has met several entomofarmers to observe their methods of breeding and understand the advancement of the existing market in Lao PDR.

 

The creation of a Khepri subsidiary is obstructed for the moment because the government is in the process of changing it’s law on foreign investments and has not decided how it should be yet. We keep in touch with the European chamber of commerce in Laos and our contacts there to stay informed of any future decision that could be made to unblock the situation.

 

In France:

 

We are now searching for funds to finance the first productions of crickets breeding cages and start producing in Laos. For this we are currently working on an Indiegogo campaign that we will launch in the next few days. A video made by the production company “Tout le Monde Aime les Pingouins” will be put online soon and will be used as a short presentation of our campaign.

 

In parallel, we have made contact with the University of Lyon 1 and its biopolymers division.

The university team has been very interested in working on a project chitin and chitosan extraction from cricket shells. The research to conduct will be on the process of extraction and the characterization on the extracted molecule mostly. Furthermore on the subject a Mexican university that is used to work with Lyon 1 has also shown interest in working on this domain of research.

 

 

This summer, Khepri settled in ISEG Paris’s summer incubator before returning to its usual quarters. We have been able to meet people working in enterprises financing, and we were also interviewed for the autumn edition of Ionis Mag.

 

Khepri has recently had a meeting of pre-diagnosis with the INPI (National institute for industrial propriety) to determine if the technical and scientific innovations implied in the project are subject to be protected by a patent.

 

Concerning the production part, the honorary vice consul of Madagascar would like to implant insect farms in the Pedro Opeka villages in order to fight malnutrition in this country. Khepri’s solution appeared interesting in regards of its ambitions. A Frenchman installed in the Philippines for many years also contacted us and is willing to setup a cricket farm there in collaboration with Khepri.

 

One of our members, Rémi Lantieri Jullien was invited to the Utopiales of Nantes the 2nd of November to talk of insects as a valuable raw material in company with Jean-François Kleinfinger, president of the company NextAlim. The subject of the conference, “small creatures are going to be eaten again by big ones!” was discussed by them in front of a compact and attentive audience.

 

The Khepri Team has participated to the innovative entrepreneurship meetings north/south on the 7th of November. Organised by IRD (Institute for Research and Development) on their campus in Bondy, Subjects debated were mostly about innovation, financing, and research. Subjects on which Khepri works daily and which have been the occasion to exchange with professionals and enlarge our network.

 



[1] Echappées Belles, Number 214, first diffusion, 26th January 2013

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