The Farm to Pharm concept reframes healthcare delivery through transportable, modular food production, and health-themed community centers.
The winners of Fast Company’s 2021 World Changing Ideas Awards were announced today, honoring the businesses, policies, projects, and concepts that are actively engaged and deeply committed to pursuing innovation when it comes to solving health and climate crises, social injustice, or economic inequality for the good of society and the planet.
Designed by HGA, Farm to Pharm won Honorable Mention in the Spaces, Places, and Cities category of the 2021 World Changing Ideas Awards.
Reimaging Healthcare
Originally designed as part of Healthcare Design’s Breaking Through conceptual design competition in 2020, Farm to Pharm leverages existing scientific advancement to envision food as medicine to reframe traditional notions of healthcare delivery. The competition-winning concept rethinks health investment, food production, and distribution to promote whole-person health, health access, food equity, and economic opportunity.
The project’s primary focus merges precision pharmaceutical treatment with modified and fortified food. The solution refocuses investment from disease management to prevention and population health through personalized, in-home “Grow Sheets.”
The concept also addresses challenges of food education, access, and distribution that span diverse demographics and geographies. The solution creates economic opportunity in agricultural and biomedical fields while equalizing access though transportable, modular, food production, and health-themed community centers called “Grow Hubs.”
“We are facing an intersection of problems that sometimes seem insurmountable in the 21st century,” said Kurt Spiering, FAIA, ACHA, Vice President and Healthcare Market Sector Leader at HGA. “These problems can only be solved by holistically rethinking education, healthcare access, and economic systems to reframe healthcare issues through food production, distribution, and diverse partnerships. Farm to Pharm is a result of HGA’s collaborative, interdisciplinary knowledge sharing, and an example of how diverse design thinking can lead to breakthrough ideas. We are honored to accept Fast Company’s World Changing Ideas Award and continue the conversation with a global audience.”
Global Winners
Now in its fifth year, the World Changing Ideas Awards showcase 33 winners, more than 400 finalists, and more than 800 honorable mentions—with Health and Wellness, AI & Data among the most popular categories. A panel of eminent Fast Company editors and reporters selected winners and finalists from a pool of more than 4,000 entries across transportation, education, food, politics, technology, and more. The 2021 awards feature entries from across the globe, from Brazil to Denmark to Vietnam.
“There is no question our society and planet are facing deeply troubling times,” said Stephanie Mehta, editor-in-chief of Fast Company. “So, it’s important to recognize organizations that are using their ingenuity, impact, design, scalability, and passion to solve these problems. Our journalists, under the leadership of senior editor Morgan Clendaniel, have discovered some of the most groundbreaking projects that have launched since the start of 2020.”
Watch HGA’s Farm to Pharm presentation below.
About the World Changing Ideas Awards
World Changing Ideas is one of Fast Company’s major annual awards programs and is focused on social good, seeking to elevate finished products and brave concepts that make the world better. A panel of judges from across sectors choose winners, finalists, and honorable mentions based on feasibility and the potential for impact. With the goals of awarding ingenuity and fostering innovation, Fast Company draws attention to ideas with great potential and helps them expand their reach to inspire more people to start working on solving the problems that affect us all.
For more information, visit Fast Company’s 2021 World Changing Ideas Awards.