Paul Holowko is an electrical and computer engineer who has turned his technical skills on his garden. About a decade ago he began his first biosphere- a self-contained garden world in a corner of his garage- complete with sensors for detailed monitoring. He’s now running version 4.0 – complete with crabs and strawberries- and he hopes one day to help grow food on Mars.

Leveraging his skills with a self-sustaining garden, a few years ago he built his own sensor-driven aquaponics setup in his San Jose (CA) backyard to prove that a 64-square-foot greenhouse could provide all the year-round vegetables needed for a family of two. The sensor-based system he developed to run the garden, he is now selling as a cloud-based monitoring setup for hydroponics and aquaponics.