When childhood friends share ideas

Twin brothers Axel and Marcel met Jose when they were all students at CROEM, a STEM specialized public magnet high school in Mayaguez. Then and there, a strong everlasting friendship was formed, despite all of them later attending different undergraduate schools to study chemical and aerospace engineering.

Eventually, Marcel and Jose reunited as law students at the University of Puerto Rico. All the while, Axel was getting a proper entrepreneurial and scientific formation at the Skolkovo Institute of Science and Technology in Moscow. He had won a scholarship to work on a project that focused on bringing water to Mars. This got him thinking about developing his side scientific project.

So when he came back to the island, Axel decided that he could combine his expertise along with Marcel and Jose’s academic and professional backgrounds to make something great. Their friendly discussions often starred talks concerning the things they could do to halt hunger and environmental crisis all around the world. It was during one of those talks that sustainability, and agrobeads, came as an answer.

That’s how Axel developed AgroBeads: a water sphere that also serves as a fertilizer. He recruited his brother and his friend to help him with the patenting and manufacturing processes. Axel’s invention represents a constant solution to the waste of water and the excess of plastic containers that pollute our planet. In addition, this sustainable effort allows people without an agro-education to easily grow their own crops and home orchards.