Baylor students take a cue from ‘Gilligan’s Island’

Watching reruns of Gilligan’s Island growing up, my favorite character was always the Professor; I loved the way he could build anything, it seemed, out of a couple of coconuts.

Baylor students are working on something similar — working to design multiple low-cost products that can be created from coconuts in poor coastal regions, where the fruit is an abundant, renewable resource. The researchers hope that by developing technologies and a business model, the value of farmers’ coconuts in places like the Philippines, Ghana and Mexico will increase from 5 cents to 50 cents each, multiplying their annual income 10 times.

The team showed off its work last month at the National Collegiate Inventors & Innovators Alliance meeting in Dallas. Graduate student Stanton Greer, the team’s leader, exemplifies Baylor’s mission; I like what he had to say about displaying their work at the convention:

“We are very excited about the opportunity for more people to find out about what we are doing to serve Christ. It is an honor to be put in the same class with so many other great projects and schools and to be able to bring glory to God on such a large stage.”

Sic ’em, Baylor coconut researchers!