What is the name of your organization?
Forest Science and Technology Center (CTFC) and its spin-off Forest Bioengineering Solutions (FBS)
What is the name of your solution?
Microcosmos
Provide a one-line summary or tagline for your solution.
Microcosmos is an AI-powered software deployed to democratizing soil biodiverstiy monitoring for true resilience
In what city, town, or region is your solution team headquartered?
25280 Solsona, Lérida, España
In what country is your solution team headquartered?
ESP
What type of organization is your solution team?
For-profit, including B-Corp or similar models
Film your elevator pitch.
What specific problem are you solving?
“The problem is the global lack of accessible, scalable tools to monitor and regenerate soil health - a critical bottleneck in tackling climate change, biodiversity loss, and food insecurity globally.”
Over 90% of the world’s soils could be degraded by 2050 (FAO, 2015). Soil degradation threatens food systems, ecosystem stability, and climate resilience, particularly in vulnerable regions where over 70% of farmers lack affordable soil assessments (FAO, 2022). Yet soils harbor (at least) over 25% of global biodiversity, driving carbon storage, nutrient cycling, and ecosystem regeneration.
Current diagnostic methods remain slow, expensive, and lab-dependent, limiting use precisely where it’s needed most: daily land management and restoration. Microcosmos transforms soil monitoring from an extractive, expert-driven process into a regenerative, farmer-empowering practice—democratizing access to soil biodiversity data and quantifying its role in food security, water regulation, carbon sequestration, and climate adaptation.
Agricultural and degraded soils can reabsorb up to 66% of the historical carbon lost to the atmosphere (Lal, 2004). Without democratized diagnostics, this huge mitigation potential—alongside biodiversity conservation and food security—remains largely untapped, leaving billions at risk of cascading environmental threats.
What is your solution?
“Microcosmos is an AI-powered platform that transforms soil microscopy into a fast, accessible, and scientifically robust tool for assessing soil health and ecosystem functionality.”
Using Convolutional Neural Networks (CNN), it identifies, classifies, and quantifies key microbial functional groups—bacteria, fungi, protozoa, and nematodes—essential for nutrient cycling, carbon storage, and ecosystem resilience.
It analyzes microscope images in real-time, displaying on-screen what the camera observes through a basic microscope. This simple setup lets users visualize decomposers, microbial predators, fungal spores, aggregates, and other bioindicators, while significantly lowering costs (no specialized labs or reagents). Early tests show up to a 50% reduction in analysis expenses, making Microcosmos especially accessible to under-resourced communities.
By translating these microbial metrics into ecosystem service simulations—such as carbon sequestration, nutrient availability, or disease suppression—Microcosmos helps users anticipate whether current management practices will succeed at fine resolution. The platform runs on smartphones or computers and supports many different microscopes, reinforcing its mission to democratize soil health diagnostics. Its generalized AI models allow compatibility with many different microscopes and adaptable environments — from expert labs to rural farms.
Future developments may integrate Microcosmos into edge computing or automated microscopes, but its core innovation remains universal accessibility and flexibility.
Who does your solution serve, and in what ways will the solution impact their lives?
“Microcosmos serves farmers (especially small-scale ones in underserved regions), land stewards, restoration practitioners, consultants, labs, and policymakers—empowering them to see, understand, and regenerate the living soils they depend on.”
Currently, most land managers lack real-time, affordable soil health data, forcing reliance on costly labs or fertilizers without grasping underlying microbial processes. Microcosmos changes this by offering a direct window into soil biodiversity—turning invisible life into a daily management tool. It empowers farmers to become soil stewards, enables consultants and labs to scale diagnostics, and provides policymakers with aggregated biodiversity maps and ecosystem service simulations to guide land-use planning.
Crucially, the tool’s assessments and maps create a shared scientific foundation for dialogue—transforming conflicts into constructive discussions based on soil biodiversity. This clarity not only diagnoses current conditions but facilitates collaborative planning for resilient landscapes and their future ecosystem services.
Ultimately, Microcosmos transforms soil health monitoring into a collaborative, dynamic, and empowering practice — helping build community both below and above ground. Just as resilient soils depend on diverse and interconnected microbial networks, resilient societies emerge from empowered land stewards connected by shared knowledge, fostering food sovereignty, climate resilience, and regenerative economies — especially in under-resourced and vulnerable regions.
