Future farmer (+ video): Ludwig Sonneck, Automation Engineer

In this series we are interviewing our future farmers at Mosa Meat about what inspires them as pioneers of cellular agriculture. Read our interview with Ludwig below.

Tell us a little bit about yourself, Ludwig—where are you from?

I grew up mostly in Berlin and attended a Steiner school. My early years were spent working on tactile projects, such as building small things, knitting and other crafts. Every day we began with recitation; saying hello to the plants and lights and sun. The school was very versatile. We had freedom to explore based on our interests.

In secondary school, I noticed I was more interested in math and sciences. It was clear to me then that I would go in a science direction.

After school I took a break and helped my Dad rebuild a farmhouse. I also went to Australia for seven months to work and travel in the Outback. I knew that I wanted to go into engineering by then, because it’s a more practical side of the sciences. I didn't want to do only theoretical work, but also build things.

I discovered aerospace engineering after I returned from my year abroad. I decided to do my Bachelors and Masters in Aerospace Engineering with a specialization in Astronautics.

When did you discover cultured meat—and Mosa Meat?

I did an internship at Airbus, a project for the International Space Station. The work was very focused, and involved a lot of paperwork because you had to prepare for years for this one moment! I realized then that I was more interested in working on projects that were multi-dimensional and required iterative thinking. I wanted to work in a startup environment.

I would go into lunch by myself and have a moment of silence and thinking time. During one of these lunches, I remembered coming across cultured meat while completing my master’s. The seed was planted, and after returning to my computer and doing some research, I discovered Mosa Meat. 

I looked through the open positions, and underneath several scientific roles, I found an engineering one that perfeclty matched my profile – programming embedded software development. In this work, you program little chips called microcontrollers that control machines. Jonathan [our Automation Team Lead] was looking for someone with experience in robotics.

Would you describe yourself as an engineer, or something more?

The technical work is the same. Emotionally, the motivation, the spirit behind our work is deeper. Because you want to bring the mission forward, you also focus on other things outside of the scope of traditional engineering. 

Sometimes I feel I get lost in the details. Then I try to keep the bigger picture in mind, in view of how much we want to do— not just focusing on the technical task in front of me.

For example, I have been working on automating our bioreactor cultures [the steel tanks where we cultivate meat]. I try to think of this in a multidisciplinary way. As an engineer you like technology and automating things, but as a scientist you like to have it done precisely, and as an entrepreneur you want to achieve the goal by a certain time. And that’s what makes this job so cool, that it allows you to think in this way.

What do you enjoy doing in your spare time?

Morning time is focused on myself; time to read, meditate. Trying to keep the rush of the day out for a moment. Get a reset, and then dive in.

I like to create a nice environment and space around me to inspire me to do my best work. I also enjoy taking care of plants!

What motivates and inspires you the most about working at Mosa Meat?

Sustainability—being a human on this planet makes it clear that this is one way we have to improve how we do things.

Normally invention is small improvements, you iterate it. But this is completely new, from the ground up. That is also really cool.

Finally, it is the spirit around here. We have an attitude of “Yeah, let’s do this together.’’ People are intrinsically motivated, which gives so much more energy to what we’re doing.

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