Supporting Mission-Driven Entrepreneurs
Stories about Alumni and Partners that appeared in the Press
Mr. Adebiyi will succeed Bilikiss Adebiyi-Abiola, who has been appointed as the General Manager of the Lagos State Parks and Gardens Agency.
http://blog.wecyclers.com/2017/09/21/wecyclers-announces-appointment-of-new-chief-executive-officer/
Back to the Roots is teaming up with triple-platinum rock band Fall Out Boy to bring its indoor gardening kits and curriculum to 20,000 Chicago elementary school students. The kits are expected to land in Chicago schools in October.
http://www.sustainablebrands.com/news_and_views/collaboration/sustainable_brands/back_roots_teams_fall_out_boy_accelerate_undo_food_m
Concerns over chemical fertilization, the poor nutritional choices available in Harlem – where she taught an SAT-prep class – and the massive waste of the nation’s “leftover” food put Pina on a scientifically entrepreneurial path. Her research led quickly to anaerobic digesters, biological processes that break down biodegradable materials with a number of beneficial side-effects.
http://www.innovateli.com/re-nuble-targets-usda-organic-certifications/
After disasters like hurricanes Harvey and Irma, the lights often go out.
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/09/11/cuban-backed-shark-tank-company-is-helping-hurricane-irma-victims.html
Grown on trees in regions of Africa, South America, and India, the super green is typically ground up and used in powder form, and it’s becoming an increasingly popular ingredient in bottled juices and bars. “Interest has been growing around greens in general, such as with smoothies or kale, and I think moringa is becoming a trending ingredient because people are looking for ways to get the most nutrient-dense [green] they can,” says Lisa Curtis, founder of Kuli Kuli, America’s leading moringa supplier.
https://www.wellandgood.com/good-food/health-benefits-of-moringa/
D.C.-based Misfit Juicery, an anti-food waste company that uses misshapen or bruised produce to make bottled juices, has rebranded as the business grows its profile in the food space and lands deals with high-profile retailers. The move also positions the startup to expand beyond juice.
https://www.bizjournals.com/washington/news/2017/09/12/this-d-c-juicing-startup-is-now-eyeing-food.html
Kuli Kuli sources its moringa from Ghana, Haiti, and Nicaragua. In many nations, those included, the green-leafed plant is considered a weed, only eaten by those occupying the poorest societal rung.
https://www.sierraclub.org/sierra/green-life/three-organic-fair-trade-alternatives-coffee
Hospitality Ventures Management Group (HVMG) enrolled 25 managed hotels in SOL VISTA’s Skywalk® energy management platform in August. Skywalk will provide HVMG with actionable intelligence through ongoing building monitoring and reporting; benchmarking compliance in any jurisdictions where it is required; assistance with energy efficiency projects; and the identification of more advantageous energy procurement methods.
https://www.benzinga.com/pressreleases/17/09/p10037162/hospitality-ventures-management-group-enrolls-25-hotels-in-skywalk
Saathi- The startup sells biodegradable sanitary pad made from banana fibre for the Indian market. They are made from discarded banana trees and does not cause any skin irritation.
http://www.moneycontrol.com/news/business/startup/here-are-five-startups-working-in-the-area-of-women-hygiene-in-india-2380521.html
Discussing the launch of the currency, Mark Meytin, who is a co-founder and partner in the new venture, said: “1000EcoFarms.com is a marketing and customer management platform while FoodCoin is focused on payment and contract-processing services based on the Ethereum blockchain.” Blockchain is a suitable process for farming; it allows farmers to transfer value, or assets, between each other without the need for a trusted intermediary.
http://www.digitaljournal.com/business/new-blockchain-for-agriculture-and-food-businesses/article/501623
One World Play Project believes everyone should have access to play—no matter who they are, where they come from or where they live. They know that play helps us recover from trauma, cope with challenging situations and encourages physical, psychological and social health.
https://www.sportanddev.org/en/article/news/refugees-share-stories-about-finding-home-through-play
“Bachelor” & “Bachelorette” star Sean Lowe has partnered with fellow ‘Bachelorette’ contestant Alejandro Velez to donate 125,000 breakfast cereal meals in support of Hurricane Harvey relief efforts. The organic cereal is from Back to the Roots, a company Velez co-founded in Oakland, CA.
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2017/09/prweb14657882.htm
LuminAID is partnering with relief organization Convoy of Hope to send solar lanterns and solar phone chargers to families left without power by the storm.
http://www.prweb.com/releases/2017/08/prweb14646368.htm
The FoodCoin Ecosystem is a solution based on the Blockchain technology that provides foodstuff and agricultural products. These products are sold online on the 1000 EcoFarms platform, bridging the gap between farmer and consumer.
https://www.cryptocoinsnews.com/blockchain-weekly-groceries-common/
Digging beds on rooftops and harvesting baby radishes under the summer sun is rather 2010. This year, Blue Planet Consulting will reveal its +farm — a build-it-yourself, modular hydroponic farm unit for the home. Agrilyst is refining its workflow and data management software for indoor farms to automate aspects of the industry. Re-Nuble brought its fertilizer for hydroponic and soil applications derived from wholesale food waste to market in late 2016.
https://technical.ly/brooklyn/2017/08/30/brooklyn-loves-agtech/
Two architecture students from Chicago, Andrea Sreshta and Anna Stork, are the inventors of LuminAID, a solar-powered inflatable light originally designed for natural disasters. The fully-charged light which can provide up to 16 hours of LED light can also be used for recreational purposes like camping. Sreshta and Stork pitched their business on Shark Tank in 2015. When billionaire Mark Cuban offered them $200,000 in exchange for 15 percent equity, they accepted.
http://2paragraphs.com/2017/08/luminaid-what-happened-after-200k-mark-cuban-shark-tank-deal/
Biodynamic food is trending in 2017. It is extending beyond organic farming, reducing the need for outside fertilisers. Moreover, it is creating a balanced farm ecosystem. This is achieved through rotational crops, a variety of plants and animals as well as on-site composting. We know there are hundreds of cereal products on the market, but very few of them can call themselves biodynamic! Back-the-roots is where health is heading.
http://www.longevitylive.com/nutrition-body/healthy-eating/biodynamic-breakfast-cereal/
The team at Back to the Roots can’t help with all the levels of fish madness that go into fish tank ownership. They can’t make your fish like each other, and they have not invented technology that will make you more able to tell if your fish is truly happy or just pacing in its bowl awaiting death. What they can do, however, is offer a fish tank that requires a lot less maintenance.
http://www.pymnts.com/news/retail/2017/back-to-the-roots-natural-foods-ecommerce-innovation/
Susan Hunt Stevens, CEO of WeSpire, once set out to rid her home of disposable paper products. To her dismay, she calculated that completing her goal contributed to saving one-third of a tree.
https://www.greenbiz.com/article/game-7-approaches-hack-employee-engagement
“People tend to write you off a bit when you look young,” Jeremy reflected. “Likewise, the investment community is generally averse to risk… When you are younger, a more limited track record can be a bit of a handicap. Also, it’s a cliche but building a great company requires having a great network… When you are just starting out, you haven’t forged many of these relationships yet and that makes everything much tougher.”
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/youth-engagement-racial-equity-and-green-tech-intersect_us_5996ebdfe4b033e0fbdec32c
African Renewable Energy Distributor (ARED) and EarthEnable are among the five global green finalists that are competing for the grand prize of 500,000 euro (about Rwf491.7m).
http://www.newtimes.co.rw/section/read/218141/
Sometimes she gets truckloads of plastics from collectors. The next step is to get them sorted, packaged and ready to go into the marketplace. This is because there are many companies looking for them. For her, local landfill waste collection is only the beginning of a recycling cycle.
http://thenationonlineng.net/making-wealth-recycling
Until premium priced, slow, organic, food fast casual chains are located in communities representative of a larger demographic range, I will continue to fight this good fight. These establishments’ business models are incredibly successful but their impact is limited if they are claiming to be a benefactor in increasing the accessibility of nutritious food.
https://foodtank.com/news/2017/08/tinia-pina
Farmland LP is showcased in a new report “Harvesting Opportunity: The Power of Regional Food System Investments to Transform Communities” published in partnership by the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, the Fed’s Board of Governors, and USDA’s agencies of Rural Development and the Agricultural Marketing Service.
http://www.farmlandlp.com/2017/08/farmland-lp-highlighted-federal-reserve/
Labor Voices — Loosely employment related, this startup helps protect big apparel brands by empowering labor in developing countries to police work conditions. With a cell phone, workers can report violations such as poor working conditions and unacceptable salaries. Think of it as Glassdoor for the supply chain.
https://www.laborvoices.com/single-post/2017/09/14/New-Class-of-500-Startups-Has-Been-Announced-These-4-are-Workforce-Related
Sanivation, a social enterprise operating in East Africa, has combined Kenya’s biggest human waste issue into an affordable cooking-fuel. Yes, your poop can be treated and turned into a form of charcoal you can cook with!
http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/human-poop-turned-charcoal-kenya-cooking-fuel-source-eco-friendly-gobar-gas-lifest/1/1021336.html
Reidy, 29, is the founder and CEO of Urban Pastoral Collective, a two-year-old business with a dual mission: to produce and sell fresh, whole foods in an urban setting and to help leverage the value of such foods into a movement that transforms the way Americans live and interact in cities.
http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/baltimore-city/bs-md-urban-pastoral-20170726-story.html
According to Are You Reducing Reusing Recycling Greenlife (RUR), which helped residents with recycling, only 20% of used cartons are recycled in the city. The remaining end up at dumping yards, which when mixed with other forms of dry waste the process of decomposition takes much longer and the suppressed methane generated at dumping grounds easily ignites fire.
http://www.hindustantimes.com/mumbai-news/residents-in-mumbai-turn-18-000-discarded-tetra-pak-cartons-into-four-garden-benches/story-w7rbWIteg5KL2UJJczSoIM.html
“Buy one, give one” is the model at Twice As Warm, and those numbers keep growing. During the organization’s first winter of operation, it donated 210 winter hats, scarves, and gloves to needy people in its home base community of Washington, D.C. These cozy, American-made accessories include chenille gloves, striped beanies, and marled, chunky-knit infinity scarves.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/5-companies-that-are-redefining-the-gift-of-giving_us_59763ca5e4b0940189700bb6
Back to the Roots is a thriving and growing business. Their ready-to-grow and ready-to-eat products are sold in thousands of locations nationwide, and the company has won several awards from leading publications and organizations for food innovation.
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/two-oakland-area-entrepreneurs-are-reconnecting-us-to-food_us_595d47f1e4b02e9bdb09fa22
“Himalayan Wild Fibers is a company that is commercializing a textile fiber that’s extracted from a wild growing plant, a form of stinging nettle that grows in the forests of the Himalayas. It is wild harvested. We extract from that a fiber, we refine it and then we sell into existing developed supply chains,” she explains.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/devinthorpe/2017/07/12/20-years-in-the-making-a-personal-quest-led-to-a-new-venture/#7369e43a69eb
Informal trading in the region is not easy — travelling over long distances and across borders to source goods is time-consuming, costly and often dangerous. Yet hundreds of thousands of people in Africa rely on the risks of an informal supply chain to eke out a living and feed their families.
https://mg.co.za/article/2017-03-07-mowoza-does-the-running-for-traders
A group of U.S. students from Georgia Tech came up with a solution. Sanivation is an innovative company that puts “blue box” toilets in homes, then collects waste from them and synthesizes waste into fuel. The result is briquettes that burn three times as long as regular coal and emit less carbon monoxide when burned. Creators Andrew Foote and Emily Woods originally came up with the idea for a research project, then presented it to Start-Up Chile, which helped them accelerate their business.
https://www.borgenmagazine.com/new-initiative-sanivation/
“I am glad to see Lumeter’s technology developed further with Mobisol. Bringing together the customers, hardware, and back end solutions of the two leading companies in PAYG will bring advantages to all of our partners.” – Mitra Ardron, founder of Lumeter
https://plugintheworld.com/press-releases/mobisol-acquires-lumeter-to-expand-its-off-grid-solar-pay-as-you-go-offering/
In partnership with Esoko, First Access will develop Africa’s first-of-its-kind rural agricultural credit-scoring platform for lending institutions.
https://www.firstaccess.co/news/first-access-among-winners-of-mastercard-foundation-fund-for-rural-prosperity-innovation-competition
While ecommerce and mobile money companies are leading Africa’s tech race, solar technology and agriculture are also big sectors there. Ignitia, a startup based in Accra, Ghana has developed a weather model to help small-scale farmers in West Africa better predict water availability in order to manage their daily activities, optimize food production, and improve yields.
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/06/16/jeremy-johnson-andela-ceo-future-of-tech-is-africa.html
African Renewable Energy helps women and disabled people set up solar-powered mobile charging and wifi kiosks.
https://news.impactalpha.com/three-startups-empowering-women-get-colabs-backing-445cf6cca294
Software developed by a Virginia Tech team that can cut energy use by small and medium-sized commercial buildings is gaining traction in the private sector.
https://energynews.us/2017/06/08/southeast/virginia-tech-teams-software-fills-important-niche-in-building-efficiency/
The funding will be used by Mera Gao Power (MGP) to expand into over 5,000 additional rural off-grid villages across Uttar Pradesh, provide over 50,000 households and 300,000 people with access to reliable energy for the first time, and achieve profitability.
http://meragaopower.com/pressrelease1.html
The way these things work is something like sweating.sweat, water molecules draw heat out of our bodies to go through a phase-change, and evaporate. As that happens we cool down. This machine has water in a tank, and permeable membranes that deliver water to evaporative walls.
https://techcrunch.com/2017/06/02/evaptainers-decouples-refrigeration-from-electricity-to-help-rural-farms-and-families/