Announcing the finalists of the World Food Forum Startup Innovation Awards 2024!
In partnership with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations and sponsored by ADM, Kilburn & Strode, Next Tech Food Factories, Smart Sensors 4 Agri Food, HIGHFIVE, QING Forward Engineering and United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) Innovation Lab, we are thrilled to announce the finalists for the 2024 UN World Food Forum Startup Innovation Awards, showcasing innovative solutions that are transforming the future of food and agriculture. The event theme this year is ‘Good food for all, for today and tomorrow’, and these outstanding teams are making a significant impact in their regions and beyond.
Congratulations to:
Digital Innovation in Food Processing
PoultrySync (UAE) is an end-to-end poultry management SaaS solution that streamlines data in the whole poultry value chain, identifies inefficiencies and pinpoints areas for improvement.
Safi (Canada) is a social enterprise creating the tools for a safe and transparent dairy supply chain in East Africa. Safi has patented the world’s first off-the-grid pasteurization control unit that allows any user to pasteurize milk without the use of on-the-grid electricity.
Empowering Women in Agrifood Systems
AgrowSure Products and Innovations (India) designs and manufactures affordable, innovative farm machines tailored for diversified crops, promoting efficient and sustainable farming practices.
Energy Assured (Nigeria) empowers smallholder women farmers with efficient subscription-based mobile solar-powered irrigation (pump) services to facilitate better crop yields, healthier families and lesser environmental impact.
Food Loss
Altered Carbon (UK): A cost-effective smart scent detection for mobile devices.
Duhqa (Kenya) connects markets to product sources in the agricultural and food manufacturing sector. Focusing on mom and pop shops, it eliminates brokers in the supply chain and ensures a real time marketplace where farmers or cooperatives can sell produce directly.
Good Food for All, for Today and Tomorrow
BettaF!sh (Germany) harnesses the ocean’s fastest-growing biomass – seaweed – to create delicious, nutrient-rich, plant-based seafood alternatives. Their innovative use of seaweed enhances flavor and functionality in food and supports ocean regeneration, providing sustainable livelihoods for coastal communities.
SenzAgro Solutions (Sri Lanka) developed the world’s most advanced adaptive irrigation service, which automatically optimizes irrigation, thereby delivering dramatic crop yield increase and water and energy cost savings to farms.
Evaluation Committee:
🙏 A special thank you to our expert evaluators for their valuable time and insights in selecting this year’s finalists.
DIGITAL INNOVATION IN FOOD PROCESSING
Bram de Vrught, General Manager, QING Forward Engineering
Parikshit Sharma, Partner, IndieBio/SOSV
Shinya Kasuga, General Partner at IT-Farm Corporation
EMPOWERING WOMEN IN AGRIFOOD SYSTEMS
Matt Barnard, CEO of Plenty
Małgorzata Druciarek, Senior RIS Project Manager/Gender and Diversity Senior Manager, European Institute of Innovation & Technology (EIT) Food
Maurizio Furst, Gender and Development Consultant, Rural Transformation and Gender Equality Division, FAO
Angela Tay, Senior Investment Associate, AgFunder
FOOD LOSS
Iride Ceccacci, Associate Director, Head of Advisory, EBRD
Anzhela Movsisyan, Innovation Strategist, UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO)
Adnan Šerić, Head of Innovation Lab, UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO)
GOOD FOOD FOR ALL, FOR TODAY AND TOMORROW
Ludovic Copéré, Senior Investment Director, Sony Ventures
Vincent Martin, Director, Office of Innovation, UN Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO)
Marco Morbidini, Intellectual Property Expert and Patent Attorney, Kilburn & Strode
Darius Teter, Executive Director, Stanford Seed, Stanford Graduate School of Business
What’s next?
📆 October 16, 2024 – Live finals event & announcement of winners at the 2024 World Food Forum flagship event at the UN Headquarters in Rome, Italy.