Bernhard Kowatsch: Transforming the Future of Proteins
·20 min
Future Food Show (part of Transforming the Future of Proteins series) interviews Bernard Kovach, head of the UN World Food Program Innovation Accelerator, about global hunger crisis and innovation-driven solutions. The episode opens with announcement of Cultured Meat Symposium 2023 in Las Vegas. Kovach discusses his journey from management consulting to founding the world's most successful fundraising app (Share the Meal) to creating the WFP Innovation Accelerator in 2015. He contextualizes global hunger statistics (828 million hungry people currently, but improvement from 1 billion 30 years ago; recent regression due to conflicts, climate, inflation). The accelerator identifies and scales disruptive innovations through a pipeline: application → boot camp → selection of 10 teams → accelerator phase ($100K grants, mentorship) → scaling phase leveraging WFP's 120-country presence. Case study: Sanku's IoT fortification device for small maize millers in Africa reached 5 million people across 45 mills in Tanzania, expanding to Kenya.
