The Launchpad

The IIFH Innovator Fellowship provides a unique opportunity to gain insight and first-hand experience from the venture capital community on what it takes to have an effective startup. Successful candidate Adina Boyce brings a rich engineering background to the unique challenge of soil enrichment through biochar, to improve the nutrient retention and carbon fixing abilities of agricultural practices globally. FoodShot Global is empowering such bold ideas to create innovative companies that can accelerate food system transformation to be more healthy, sustainable and equitable. By working with FoodShot’s collaborative platform of innovators, investors, industry leaders and advocates, Boyce will learn ways to more efficiently solve our biggest food system challenges.

“ I intend to be a bridge between science, policy and communities focused on improving
the livelihood and market competition of small, local farmers. ”
–  Adina Boyce, 2018 IIFH Innovator Fellow

New Directions

This year, Boyce will work with FoodShot on their inaugural food system Challenge to identify a key obstacle that entrepreneurs and innovators might successfully address through funding of a business or innovation prize. Boyce reflects FoodShot’s own priority for boldness and impact as a best-in-class candidate. Her comprehensive PhD work in upstream development and downstream application of biochar soil mediation draws on extensive engineering expertise in biodiesel production, transportation management and waste treatment, as well as a personal love of agriculture in a global context that honors diverse cultural perspectives. “The opportunities lie not only in advanced crop or food production itself but in the downstream ramifications,” she says.

Readiness for a Revolution

Boyce will be guided by experts in the challenge area, who can provide issue-specific insights to aid her ambition as a service-minded agricultural professional focused on creating, implementing and amplifying innovative ideas in sustainable land and waste management. “Adina is a concerned and committed scholar who seeks to make substantive change toward more sustainable approaches in agriculture, energy and other sectors,” confirms her PhD supervisor, Dr. Brian Jenkins. The Innovation Institute for Food & Health will support Boyce’s salary, tuition, travel and research expenses for 6 months of entrepreneurial training with FoodShot and 6 months of innovative research at UC Davis, where she can begin to strategically adapt her own innovation as a startup. Additional professional development and training opportunities allow application of these entrepreneurial learnings and testing of emergent business concepts. Congratulations Adina Boyce!

The Innovation Institute for Food & Health offers such opportunities twice yearly. Stay tuned for the next Innovator Fellowship offering!