UC Davis/Mars Innovation Institute Sponsors Food Hackathon to Find Solutions for Food Industry’s Biggest Challenges
Hackathon Supports the Culinary Institute of America’s Launch of its new Food Business School
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA, USA, March 17, 2015 /3BL Media/ – Mars, Incorporated has joined food innovators, entrepreneurs and scholars, top tech talent and emerging food leaders – to take part in a hackathon that aimed to find innovative solutions to the biggest challenges faced by the food industry.
The three day Food Hackathon was developed by UC Davis/Mars Innovation Institute for Food and Health and the Culinary Institute of America to launch the Food Business School - the newly established center for executive and graduate education at The Culinary Institute of America.
With the support of food and tech mentors, hack teams spent the weekend developing solutions to the challenges of “Nutrition for All” and then pitched their ideas to a panel of expert judges, including Mars’ Chief Agricultural Officer, Howard Yana-Shapiro.
The winning team, from UC Davis, came up with an app to help people match their medications to their diets. They will be heading to Milan, Italy for an all-expenses-paid trip to the 2015 World Expo.
Mars’ Chief Agricultural Officer Howard Yana-Shapiro recapped his experience there in a recent article on LinkedIn: “The next generation will face food challenges ranging from climate change and water stress to growing demands for upmarket foods. The Food Hackathon was a fascinating insight into the ways in which innovators from across a variety of sectors are coming up with solutions to these future challenges. At Mars, we are already looking for new forms of protein and ways of producing and packaging affordable nutrition in Asia and Africa. It seems to me that the most important technology platforms in the next 20 years will be those relating to food technology and innovation.”
About Mars, Incorporated
Mars, Incorporated is a private, family-owned business with more than a century of history and some of the best-loved brands in the world including M&M’S®, PEDIGREE®, DOUBLEMINT® and UNCLE BEN’S®. Headquartered in McLean, VA, Mars has more than $33 billion in sales from six diverse business segments: Petcare, Chocolate, Wrigley, Food, Drinks and Symbioscience. More than 75,000 Associates across 73 countries are united by the company’s Five Principles: Quality, Efficiency, Responsibility, Mutuality and Freedom and strive every day to create relationships with stakeholders that deliver growth we are proud of as a company.
For more information about Mars, Incorporated, please visit www.mars.com. Follow us on Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn and YouTube.
