EARTH students lend creativity to anti-hunger summit
The drive to address world hunger led two EARTH University students to Rio de Janeiro.
EARTH students lend creativity to anti-hunger summit
From July 22 to 29, Marc Roldy (’18, Haiti) and Norman Mugisha (’18, Rwanda) participated in the Thought for Food Summit, a yearly gathering of thought leaders committed to transforming global food systems.
The TFF Challenge, an annual fixture of the Summit, attracts more than 800 teams from 160 nations. They compete for USD $10,000 in funding for their scalable, change-catalyzing social ventures. This year, the challenge focused on designing an innovative plan to feed the 9.8 billion people estimated to inhabit the Earth in 2050.
Through their participation, the two EARTH students hoped to grow awareness of the TFF’s competition on campus and throughout Central America. They believe that if more young people get involved, there will be a greater probability of discovering solutions to the pressing issues of food insecurity, world hunger, and food waste.
“I urge all students to participate in these activities because they also really open your mind, introduce you to so many people, widen your professional network, and teach you about trending topics,” Marc said. “At the same time, they enrich the learning you do at university.”
“My favorite part [of the Summit] was learning about the businesses that started in response to science data,” Marc continued. “That appealed to me because basing a company on scientific studies is something many people assume to be impossible. Hearing from the founders who’d done just that really motivated me.”
The two students hope to organize a small, Thought for Food-style event in 2019 on EARTH’s campus.
