World Frontiers Forum Convenes Leaders In Arts, Sciences And Global Governance To Explore Sustainable Food Access In Developing World

CAMBRIDGE, Mass., Oct. 15, 2018 /PRNewswire/ -- The World Frontiers Forum (WFF) gathers today at ArtScience (Cambridge) and Harvard Business School (Boston) to launch an international project — the Convergence Project — led by young pioneers in the arts, engineering, sciences and social entrepreneurship from Africa, Asia, Europe and the Americas aimed at sustainable food access in the developing world.

WFF pioneers from frontiers of biology to education and music, including Steven Pinker, Questlove, and Pujol Chef Enrique Olvera, will speak and perform to 150 leaders in culture, industry, academia and government from over 30 countries and leadership from the United Nations.

Over the course of the gathering pioneers and leaders participate in the advancement of the 2018 Convergence Project – called Foods That Matter. The project is led by young pioneers, all under 40 years of age, from around the world.  Leading the project are Nigerian food entrepreneur Oscar Ekponimo, founder of ChowBerry and American medical doctor and technology entrepreneur Emilia Javorsky, founder of Sundots. Integrating the project into the global effort to address unnecessary blindness is the UK eye doctor and Peek Vision founder Andrew Bastawrous, while entrepreneur Reese Fernandez-Ruiz, founder of R2R, a Manila-based fashion house empowering artisans, and US- and Bahamas-based contemporary artist Tavares Strachan each pioneer community engagement.  The Iranian-American entrepreneur Ardy Arianpour, founder Seqster, leads reflection on long-term strategies of healthcare information.

Foods That Matter aims to improve micro-nutrient access* for millions of Africans by developing local farming co-ops around commercial enterprises that manufacture and sell highly nutritious food products that derive from local produce for commercial African markets.  These products integrate edible packaging and micro-nutrient stable delivery technologies developed by World Frontiers Forum founders and led respectively by Marty Kolewe of Incredible Foods and MIT scientist Ana Jaklenec. The co-ops integrate micro-nutrients into their diets facilitated by nutrition maker fairs that promote local engagement and learning. The initiative has started development in a partnership between the WFF and the Government of Sierra Leone, led by that country's Chief Innovation Officer Moinina David Sengeh. Driving the first phase of this partnership is the groundbreaking work of the artist Tavares Strachan, winner of the WFF's 2018 Frontier Art Prize.

The World Frontiers Forum also announces today that Robert Buderi, a national leader in the convening of pioneers across technology frontiers, will start on October 17, 2018 as the first President of the World Frontiers Forum. Founder of online business news company Xconomy, and former Editor in Chief of the MIT Technology Review, Buderi will report to a board of directors made up of academic, technology, finance institution and artistic organizations internationally. The World Frontiers Forum partners today include Verily, Global Good, VIA Art Fund, BNY Mellon, MassBio, Ipsen, The Rolex Awards for Enterprise, Hughes Management, Collegiate Gateway, New York Venture Partners, NorthStar Advisors, Area9, Canary Ventures, and Harvard University — The John A. Paulson School of Engineering and Applied Sciences, the Graduate School of Design and the Harvard Business School.

*An estimated 2.5 billion people in the developing world reside in small farmer households on small plots of land characterized by low yields, low quality, and little access to financing (Global Food Security Index 2015). Among these approximately 40% live within coastal regions, with seafood as a primary source of protein; 80% of ocean pollution comes from land, with the degradation of ocean ecosystems largely driven by a combination of agriculture run-off from fertilizers and pesticides, waste-water and plastics (World Bank Group). These combine with other challenges of nutrition access to produce a global crisis in nutrition that particularly affect the world's poorest and are illustrated by micronutrient deficiencies including vitamin A (estimated 254 million preschool children, WHO), iron (approximately 2 billion people, WHO), and other micronutrients like iodine.

About World Frontiers Forum 
The World Frontiers Forum unites leaders in industry, culture and government with pioneering creators across frontiers from contemporary art to biology.  Established around an annual gathering in Cambridge Massachusetts, the WFF aims to bring original pioneering works and dream learning into the lives of millions to help catalyze and translate frontier discovery that improves the human condition. The WFF was founded in 2017 by Dennis Ausiello (Harvard Medical School/MGH), David Edwards (Harvard, ArtScience), and Robert Langer (MIT).  The Forum, which takes place this year on October 14 and 15 between ArtScience in Cambridge Massachusetts and the Harvard Business School, is run by the Cloud ArtScience Foundation.  For more information please visit http://www.worldfrontiersforum.org/

SOURCE World Frontiers Forum

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