Food Tech Innovation Workshop April 2, 2015

1. Presented by
!
#STEXfood East Arcade WiFi password is #CBRECamb
http://startupexchange.mit.edu
Food Tech Innovation Workshop
April 22, 2015 One Main Street, Cambridge, MA
AGENDA
8:30am Breakfast and Registration
8:50am Welcome: “MIT’s Food Tech Startups,” Trond Undheim, Ph.D., Lead, Startup Initiative, MIT Industrial Liaison Program (host)
9:00am
Introductory remarks: “Connecting Industry to Research, Innovation, and Startups”
Karl Koster, Executive Director, MIT Industrial Liaison Program
9:10am “Future opportunities for food tech product innovation from a research perspective,” Omer Yilmaz, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of
Biology, MIT, Gastrointestinal Pathologist, Massachusetts General Hospital and Harvard Medical School
9:25am “The Future of Food,” Manoj Fenelon, Director of Foresight, PepsiCo
9:35am Coffee break (10 min)
9:45am
“Food, sensor, startups – the road ahead from an MIT perspective,” Timothy M. Swager, the John D. MacArthur Professor of
Chemistry at MIT and Faculty Director of the Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation
9:55am “Innovation in Agricultural Productivity,” Larry Gilbertson, Ph.D., Cambridge Site Lead, Biotechnology, Monsanto Company
10:05am
“Computational Food,” Caleb Harper, Research Scientist, Project Manager, City Science, MIT Media Lab
See MIT’s Incubator-grown plants might hold key to food crisis (Wired, 10/16/2014)
10:15am
Lightning Talks – Terry Adams, Assist. VP for Intellectual Asset Management, Nestle (MIT ILP Member); Christina Agapakis, Ph.D., Creative
Director, Ginkgo Bioworks; Aleem Ahmed, Co-founder, Love Grain; Ricky Ashenfelter, Co-founder, Spoiler Alert;
Kris Bronner, Co-creator, UNREAL Brands, John Helferich, MIT, Sheel Shah, Senior Project Manager, Digami;
Katherine Shamraj, Founder and CEO, Sproot/Foodium; Craig Slavtcheff, VP Global Science and Technology, Campbell Soup Company
10:20am Coffee break (10-15 min)
PANEL DISCUSSION
10:30am
Panel Discussion: What’s Next in Food Tech Innovation?
• What are important trends in food tech startups from MIT (and elsewhere)?
• What does the new food tech innovation ecosystem look like (infrastructure, interoperability, technology, use cases, stakeholders,
success stories)?
• What are corporate priorities in food tech?
• What is the smart money focused on?
Panelists:
• Manoj Fenelon, Director of Foresight, PepsiCo
• Larry Gilbertson, Ph.D., Cambridge Site Lead, Biotechnology, Monsanto Company
• Caleb Harper, Research Scientist, Project Manager, City Science, MIT Media Lab
• Omer Yilmaz, Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Biology, MIT, and Gastrointestinal Pathologist, Massachusetts General Hospital
and Harvard Medical School
MIT-connected startup executives:
Fredric Abramson, Ph.D., Founder, Digital Nutrition, LLC.
Gabe Blanchet, CEO, Grove Labs
Dr. Alain C. Briançon, Co-founder/CEO, Kitchology Inc.
Jan Schnorr, Chief Technology Officer, C2Sense
The panel will be moderated by Lauren Abda, Managing Director of the Food Loft. Lauren is also an analyst at Salt Venture
Partners, a venture capital investment and advisory firm focused on the emerging area of food tech.
Associated STEX opportunities: Monsanto seeks Ag tech
About us: MIT Startup Exchange connects corporations to MIT startups, fostering quality interactions that lead to strong partnerships with impact
across the MIT innovation ecosystem. The STEX web community platform and database has nearly 1000 active MIT startup companies at all stages
of development and representing seven technology clusters: Tech/ICT, Biotech, Nanotech, Energy Tech, Advanced Manufacturing, Healthcare, and
Hybrid Innovation. See https://startupexchange.mit.edu for more information.

2. Presented by
!
#STEXfood East Arcade WiFi password is #CBRECamb
http://startupexchange.mit.edu
Panelists
Lauren Abda, Managing Director, Food Loft
Lauren Abda is the managing director of the Food Loft,
the first co­working space dedicated to food tech startups,
and founder of Branchfood, an organization that unites
entrepreneurs in transforming the food system through
innovation. Lauren also works with Salt Venture Partners,
a venture capital investment and advisory firm focused on
the emerging area of food tech. Her work is focused on supporting food
entrepreneurs and connecting them with key resources to grow their startups.
She has both industry and academic experience in food and tech, with a long-
term focus on uniting both sectors and using design and technology to
improve our food system. Lauren studied nutrition and food science at the
University of Vermont, where she received her Bachelor of Science degree
and attended Tufts University where she received her Master of Science
degree in food policy and nutrition.
Fredric Abramson, Ph.D., Founder, Digital Nutrition, LLC
Dr. Abramson began his career in the entertainment
industry, and then in retail sales of records and appliances.
He wrote his first computer program in 1965, and finished
his Ph.D. in human genetics and population planning in
1972 at the University of Michigan. After three years of teaching at the
University of Kentucky College of Medicine, he was a Sloan Fellow in the
MIT Sloan School of Business. He came to the DC area in 1977 and worked
on national program and policy review of alcohol and alcoholism programs
for the secretary of HEW. Formerly he had a management consulting
business. He graduated from the American University Washington College of
Law. He is an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins, teaching business and
finance. Dr. Abramson advises nonprofits and has served on nonprofit boards.
He founded several 501c3’s. In 2013, he launched a film documentary project
to chronicle how Ronald Reagan interacted with people in his everyday
activities.
Dr. Alain C. Briançon, Co-founder/CEO, Kitchology Inc.
Dr. Briançon is an entrepreneur and innovator with 25 plus
years of expertise in mobile spaces. Alain is the co-
founder of Kitchology Inc., a Maryland based startup that
combines technology with the power of community
curation to deliver the right food experience to families with specific dietary
needs. He is the President and CEO of Horizon Analog, a Kansas based
startup that developed a technology that turns the electrical wiring within the
home into a giant sensor capable of monitoring all of the electrical devices
and appliances. Previously, Alain was the Chief Technology Officer of
NTERA, a material science startup developing printed electronics displays.
Before, he was the CTO of InterDigital Communications; he served as a vice
president at Motorola and also served in executive and technology roles at
Pagenet, BellSouth and GTE Spacenet. Alain has served on the board of
Ampex and advised/advising many startups on strategy and intellectual
property including Bulogics, Airsense Wireless, MobileAware, and IPtronics.
Alain holds a Ph.D. in electrical engineering from MIT. He has 40
issued patents and more than 55 patent applications.
Gabe Blanchet, Co-founder/CEO Grove Lab
Gabe Blanchet is the co-founder and CEO of Grove Labs.
Gabe earned an S.B. in mechanical engineering from MIT,
where he worked on research projects at both the MIT
Media Lab and the Department of Aeronautics and
Astronautics. Gabe was inspired to found Grove Labs with
his best friend Jamie Byron when Jamie hacked together an aquaponic system
in their fraternity room.
Grove Labs successfully raised $2 million in seedling funding in
the summer of 2014, and is now focused on the Boston Early Adopter
Program, in which the Grove team will work closely with 50 Boston locals
with Groves in their homes to refine and perfect the experience.
Manoj Fenelon, Director of Foresight, PepsiCo
Manoj Fenelon is the director of Foresight for the Global
Beverage Group at PepsiCo.
Manoj grew up in the south of India and holds a M.A. in
communication science, University of Connecticut, and a
M.M.S. in business management studies, from the Birla Institute of
Technology and Science. He has spent the last decade being professionally
curious about people, what they buy, and why.
Larry Gilbertson, Ph.D., Cambridge Site Lead,
Biotechnology, Monsanto Company
Dr. Larry Gilbertson joined Monsanto in 1995. During his
almost 20 years with the company, he has led multiple
projects in the biotechnology organization, including plant
transformation, gene expression, gene suppression, vector technology, and
high throughput protein optimization. His scientific achievements at
Monsanto have led to over 26 patents and 11 scientific publications. Larry has
been a Monsanto Fellow since 2004, and is the recipient of the 2015
Monsanto Science and Technology Career Award. Larry is currently the site
lead for the Monsanto Biotechnology Site in Cambridge, MA. He has acted as
a manager for several collaborations between Monsanto and startup
companies in the biotechnology area. Larry received a B.S. degree in biology
from the University of Iowa and a Ph.D. in biology from the University
of Oregon.
Caleb Harper, Research Scientist, Project Manager,
City Science, MIT Media Lab
Caleb Harper is the founder of the CityFARM research
group within the City Science Initiative at the MIT Media
Lab. He leads the antidisciplinary group of engineers,
architects, urban planners, economists, and plant scientists in the exploration
and development of high performance urban agricultural systems. His current
work is focused in the areas of building integrated, and control environment
agriculture, actuated sensing, control automation and data-driven resource and
energy optimization.
Caleb has recently launched the OpenAG project together with strategic
partners from industry, government, and academia to develop the world's first
open source “food tech” research collective for the creation of the global
agricultural data commons.

3. Presented by
!
#STEXfood East Arcade WiFi password is #CBRECamb
http://startupexchange.mit.edu
In addition to his role at MIT, Caleb is a consultant to multiple
international development agencies on high-density, low-income urban
housing projects and has worked professionally on development projects in
the high-tech space including data centers, healthcare, and fabrication
facilities.
Karl F. Koster, Executive Director, MIT Office of
Corporate Relations/Industrial Liaison Program
Karl F. Koster is the executive director of the MIT Office
of Corporate Relations. The Office of Corporate Relations
at MIT includes the Industrial Liaison Program, which
celebrated 60 years of service to the Institute and its
corporate partners in 2008.
In that capacity, he and his staff work with the senior
administrative and faculty leadership of MIT in developing and implementing
strategies for enhancing corporate involvement with the Institute. Mr. Koster
has been involved with faculty leaders in identifying and designing a number
of major international programs for MIT. Many of these programs focus on
institutional development and are characterized by the establishment of strong,
international, programmatic linkages between universities, industry, and
governments.
Mr. Koster graduated from Brown University with a B.A. in geology
and economics in 1974, and received an M.S. from the MIT Sloan School of
Management in 1980. At the Sloan School he concentrated in international
business management and the management of technological innovation. Prior
to returning to MIT, Mr. Koster worked as a management consultant for seven
years in Europe, Latin America, and the United States on projects for private
and public sector organizations.
Jan Schnorr, Chief Technology Officer, C2Sense
Jan was a postdoctoral associate in the Swager laboratory
in the MIT Department of Chemistry, where he completed
his Ph.D. During this time, he worked on functionalized
carbon nanotubes and carbon nanotube-based chemical
sensors. He has published 13 peer-reviewed papers with a
total of 230 citations. He is also co-inventor on five patents and patent
applications including C2Sense's ethylene sensing and rapid prototyping
technology.
Timothy M. Swager, the John D. MacArthur Professor
of Chemistry at MIT and the Faculty Director of the
Deshpande Center for Technological Innovation
In this latter role, Professor Swager works with the
Center’s executive director to define the Center’s strategy
for fostering innovation, assists with the
commercialization of MIT technologies, and plays a key role in the grant
selection process. He also serves as the Center’s liaison to the MIT academic
community, and senior leadership, sitting on faculty and academic
committees.
Following Professor Swager’s postdoctoral appointment at MIT, he
joined the chemistry faculty at the University of Pennsylvania, returning to
MIT in 1996 as a professor of chemistry, and serving as the head of the
department of chemistry from 2005-2010.
Professor Swager’s research interests are in design, synthesis, and study
of organic-based electronic, sensory, high-strength and liquid crystalline
materials. He has published more than 350 peer-reviewed papers and more
than 50 patents, issued and pending.
He is the founder of four companies (DyNuPol, Iptyx, PolyJoule, and
C2Sense) and has served on a number of corporate and
government boards.
He received a B.S. from Montana State University in 1983 and a Ph.D.,
from the California Institute of Technology in 1988.
Trond Undheim, Ph.D., Lead, Startup Initiative,
MIT Industrial Liaison Program
Trond heads up the Startup Initiative at MIT’s
Industrial Liaison Program (ILP), facilitating
productive relationships between industry and MIT’s
startup ecosystem. He is a senior lecturer at the MIT Sloan School of
Management. Trond is a serial entrepreneur with Scandinavian roots and is
currently the founder of Yegii, Inc., the insight network, and managing
director of Tautec Consulting.
Trond is a leading expert on technology development across industries
such as IT, Energy, and Healthcare. His knowledge spans entrepreneurship,
strategy frameworks, policymaking, action learning, virtual teamwork,
knowledge management, standardization, and e-government. He wrote the
book Leadership From Below (2008). Trond speaks six languages and is a
frequent public speaker on business, technology, and wine. Trond was a
strategy/business development executive at Oracle Corp. (2008-12) and a
policymaker in the EU (2004-8) where he built the ePractice.eu web platform
with 120,000 members. He has worked with multinational companies, with
mid-caps and startups in Brazil, China, Colombia, France, Indonesia, Norway,
the UK, and the U.S.
Trond holds an M.A. in sociology and a Ph.D. in sociological
technology and policy studies from the Norwegian University of Science and
Technology.
Omer Yilmaz Ph.D., Assistant Professor of Biology,
MIT Gastrointestinal Pathologist and Massachusetts
General Hospital and Harvard Medical School
Omar Yilmaz is an assistant professor of Biology at MIT
and gastrointestinal pathologist at the Massachusetts
General Hospital and Harvard Medical School.
He is a graduate of the University of Michigan Medical School, where he
performed his thesis work under the guidance of Professor Sean Morrison. He
also spent two years as a visiting postdoctoral fellow in the laboratory of
Professor David M. Sabatini, a member of the Whitehead and Koch Institutes.

4. Presented by
!
#STEXfood East Arcade WiFi password is #CBRECamb
http://startupexchange.mit.edu
Lightning Talk
Terry Adams, Assistant Vice President for Intellectual
Asset Management, Nestle (MIT ILP Member)
Mr. Adams has spent his entire career in the consumer
products industry developing products in dozens of
different product categories for countries all over the
world. He now has responsibility for the operational and
support functions of the Intellectual Asset Management Department at
Nestle’s office in Vevey, Switzerland. Mr. Adams received his B.S. and M.S.
degrees in chemical engineering from Howard University.
Christina Agapakis, Ph.D., Creative Director, Ginkgo
Bioworks
Christina is creative director at Ginkgo Bioworks
(http://ginkgobioworks.com/), an organism design company
that is bringing biology to industries from flavor and
fragrance to nutrition and health. She received her Ph.D. in synthetic biology from
Harvard University and was a L'Oréal For Women in Science postdoctoral fellow
at UCLA.
Aleem Ahmed, Co-founder & CEO, Love Grain
Aleem first got the inspiration for Love Grain while he was
working with Ethiopia's Agricultural Transformation
Agency to improve the productivity of teff farmers. He is a
third year M.P.A and M.B.A student at Harvard Kennedy
School and MIT Sloan School of Management, where he is a
fellow with the MIT Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship.
Aleem holds a B.A. in political science from Haverford College.
Ricky Ashenfelter, Co-founder, Spoiler Alert
Ricky Ashenfelter is an M.B.A. Candidate at the MIT Sloan
School of Management and is a co-founder of Spoiler Alert,
a food tech solution to help businesses manage surplus food
and organic waste. Started while at MIT, Spoiler Alert
creates an online marketplace and SaaS model for finding
more optimal outcomes for wasted food. Visit www.foodspoileralert.com
@MySpoilerAlert. Ricky holds a B.S.B.A. in finance, management and
environmental studies from Georgetown University and will be graduating from
MIT Sloan in June 2015.
Kris Bronner, Co-creator, UNREAL Brands
Kris is a freshman at MIT and also a co-founder of
UNREAL™ Brands, a mission-based company dedicated to
proving that junk food, a leading contributor to the diabetes
and obesity epidemic, can be "unjunked." Last year,
UNREAL launched with five reinvented versions of America's favorite candies
with zero junk and up to 4 percent less sugar, but with the same great taste. The
WSJ compared UNREAL's innovation to Apple's and Ford's. He loves science,
technology, and food, and passionately believes that entrepreneurship is the
medium through which change is most influentially applied.
John Helferich, Ph.D., Candidate, MIT
John is a Ph.D. Candidate at MIT in the engineering systems
division. His dissertation research is making use of concepts
from behavioral economics and social psychology to
understand how managers make food safety decisions and
how we can modify feedback systems to help make better
decisions. He has 28 years of industry experience with Mars, Inc., Ocean Spray
Cranberries, and Procter & Gamble. John ran R&D in North America for Mars
for 10 years, from 1995 to 2005.
Sheel Shah, Senior Project Manager, Digami
Sheel is passionate about international development and
interested in exploring the role that technology can play
within the space. He is a project manager based out of India,
doing whatever is necessary to keep projects moving
forward. He brings a wide range of experience to Dimagi – he has spent time
working at Microsoft as a program manager, hospitals in Canada working on
prostate and lung cancer research, and the manufacturing and
telecommunication industries in business and technical roles. He holds a
degree in systems design engineering from the University of Waterloo.
Katherine Shamraj, Founder and CEO, Sproot/Foodium
Consultant-turned-entrepreneur with passionate interests
in food, technology, and systems thinking, Katherine is
a triple bottom line strategist who seeks opportunities to
nudge human behavior in ways that catalyze
systemic change. Her current ventures, Sproot and
Foodium, make eating good food fun and easy for people in schools and
offices. She received her M.B.A. from the Sloan School of Management.
Craig Slavtcheff, VP Global Science and Technology,
Campbell Soup Company
Craig Slavtcheff joined Campbell as Vice President-
Science and Technology, Global Research and
Development, in November 2012. He drives Campbell's
mid- and long-term innovation agenda across three global
categories: healthy beverages, baked snacks, and Soup and Simple Meals,
as well as supporting go-to-market from a Nutrition and Regulatory
standpoint. Craig’s organization is comprised of 7 teams: Next Generation
Ingredient Technology, Transformational Packaging, Process Science, Flavor
Science, Regulatory Affairs, Health & Nutrition, and Analytical Sciences. His
team identifies areas of science relevant to the Campbell business based
on consumer insights and macro-trends, and builds and executes against a 3-5
year innovation funnel. Craig earned his B.S. degree, in chemical engineering
from the University of Connecticut.