The MIT Water, Food & Agriculture Innovation Prize brings together early-stage, student-led startups from across the US, awarding $50K+ in innovation grants annually to ventures driving the future of sustainable water, food, and agricultural solutions. Since its inception in 2015, the Prize has awarded $225K to 21 winning teams.
As the main innovation-focused event of MIT Water Club and MIT Food & Agriculture Club, we help emerging entrepreneurs translate research & ideas into businesses, access mentors & resources, and build networks in the water, food, and agriculture industries. All approaches to innovation are welcome, from engineering and product design to policy and data analytics.
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5:00 PM: Check-in & Dinner
5:30 PM: Welcome Remarks & Keynote by Florian Schattenmann (Cargill CTO and VP of R&D)
6:00 PM: Finalist Pitches and Q&A with Judges
8:00 PM: Awards & Dessert
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Location:
MIT Media Lab - 6th floor
75 Amherst Street
Cambridge, MA 02139Time: 5:00pm ET - 9:00pm ET
Dress code: Smart casual
Meet our 2024 finalists
Aquasaic: Healthy water, healthy life
Crop Diagnostix: Using RNA sequencing and AI to build the largest gene expression database in agriculture
Datum Agriculture: Reinventing farmers' relationships with data
GramHeet: harnessing the power of data and AI to empower smallholder farmers in India to make agriculture profitable, climate-resilient, and future-ready
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Tarragon Systems: Helping restaurants reduce food waste with predictive AI
Keynote Florian Schattenmann
Reimagining Tomorrow: Innovating at the Intersection of Food, Agriculture, and the Bioeconomy
Florian Schattenmann is Cargill’s Chief Technology Officer and VP for Innovation and R&D, overseeing a global team driven to relentlessly create value for Cargill and its customers across agriculture, food, animal feed, and bio-industrial markets. He also leads the Strategic Growth Business Accelerator, designed to accelerate and scale cross-enterprise innovation, and science-driven strategic growth businesses currently focused on alternative proteins.
Prior to joining Cargill in 2018, Florian spent eight years at The Dow Chemical Company. He has also held leadership roles at SulphCo Inc., Momentive Performance Materials, and General Electric (GE)-Bayer Silicones, and managed several research laboratories at the GE Global Research Center. He is a member of the Board of Directors of Vernay Laboratories Inc and serves on multiple advisory boards including the College of Science and Engineering at University of Minnesota, the Department of Chemistry at University of Wisconsin-Madison, and the American Chemical Society CTO forum.
He earned his Ph.D. in inorganic chemistry from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and his Diplom Chemiker degree from the Technische Universität München in Munich, Germany.
Our judges
Dr. Ashlie Burkart, MD
Chief Scientific Officer at Germin8 Ventures and Associate in Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affaris’ Environment and Natural Resources Program. She is a practicing gastrointestinal pathologist and grant-funded researcher in gut health. Dr. Burkart received a B.A. in biology from Brown University, and M.D. from McGill University’s Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences.
Bill Harvey
Founder of Water Innovation Advisors, advising startups and venture capital firms in product commercialization and capital raising, and strategic investors in business carve-out valuations and synergy strategies. He has founded and served on the boards of technology trade associations and on the board of public water and wastewater utilities.
Dr. Erum Khalid Sattar
Researcher - LLB, LLM, SJD, Lincoln’s Inn, with degrees from University of London & Harvard Law School. She’s a Member of the Bar of England, Wales, and The Honourable Society of Lincoln’s Inn and Former Program Director of Tufts University Sustainable Water Management Program and Adjunct Professor at Pace University Elizabeth Haub School of Law. She has taught at Northeastern University School of Law and National University of Singapore School of Law.
Dr Johanna Wolfson
Co-founder and General Partner at Azolla Ventures and Co-founder of Prime Impact Fund. Johanna was previously the Technology-to-Market Director for the U.S. Department of Energy’s Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy and led startup engagement at the applied R&D lab Fraunhofer. She has a B.S. from University of Wisconsin-Madison and Ph.D. in physical chemistry from MIT.
Sezin Yigit
Associate Director of Science & Strategy, LabCentral where she is building innovation-programming focused on scientific collaborations between early-stage startups and funders. She is also the Co-founder of Mori, a start-up extending the shelf life of food with edible silk coating while reducing plastic use. She holds a BS and MS in Chemistry from Bogazici University, Istanbul/TR, a PhD in Biotechnology/Chemistry from Tufts University, and completed her postdoctoral studies at Yale University School of Medicine in Cell Biology.
Featured Alum - David Dellal, Floe Co-Founder
Floe - 2020 MIT Water Innovation Prize 2nd place winner
David, Co-founder of Floe was named to the Forbes 30 Under 30 list’s Energy Category
Testimonials
The MIT Water Innovation Prize is nurturing creative talent from across the globe to address key challenges in the water sector. As a mentor I was inspired by the abilities of the participants and the ingenuity of their solutions. I am looking forward to seeing what next years teams can do.
-Christobel Ferguson, PhD | Chief Innovation Officer | The Water Research Foundation
