Technology and Entrepreneurship 12 57 71 Making Every Big Data: the New Face Nutrition
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Details on the ELEVATOR PITCH CONTEST ⇢ page 07 TECHNOLOGY AND ENTREPRENEURSHIP 12 57 71 MAKING EVERY BIG DATA: THE NEW FACE NUTRITION MOVE COUNT FOR HUMANITARIAN AID ENTREPRENEURS Contents 05 Editorial Special Feature 08 Infograph Innovative Technologies from Farm to Fork 84 New Horizons for the Forgotten Generation Food for Thought 91 Multisectoral Tools to Guide National and District Anemia Programming 10 Big Data: A Gift to the Nutrition Community? 97 The Belly of Paris: Hunger in the face of plenty 12 Making Every Move Count The Bigger Picture Research-Based Evidence 102 A Day in the Life of Rajan Sankar 20 Carotenoids and Breast Cancer Congress Reports 27 The Sociocultural Drivers of Food Choices 106 The 18th International Symposium on Carotenoids Perspectives in Nutrition Science Field Reports 36 New Allies Accelerate the Fight against Malnutrition 112 The Power of Portable Micronutrient Testing 42 Omics Innovations and Applications for Public Health Nutrition 118 Knowledge Can Empower 53 Insect Rearing for Processing Protein in Animal Feed 123 Leveraging Women’s Empowerment and Entrepreneurship for Targeting Malnutrition 57 Big Data: The New Face of Humanitarian Aid 128 Eggciting Innovations 61 Technology-Enabled Incentives for Last-Mile Entrepreneurs 133 Six Important Characteristics of a Successful Microfranchisee 65 Using Mobile Technology for Nutrition Programs 144 What’s new 71 Nutrition Entrepreneurs 164 Reviews & Notices 78 Personalized Nutrition 166 Imprint ⇢ 04 EDITORIAL “ Telemedicine, predictive diagnostics, wearable sensors and a host of new mobile applications are transforming how people manage their health” 05 Welcome Technology: a tectonic movement in all forms in even the remotest areas of the world. Knowledge, Three tectonic movements are reshaping the world today: tech- capital and resources to launch a new venture are just “a click nology, globalization and climate change, observes Thomas away.” Today, more than 38 low- and middle-income countries Friedman in his recent book Thank You for Being Late.1 They are actively report entrepreneurial activities. In the 2017 Global tectonic because their growth no longer takes the linear form Entrepreneurship Report,2 Africa is the region that reports the that we humans are used to. And they are tectonic because they most positive attitudes towards entrepreneurship, with three- are exponentially reshaping how we create, how we collaborate, quarters of working-age adults considering entrepreneurship a how we think and how we act. They create opportunities for in- good career choice. In Burkina Faso, for example, high rates of dividuals or small groups, even for those with limited resources established business ownership are accompanied by high early- in remote areas. stage entrepreneurial rates; close to two-thirds of working-age Giant leaps in technology have been possible as innovations adults are starting up or running their own businesses. rapidly built on each other, narrowing the gap between learn- Achieving the World Health Assembly targets for nutrition ing and adapting. In most cases, they have been tremendously in the sub-Saharan Africa region alone will cost US$27 billion efficient and beneficial. For instance, the cost of DNA sequenc- over ten years, on top of current investments. However, if cur- ing per genome was US$100 million in 2001. Today it costs just rent investments and approaches continue under business as US$1,000. It took only 10 years for mobile phones to be used in usual, the targets will not be achieved.3 This is when social en- low-income countries from the time they were first introduced in trepreneurs are required to step in, to disrupt business as usual developed countries. Mobile-phone-based money transfer such by tackling barriers in reaching the last-mile profitably in many as M-Pesa has revolutionized payment systems in a number of domains such as microfinancing or social franchising at scale. low- and middle-income countries. Telemedicine, predictive diag- Social entrepreneurs can tackle society’s most complex issues, nostics, wearable sensors and a host of new mobile applications while functioning like a business. are transforming how people manage their health. The eventual winners will be those who can avoid becoming patients at all. “ Technology plays an increasingly Agriculture innovators too have made significant progress to prepare for the need to feed 10 billion people by 2050 while important role in enabling the protecting our precious resources – land and sea. Smart tech- implementation of high-quality nologies such as low-cost sensors for soil, irrigation and cloud computing have empowered farmers to make data-driven deci- public health nutrition programs” sions, access best practices in real time, and minimize use of inputs, putting them in a position to conserve resources while improving productivity. Advances in genome sequencing, aerial Joining forces: technology and entrepreneurship and satellite coverage, and mobile platforms for precision farm- Technology plays an increasingly important role in enabling the ing will also benefit smallholder farmers. Further, growing cycles implementation of high-quality public health nutrition programs. can be reduced and food can be grown by anyone, anywhere – Similarly, innovative entrepreneurial solutions are required to even in tiny urban spaces. improve access to proven solutions and ensure sustainability. We are grateful to the innovators and entrepreneurs who Entrepreneurship: disrupting “business as usual” have contributed to this issue, providing ideas and pragmatic Two of these tectonic movements – technology and globalization perspectives on how to leverage technology and entrepreneur- – have led to a major phenomenon: the rise in entrepreneurship ship to reduce the extent of malnutrition facing our world today. 06 EDITORIAL We are inspired to visualize innovative technologies from farm In the field reports section, we have case studies and valu- to fork in our infographic. Stuart Gillespie from the Internation- able lessons learnt from the use of field-friendly technologies al Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) provides a refreshing and social business models. Holly McKee and Dr Anna Zhenchuk “Food for Thought” contribution entitled Pivotal Movement, a from BioAnalyt explain the power of portable testing, outlining platform that uses fitness tracking technology to turn calories how they created a miniature lab that can be used by anyone, burnt into increased funding for nutrition projects. anywhere. Leah Newman and her colleagues from 3-2-1 Online Measuring nutritional status and outcomes in low-resource have repurposed existing technology using Interactive Voice Re- settings has been a complex issue that has prevented nutri- sponse, which works as a search engine in contexts where there tion programs from scaling up in the past. Having worked on is no internet, and allows people to use any mobile phone to this challenge for years, David Boyle, Katharine Kreis and Laura select and listen to actionable nutrition information, among a Anderson from PATH discuss a new generation of field-friendly range of topics. Kasim Saiyyad, Bhaskar Mittra and Prabhu Pin- diagnostics, screening devices and tools. Sun Eun Lee from John gali from Tata-Cornell Agriculture and Nutrition Initiative pro- Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health provides a compel- vide insights into leveraging self-help groups to mobilize women ling example of how to fill gaps in biological knowledge and entrepreneurs in rural areas and create a sustainable supply and provide roadmaps to prevention through “omic” technologies consumption of essential micronutrients. Siddharth Tata – a that are poised to move from discovery to delivery. An entre- budding entrepreneur – and I discuss the role of entrepreneur- preneur from Germany, Heinrich Katz, and his colleague Winnie ship in improving the profits of backyard poultry farmers. This Nyakerario Akara provide an example of a technology that can section concludes with a thoughtful analysis of a popular social be cost-effectively scaled up in resource-poor settings: the mass entrepreneur model, microfranchising, by my colleague Kesso processing of insects for protein food or feed. Gabrielle van Zutphen. Robert Hoekman from 510 Global outlines a new direction for Technology and entrepreneurial approaches will together be using Big Data for aid. He provides examples of data-driven solu- critical to all aspects of improving nutrition in resource-limited tions to some of the world’s most difficult and dangerous chal- environments, including prevention and education, affordable lenges. Anna Allen and Dejus Abreu from a new social enterprise, product interventions, efficient supply chains, and monitoring Triggerise, eloquently merge technology and entrepreneurship and evaluation. This is a trend that is expected to accelerate, if in their “Perspective” article. Triggerise uses a mobile platform not to become actually tectonic, in the next decade. to provide results-based incentives for last-mile entrepreneurs while improving access to health and nutrition services for preg- Warm regards nant women. Shreya Bhatt from Medic Mobile provides a simple four-step process and a practical guide to designing, building and scaling up mHealth innovations. Srujith Lingala and I sum- marize successful social business models from our landscape analysis in East Africa in the article “The Nutrition Entrepre- Kalpana Beesabathuni neurs.” Arnold Gloor from Medudem