How will we feed the next billion?

Tony's interview from the XPRIZE: Future Positive podcast

Posted by: Team Tony

For over 25 years, XPRIZE has convened the brightest minds from around the globe to tackle the world’s greatest challenges. One of the most pressing problems facing humanity today is food insecurity, and the need for nutritious, affordable, and sustainably-sourced food has reached critical status.

In this exciting episode with XPRIZE Founder and Executive Chairman, Peter H. Diamandis, Tony talks about the inspiration behind the latest competition, $15M XPRIZE Feed the Next Billion. This episode was republished with permission from XPRIZE: Future Positive.

Select Your Preferred Platform

By 2050, Earth’s population will have reached 9.7 billion. The demand for high protein products is increasing while the impact from current meat production practices is devastating our planet. The COVID-19 pandemic has worsened food insecurity, food safety, and access for many communities around the world. Furthermore, cities projected to face rapid population growth and wealth increase are experiencing surges in demand for poultry and fish as opposed to red meat.

While there is increasing activity in utilizing plant-based and cultivated approaches to create meat alternatives, more work is needed to make it widespread. XPRIZE Feed the Next Billion is a four-year, $15M competition incentivizing teams to produce chicken and fish alternatives that replicate or outperform conventional protein in structure, versatility, sensory properties, and nutritional profile, while having a lower comparable environmental footprint.

This competition is through a partnership with ASPIRE, a part of Abu Dhabi’s Advanced Technology Research Council (ATRC) which funds research and runs global tech competitions. The prize is supported by The Tony Robbins Foundation. The Good Food Institute, an international nonprofit focused on cultivated meat and plant-based alternatives, will act as a team success partner throughout the competition.

Tony has made it one of his life’s missions to help feed as many people as possible. His family struggled to put food on the table growing up, and it was one stranger’s kindness that inspired Tony to give back as an adult. As a philanthropist, through his partnership with Feeding America, Tony has provided over 500 million meals in the last 5 years to those in need. He’s on track to provide 1 billion meals over the next 5 years.

He has also initiated programs in more than 1,500 schools, 700 prisons, and 50,000 service organizations and shelters.  He provides fresh water to 250,000 people a day in India in order to fight waterborne diseases, the number one killer of children in that country. 

Recently named by Fortune as one of the “World’s 50 Greatest Leaders,” Peter H. Diamandis is the founder and executive chairman of the XPRIZE Foundation, which leads the world in designing and operating large-scale incentive competitions. He is also the executive founder of Singularity University, a graduate-level Silicon Valley institution that counsels the world’s leaders on exponentially growing technologies.

As an entrepreneur, Diamandis has started over 20 companies in the areas of longevity, space, venture capital and education. He is cofounder of BOLD Capital Partners, a venture fund with $250M investing in exponential technologies, and co-founder and Vice Chairman of Celularity, Inc., a cellular therapeutics company.

Diamandis is a New York Times Bestselling author of two books: Abundance – The Future Is Better Than You Think and BOLD – How to go Big, Create Wealth & Impact the World. His newest book in this series of exponential technologies – The Future is Faster Than You Think – was released on January 28, 2020. He earned degrees in molecular genetics and aerospace engineering from MIT and holds an M.D. from Harvard Medical School. Diamandis’ favorite saying is “the best way to predict the future is to create it yourself.”

These two men have so much to offer our planet. Solving world hunger while saving the environment? It’s the stuff of miracles, thanks to Tony and Peter and the brilliant minds of these competitors. 

EPISODE NOTES

00:00:16 Tony’s fight against hunger

00:01:50 Welcome from Peter

00:03:02 The Learning XPRIZE

00:04:15 The grounds for the competition

00:04:42 Tony’s Thanksgiving as a child

00:06:30 Getting your head around the world hunger crisis

00:07:30 The problem with meat

00:07:51 Four things our current meat structure is doing

00:08:39 Animal impact on water

00:09:22 Stem-cell grown meat

00:10:00 Tony explains the criteria

00:10:38 Peter speaks to the current state of affairs

00:12:00 A desire for higher quality protein

00:12:38 Bringing the price down

00:13:34 In the kitchen

00:14:45 Tony partners with some amazing people

00:15:20 Two tracks for the competition

00:16:40 The goal is to make a dent in the problem

00:17:40 Peter talks about past XPRIZE results

00:19:20 “The day before something is truly a breakthrough, it’s a crazy idea”

00:20:20 What is food?

00:21:20 Tony talks about meeting people where they are

00:22:00 The rules

00:25:38 Prizes!

00:26:34 “Deadlines are what get people to accelerate, compete, push”

00:27:22 We create the future we desire

00:28:20 Tony’s teacher

00:30:40 More on XPRIZE