Big Ideas@Berkeley is an annual innovation contest aimed at providing funding, support, and encouragement to interdisciplinary teams of UC undergraduate and graduate students who have “big ideas.” On September 4th, Big Ideas will host a Contest Information Session with special guest Alejandro Velez, Co-founder of Back to the Roots.
Back to the Roots was founded by Alejandro and Nikhil Arora during their last semester as undergraduates at UC Berkeley in 2009. Excited by the idea of making food personal again, Alejandro and Nikhil developed a plan to grow gourmet mushrooms from used coffee grounds, and submitted their idea to the Big Ideas contest. That spring, Back to the Roots was awarded a $5000 prize from Big Ideas—launching Alejandro and Nikhil’s plan to become urban mushroom farmers into action.
To learn more about Alejandro’s inspiring story and how to enter this year’s Big Ideas@Berkeley contest, join Big Ideas at their information session or visit bigideas.berkeley.edu.