Half of Food in Developed World Goes Wasted: Problem to Solve, Entrepreneurial Opportunity to Seize

Yesterday, the BBC World Service broadcast a debate on food productivity. It was mentioned that 25-30% of food fit for human consumption in developed countries is thrown away. Some data for the UK indicate the figure is one third, for the US maybe one half. One fellow-blogger has even dedicated a site to this issue. This is really appalling given how many people starve in this world. (Picture from Wasted Food.)

But certainly a clever enterpreneur could seize on this opportunity - transforming this incredible amount of waste into something both socially useful, and profitable. Maybe he could make an agreement with restaurants and supermarkets to collect their waste and then agree with a biomass producer to transform it into biomass. Or with a hygienist he could separate what is still fit for animal consumption and make that part of the waste into animal feed. Something could be made into fertilizer.

Who comes up with the best entrepreneurial plan on how to put this waste into use, gets a present from me! Send your ideas to Michal.Kohoutek@aia.cz or post them below as comments, with an address where I can reach you.

New Successful Start Up: Etsy

Although the Getcrafty website was launched in 1998, it wasn't until Robert Kalin was involved in 2004 that the online sale of handmade products became a true commercial venture - and a very successful one indeed. The Etsy company was born.

Today, Etsy brings together 70,000 sellers of handmade products such as whistles, porcelain bowls or candle holders. It has about 50 employees, and last November alone it increased sales by 43%, selling 300,000 items for a total value of $4,300,000.

You can read the whole story on the International Herald Tribune's website.

Entrepreneurship Growing in India, but...

A piece in the latest issue of the Economist makes an overview of the growing phenomenon of entrepreneurship in India. It reports the growth in the field, yet mentions several caveats. First, the judicial system is not as mature as in Silicon Valley, where the term sheets used are taken from. Second, knowledge of how to run a new business, e.g. on the financial side, is still lagging. And third, internet penetration is low, albeit growing (some say not fast enough, though), limiting the possibilities of internet start-ups.

But the biggest obstacle to an entrepreneurial boom, says the Economist, is that "[m]ost people prefer a safe job at one of the big services firms." This reminds of the Czech landscape, as was mentioned on Expats.cz. But no challenge is to be left unchallenged...

AIA at the Nation-Wide Meeting of Local Government Representatives

Today, in the somptuous hall of South Moravia Region's council hall, the Angel Investor Association spoke at the Country-wide Meeting of Local Government Representatives held in Brno and organized by Regionpartner. Present were several mayors, town parliament members and other dignitaries. Among the speakers were, besides AIA's Michal Kohoutek, Mr Ponikelský of the National Academy of Regional Management, Mrs Ostruhová, director of the Ministry of Interior Department of Supervision on Public Administration, and Mr Andrýsek of QCM, s.r.o.

The need was stressed for a synergy between public and private initiatives such as AIA's, to promote the growth of entrepreneurship and SME's. The aim of AIA's presentation was to educate public sector representatives on angel start up capital and on its role in fostering grassroots business life.

Lay Back and Let the Machine Innovate for You

Do you know how "long-life USB memory sticks, superfast racing-yacht keels, ultra-high bandwidth optical fibres, improved cochlear implants and a cancer-biopsy analyser that matches a human pathologist's tumour-spotting skills" were all invented? The answer is: by a machine. Or rather, to be more precise, by a program called "an evolutionary algorithm", as reported in the Economist's latest Technology Quarterly. The idea is Darwinian: you program a computer to try as many variations on a theme until it spots the most useful and inventive one and "selects" it.

The funniest part of the article comes at the end:

"[Dr Koza's] team at Stanford developed a Wi-Fi antenna for a client who did not want to pay a patent-licence fee to Cisco Systems. The team fed the algorithm as much data as they could from the Cisco patent and told the software to design around it. It succeeded in doing so. The result is a design that does not infringe Cisco's patent—and is more efficient to boot. A century and a half after Darwin suggested natural selection as the mechanism of evolution, engineers have proved him right once again."

Agreement Reached on Fostering Research in Angel Field: AIA at Masaryk University

Today, AIA's Michal Kohoutek was invited to hold a guest lecture at Masaryk University's Faculty of Economics and Administration at the invitation of the Department of Finance chairman, Dr František Kalouda (the two are portrayed on the left, after the lecture).

The lecture was held in a jovial atmosphere thanks to Dr Kalouda's rapport with his students and their trust in his expertise and his supportiveness. Michal started his lecture by asking the attending students how many were running a business and how many would like to. From about a 10% positive response to the first question, the share jumped to more than 60% after the second.

To the question if they had heard of the concept of "business angel" or "angel investor" before, only a handful answered affirmatively, which led to a presentation of who such investors are and to examples of successful angel investments. Many passionate questions were asked by the students about the mechanics of how entrepreneurs initiate angel fund raising and how investors approach their decision making, which showed both the interest in this form of financing and the need to educate the future Czech business leaders about it.

After the lecture, Michal Kohoutek and Dr Kalouda agreed about the need for a reliable assessment of the weight of angel investments in the Czech economy and for creating a local research point analogous to the American Centre for Venture Research led by Professor Sohl. They agreed on specific steps about how to improve the situation, to be disclosed soon.

Feast for Entrepreneurs: European Forum with 200 Angel Investors!

From February 25th to 26th, Milan is going to host the third European EASY forum, where up to 200 investors attend presentations of 22 entrepreneurs trying to raise angel money for their projects, to be selected by an expert committee by December 15th. This is an unmissable opportunity for entrepreneurs who are serious about starting their business or are trying to expand it, and are in one of these four sectors:

• Med-tech and Healthcare (technologies and service applications for health and medicine)
• Design (products across all sectors which focus on design)
• Transportation and logistics (technologies and service applications)
• Cleantech (environment and energy technologies)

If you want to apply for attending, visit http://www.earlystageinvestors.org/ and email me at Michal.Kohoutek@aia.cz by December 15th. The Angel Investor Association is a partner of the EASY project and will be submitting its candidates.

Don't miss this opportunity!