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How I Built a Machine That Feeds Millions | Felix Brooks-church | TED
How I Built a Machine That Feeds Millions | Felix Brooks-church | TED
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字幕 (335)
0:04
I'm willing to bet that all of us this
0:06
week ate a meal that contained at least
0:08
one of these ingredients.
0:10
Salt,
0:12
edible oil,
0:14
flour.
0:15
No matter where you live in the world,
0:17
you're cooking with that. That's the
0:18
foundation of everything we eat.
0:21
That's why it's called staple foods, and
0:23
that's why they're so important.
0:25
If you want to get nutrients into
0:26
people, the most efficient way isn't to
0:28
change the food that they eat,
0:31
but instead to improve the daily food
0:34
that they already rely on.
0:36
That's the idea, and that's the idea
0:38
behind food fortification, something I
0:40
know a lot about.
0:43
We probably all benefited from this
0:44
already this morning and didn't even
0:46
realize it.
0:48
If you ate eggs cooked in oil, that oil
0:50
had vitamin A.
0:52
Had toast, that bread had zinc and iron.
0:55
Even the salt that you sprinkled onto
0:57
that breakfast was iodized. This isn't
1:00
some overly processed GMO approach. This
1:02
is simple, safe, proven science, and
1:05
it's about 100 years old.
1:07
In fact, malnutrition caused by lack of
1:09
nutrients has all but disappeared in
1:11
countries where food fortification
1:13
works.
1:15
But only works where the system works.
1:17
And unfortunately, in many countries in
1:19
the global south,
1:21
that system is either broken or
1:23
nonexistent.
1:25
A farmer grows a crop like maize. A
1:27
miller buys that grain, grinds it into
1:30
flour. A mother buys that flour, takes
1:31
it home, feeds her kid.
1:33
Bellies are full, but full bellies are
1:35
not enough.
1:36
If you're only eating that starch, which
1:38
is often the case, you're literally
1:40
starving from lack of nutrients.
1:43
That's why it's called hidden hunger.
1:45
It's a big one.
1:46
It affects 3 billion people, and of
1:49
course kids suffer most.
1:51
Stunting,
1:52
delayed brain development, lifelong
1:55
deformities. And today,
1:57
unfortunately, thousands of kids will
1:59
die from preventable sickness and
2:01
illness.
2:03
But there is hope, and there's some
2:05
incredible people working on very
2:07
innovative ways to solve this problem.
2:09
This is my buddy Kurt in Guatemala. His
2:11
company Semilla Nueva is on the
2:12
forefront of biofortification,
2:15
helping farmers to grow nutritious crops
2:17
from the start. Jahiu, one of my board
2:19
members, based in Kenya. His company
2:21
Hello Tractor is connecting farmers with
2:24
mechanization and digital platforms,
2:26
increasing yields and livelihoods. It's
2:29
like the Uber for tractor. Super cool.
2:31
My other buddy, Gayatri, based out of
2:34
Rwanda. Her company EarthEnable is
2:36
replacing dirt floors in village homes
2:39
with more sustainable materials,
2:41
ensuring kids don't get sick and can
2:42
actually absorb the nutrients they
2:44
deserve.
2:45
Different approaches, same mission.
2:49
So as Kurt and Jahiu sit at the farm,
2:52
and Gayatri at the family, where do I
2:54
fit?
2:55
Here, at the mill. In the middle,
2:58
between where food is grown and food is
2:59
consumed.
3:01
At Sanku, a social enterprise I
3:03
co-founded with David Dawson, the aha
3:05
moment was, if we could build a machine
3:08
that sits on that green mill
3:10
and adds nutrients into the flour, we're
3:12
going to fortify the entire village.
3:15
And credit to David, who saw this super
3:17
early over 20 years ago,
3:19
that although individually small, these
3:21
mills, about the size of a bedroom,
3:23
collectively, thousands of these mills
3:25
feed entire nations.
3:28
And so now fortification is not a
3:30
nice-to-have, it is a basic human right.
3:34
So, with that inspiration, with that
3:36
vision, I took off to Kathmandu and
3:38
landed there in 2010 to do just that, to
3:41
build these prototypes. The one on the
3:42
left was something I built in the first
3:45
couple weeks after visiting some mills.
3:47
Uh I looked very confident, the machine
3:49
did not work. And it over the course of
3:52
the year, I broke a lot of things. I
3:54
failed forward. And after a year, I
3:56
built the one on the right that kind of
3:59
worked.
4:00
But as you can see, that year took a big
4:02
toll on me. That was rough.
4:04
I've recovered.
4:05
So, I had the confidence now in
4:07
something that kind of worked. I
4:08
thought, well, let me head to East
4:09
Africa and test it there to ultimately
4:11
scale across continents.
4:13
And I landed in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania.
4:16
And within a matter of days, after
4:18
visiting some mills, I didn't have an
4:20
aha moment. I had a crap moment. Those
4:22
mills were completely different.
4:25
And so, my machine didn't work there. I
4:26
had to go back to the drawing board. I
4:27
spent an entire year on this dirt floor
4:30
metal shop banging out devices until I
4:32
had something that could be installed. I
4:34
covered hundreds of mills across East
4:36
Africa, literally dragging that machine
4:38
across borders, meeting hundreds of
4:40
millers, and learning from them and
4:42
co-designing. Because we knew if it
4:44
could work here, in a village in Nepal,
4:46
in a village in Malawi,
4:48
in Tanzania,
4:50
in Kenya,
4:51
it could work anywhere.
4:53
And by 2015, we had our machine. We
4:55
commercialized it. We called it the
4:57
Sanku Dosifier because it doses.
5:00
And it's super simple, super
5:01
lightweight, attaches to that grain
5:03
mill, that's the same one I showed
5:04
earlier, and automates the process of
5:06
adding life-saving nutrients into the
5:08
flour that people eat every single day.
5:11
The way it works is simple. The miller
5:13
adds raw grain into one side, in the
5:15
dispenser is a condensed powdered form
5:17
of nutrients. Just think about your
5:19
daily vitamin. If you were to crush it
5:20
up, it becomes powder. Exactly same
5:22
thing.
5:23
As that raw grain flows out of our
5:25
machine and into the mill, that loss of
5:27
weight is detected
5:29
and automatically triggers a little feed
5:31
screw to turn and dose a precise amount
5:33
of premix every single time.
5:35
Those nutrients and that grain flow
5:37
together and gets mixed in the actual
5:39
mill and out comes fortified flour. It's
5:42
that simple. So,
5:44
we weren't just building a machine. We
5:45
were also trying to build a company.
5:48
And there was tens of thousands of
5:49
mills, so operationally we couldn't have
5:51
thousands of staff and thousands of
5:52
vehicles driving around all of East
5:55
Africa aimlessly looking for mills
5:56
trying to figure out which ones to fix.
5:58
And so again, we turned to technology.
6:01
We installed SIM cards, just like the
6:03
from your phone, in each and every one
6:04
of our dosifiers. So real-time
6:06
production can flow through the near
6:08
cell tower to our devices. We know
6:11
exactly where the mills are, how much
6:13
they're producing, how much nutrients
6:14
they're adding, is that accurate, does
6:16
that machine need fixed. That
6:18
operational efficiency allowed us to
6:20
scale, and by 2020 we reached our first
6:22
milestone, reaching 1 million people in
6:25
Tanzania.
6:27
>> [applause]
6:31
>> It gets better. Right around that time,
6:33
MacKenzie Scott found us, loved what we
6:36
did, gave us a big $8 million
6:38
unrestricted grant.
6:40
>> [applause]
6:42
>> There are There are good billionaires,
6:44
trust me.
6:45
Now her generosity was was beyond
6:48
catalytic, not just because of the size
6:49
of the grant, but because what we
6:51
decided to use it for. We could have
6:53
easily thrown it at our overhead, at our
6:54
burn rate, it would have been eaten up
6:56
within 3 years.
6:57
But we invested in future. We invested
6:59
in infrastructure. We hired an all
7:01
African exec team for leadership and
7:03
expertise.
7:05
We built East Africa's first nutrient
7:07
premix factory to reduce our cost at
7:09
scale.
7:10
We further developed the technology and
7:11
systems for scale, not just to reach a
7:13
couple million people,
7:15
but soon tens and hundreds of millions
7:17
of people.
7:18
And we built a lot of dosifiers, over a
7:20
thousand, scaled throughout Tanzania,
7:23
expanded into Kenya, and last year into
7:25
Ethiopia.
7:27
And grew from reaching that 1 million
7:28
people to today,
7:30
reaching 75 million people every single
7:33
day.
7:34
>> [applause]
7:38
>> I told you it was going to get better.
7:41
So as a social enterprise, we recognize
7:43
this is a big problem and it's not just
7:45
our responsibility to solve.
7:47
And so, we're not just trying to build a
7:48
company, we're trying to build an
7:49
industry and we need partners. And we
7:51
work very closely with the governments
7:53
in the countries we operate in.
7:55
We work with them to pass stronger
7:56
policies mandating fortification.
7:59
We upskill their labs with better
8:01
equipment and protocols so they can
8:02
accurately test flour in the market.
8:05
We even train their food inspectors and
8:06
give them tools so they can regulate the
8:08
entire industry. This is our systems
8:10
change piece and this is what's going to
8:12
get us to truly scale.
8:14
And so, we're about 24 months away from
8:17
our original goal of reaching 100
8:19
million people.
8:20
And so, line of sight is there and as
8:22
you approach a goal or achieve a dream,
8:24
you got to start thinking bigger.
8:26
And we do have a new vision and this is
8:28
actually the first time I'm announcing
8:29
it publicly.
8:30
We have a new vision
8:32
that we call the 10
8:34
10 1.
8:37
Over the next 10 years, we're going to
8:38
scale to 10 countries and reach 1
8:41
billion people.
8:42
>> [applause]
8:47
>> Any number with a B is audacious, but
8:49
that is the point. There's a sense of
8:51
urgency and within the context that
8:53
governments now are mandating
8:54
fortification across Africa and Asia.
8:57
The system is starting to work. The
8:59
machine works, the model does too.
9:01
And every day I drive to work,
9:03
I see it in real life.
9:06
Every day I come home,
9:08
I see it working as well.
9:10
This is Leo.
9:11
Leo's my son and as you can see from his
9:13
t-shirt, he loves dinosaurs.
9:16
Just before I flew here, he was telling
9:18
me about his latest favorite one, the
9:19
Stegosaurus. That's the one with the big
9:21
plates and the spikes.
9:23
Leo is autistic and because of his
9:26
autism, he has an extreme eating
9:29
disorder.
9:30
And for many years, all he would eat was
9:32
pancakes.
9:34
Perfectly round, perfectly brown
9:36
pancakes. Flour.
9:39
And because of his autism,
9:41
he was wasting away in front of us.
9:44
Completely non-verbal,
9:46
aloof.
9:48
And so my wife, Leah, not to be confused
9:51
with Leo,
9:52
she actually works with us and and what
9:54
she did is is the obvious thing and the
9:55
simple thing.
9:57
She added the vitamins and minerals that
9:59
was missing from Leo's body into that
10:02
pancake mix.
10:04
It didn't change the look, the taste,
10:05
the color.
10:06
That's how fortification works. It's
10:07
invisible.
10:09
But the results were extremely visible.
10:12
He got strong.
10:14
He woke up.
10:16
He started to speak. This is a kid a
10:18
couple years ago couldn't say a single
10:20
syllable. Now he's teaching me about the
10:22
Stegosaurus, right?
10:26
Trust me, there is
10:28
>> [applause]
10:31
>> Thank you.
10:32
There is a long long journey, uh, speech
10:35
therapy,
10:36
foods therapy, special tutoring. He's
10:38
got a team. He needs a team.
10:40
But it's been an absolute privilege to
10:43
witness what a simple thing like adding
10:46
vitamins and minerals to a kid's
10:48
pancake, how it can change his life.
10:52
Think about what that can do for
10:53
millions of other children.
10:55
Leo finally went to school last year
10:58
and as of very recently, me and Leah are
11:01
proud parents of a graduate.
11:04
>> [applause]
11:07
>> It's kindergarten. It's kindergarten,
11:09
but it's the first step. It's a
11:10
milestone. We'll definitely take it.
11:12
And, uh, we're very proud.
11:15
And to watch him grow has been amazing.
11:19
3 billion people
11:21
suffer from this hidden hunger.
11:23
And so this is not somebody else's
11:24
problem.
11:26
This is all of us. Thank you.
11:29
>> [applause]
11:30
>> Woo!
