Global Food Venture Programme

Global Food Venture, EIT Food’s flagship Doctoral Programme for entrepreneurial PhD students across Europe.

2018201920202021

Doctoral Programme for entrepreneurial PhD students!

OPEN Call 2021: 'Pathways to Impact'

We are excited to announce that the Global Food Venture Programme of EIT Food will offer a new course to talented PhD students from across Europe and globally! Join us now, if you want to:

learn how to change the world using your research
get an introduction to technology commercialisation
dive into EIT Food network of leading academic & industry partners
bring entrepreneurial skills into your work
boost your future career

Application for Cohort 1 is CLOSED

Application for Cohort 2 is OPEN

Rolling Enrollment up to 15th of December!

Our online learning platform is fully interactive and enables you to engage with our top-notch trainers and mentors. By learning online with us we enable you a much greater flexibility and the comfort to learn at times and from locations that suit you and from your own home or workplace.

By enrolling to our training on 'Pathways to Impact' you will not only have access to GFVP's excellent resources, but also become part of inspiring EIT Food community.

A small portion of the total cost of the training will be charged as a participation fee. Entry fee for 2021 will be 120 EUR.

COURSE OVERVIEW

This course will provide an introduction and starting tools on how to change the world by using your research.

You will be trained by top EIT Food partners coming from higher education institutions like Cambridge University and Aarhus University, whose expertise lies in entrepreneurship, innovation, and commercialisation of academic research.

Throughout the course we will focus on following key topics: Pathways to Impact, Ideation, Entrepreneurs´ Cases, Market scoping, Problem/Solution fit, Commercialization of Innovation, Protect your IP, Business Models, Venture Finance, Evaluate & Communicate your impact, Practice pitching & appreciate feedback.

Throughout the course you will be offered a unique mentoring experience by EIT Food GFVP partners, who will support you with your research commercialisation.

Download the Syllabus of Pathways to Impact!

APPLY NOW

TESTIMONIALS GFVP WINNERS 2021

Project Haltrack - Building a marking block chain practical simulation or model for improving halal traceability.

Nurhayati Nurhayati Experience: "Thank you abundantly for the opportunity given by this program. I learnt how to develop a scalable and sustainable business plan with sound financial projection. The support given by mentors gave me and hence HALTRACK team challenging and constructive feedback. My team and I were so excited to explore business opportunities starting from ideas to amplify the concept of Halal lifestyle by utilizing blockchain technology and involving various stakeholders in the food industry and how the solution benefits the society. Working in two time zones, Indonesia and Central Europe was not easy but with trust and smart teamwork in doing this project, we could finish it. The experience in the program was fruitful, HALTRACK team and I are now encouraged to make it happen and be sustainable. In short, two thumbs up for the program."

Project Choose Eat - An innovative interface web service for personalized Menus based on dietary restrictions for the global catering service markets. Our machine learning software will serve a new food option to those people suffering different kind of food reactions to find the correct menu by matching his/her food profile with the caterer available menus and change some dishes/ingredients creating a new personalized menu for them (according to their dietary restrictions) Thus each personalized Menu can be part in our web Multi-personalized platform to serve other users/caterers that may have similar requirements and may need those menus to be shared among them.

Claudia Capello Experience: "When I found out about the chance to join the GFVP I started seeing the great opportunity to improve my entrepreneurial skills and finally realize the idea in the food field I had in mind already for a few years. I really couldn’t have imagined that this programme would have helped me to validate my idea and bring it to the next level. It allowed me to learn new skills, meet expert mentors and colleagues with the same interest in the agri-food and food fields. It is not an easy programme in which you just sit in front of the pc listening to their suggestions, but there is a lot of hard work behind: training bootcamps, group projects, workshops, networking events with people from all around the world, coaching and guidance from experts, homework, and much more. This programme is exactly what you need to get out of your comfort zone, find yourself in the fascinating world of business and finally turn your idea into a real startup."

Jose Luis Antezana Experience: "It was really an incredible experience knowing a lot different peers with different backgrounds from so many countries, working neck to neck day by day, meeting after meeting, sometimes even I had to work from midnight till very early morning because at that time I was living in another time schedule in Taiwan (Asia time Zone) nevertheless I felt really motivated to do my best to bring our idea together with my colleague from Italy Claudia Capello to reality. Since the beginning it was not an easy task, since I had different time schedules it was hard to have the meetings with Claudia and also with our mentors, happily we got the meetings with them and got and amazing feedbacks with them making us putting our feet back to the ground again and again till our project can be better. Thus we got a lot amazing couching and inspirational sharing’s during the program about financial projections, IP, branding, etc, as I said they really gave us the wings to fly to make our project true. Basically in summary what we are looking for with our project is to create a new food platform that can connect Guest food restrictions with the complete services HORECA (Hotel, Restaurants & Catering) with our app both parties will get personalized menus created by our revolutionary algorithm for multi-personalized menus, speeding up the services, and having those users profiles ready to use into other apps from the HORECA industry. On this way we will simplify the service for the ones with food restrictions and avoid them any involuntary food-cross contamination that happened sometimes in this niche market."

Project Insects4All - Insects4all offers a package for insect farming consisting of a technologically controlled and fully automated portable insect farm together with black fly soldier (BFS) larvae for the production of insect-based feed. By simply adding manure/food waste/vegetable by-products to our package, animal producers would easily produce BFS insects that can then be immediately used to feed pigs and poultry.

Niculina-Iudita Sampalean Experience - "I see the GFVP a unique chance, and I am happy that I took it. During the programme I had the opportunity to interact with so many real experts and learned how to build up a start-up from my business idea. The best points of this programme are, in my opinion, the mobility grant, the one to one coaching and the mentoring activities. I am saying this, as based on the continuous feedback I had from my mentors and coaches I manage to continuously test different aspects of my business. As sometimes I had discovered unfavourable aspects I managed to adapt and reinvent, thanks to their help. This programme’s best assets are all the people you meet, from Chryssa and Maximiliane who were always available and ready to help us on anything and the programme’s participants, my adventure companions, that are the future start-uppers with whom I hope to stay in contact for as long as possible."

Closed CALLS GFVP 2021: Stage I & Stage II

Global Food Venture Programme Stage I & Stage II welcome their 2021 Cohort! They offer a 6-Month curriculum designed to address the needs of aspiring entrepreneurs and early phase start-up ventures from PhD students. It comprises exciting activities like a 10-day Summer School in Entrepreneurship, 1-week Bootcamp in Business Incubation, International Bootcamp with experts from the famous Silicon Valley and individual Mobility Grants for business meetings with industry partners to validate technology feasibility and value propositions. The programme is divided in two independent stages (Stage I & Stage II), which can be completed in consecutive years or within the same one. The 2021 Stage II edition will conclude with a Final Competition Event, where students pitch their business plan in front of a jury and have the chance to win up to 10K cash Prizes for best start-up project. Participants are supported along this journey with one-on-one Business Coaching to advance start-up ideas and create solid business propositions in food & agtech space.

Download

Pathways to Impact

GFVP Kicks-off its new course!

learn how to change the world using your research
get an introduction to technology commercialisation
dive into EIT Food network of leading academic & industry partners
bring entrepreneurial skills into your work
boost your future career

What will you gain?

1. You will gain entrepreneurial skills, which can benefit your research funding, employability or get inspired in creating a spin-out.

2. You will have a polished 5 min pitch deck, that will clearly describe the impact of your research!

3. You will learn how to take a complex research concept, like your PhD, and formulate it into clear value propositions that can be used in your grant applications, for potential investors and other stakeholders.

Our offer!

1. Access to five (5) Asynchronous Modules with small assignments on EIT Food education learning platform CANVAS (15 h of offline work).

2. One-on-one mentoring over a 4 to 8 weeks period, from GFVP partners that have vast experience in supporting PhDs to acquire entrepreneurial skills.

3. Participation in a series of synchronous workshops so that you do not feel alone in your journey.

How to apply

Pathways to Impact course offers two terms to which you can apply to: Cohort 1 and Cohort 2 (see below section Course Structure & Timeline for further details). As a participant in Cohort 1, you will be able to decide if you will fully follow its timeline, or you will participate in the pitch training & the final event of cohort 2!

Cohort 1

From 24th Nov, you will be able to access online entrepreneurship material and learn on your own schedule.
Be prepared to pitch your PhD project on Dec 3!
Afterwards you will receive weekly 1:1 mentoring.
You will be able to select a date on which you will pitch (Closing Event) in front of a jury on 10th of Jan 2022.
An Online Event will be organised to provide you with group feedback sessions by mentors. You will also meet inspirational guest speakers and much more!

Deadline 29th of November

Download the Syllabus of Pathways to Impact Cohort 1!

Cohort 2

From 4 - 16th Dec, you will be able to access online entrepreneurship material and learn on your own schedule.
Be prepared to pitch your PhD project on Dec 17!
Afterwards you will receive weekly 1:1 mentoring.
You will pitch (Closing Event) in front of a jury on 27th of Jan 2022.
An Online Event will be organised to provide you with group feedback sessions by mentors. You will also meet inspirational guest speakers and much more!

Deadline 15th of December

Download the Syllabus of Pathways to Impact Cohort 2!

APPLY TODAY FOR COHORT 2

Programme Calls

How to Apply

GFVP Stage I: Idea Development

You don't need an idea to join our Stage I program. We choose people based on their entrepreneurial spirit namely, those interested to understand the essentials of entrepreneurship and develop a research-based venture idea to tackle our food system's most pressing issues. Application phase for Stage I ends on May 10, 2021 (deadline extended).

APPLICATION CLOSED FOR STAGE I

GFVP Stage II: Busines Incubation

Stage II program is designed to incubate very early-phase or idea-phase ventures in food & agriculture space by PhD students. Your idea has to be research-based, with the potential to be commercialized and ideally, generate a social or environmental impact. Application phase for Stage II ends on June 13, 2021 (deadline extended).

APPLICATION CLOSED FOR STAGE II

PhD students can apply to both Stages, and complete Global Food Venture Programme within the same year, if they are successful with both applications!

Programme Timeline

Mobility Grants

International mobility grants is another great offering of GFVP for our entrepreneurial PhDs. GFVP participants of Stage II can apply for a mobility grant of up to 3000€, to enable them validate their early-stage business idea with an industry partner and/or technology experts. Application for the grant should include description of the start-up project, mobility purpose, expected benefits, cost estimations and outcome of the action. Our 2019 alumnus Caterina Chemetova used this chance to visit industry partners, Belgian enterprises DCM and Scientia Terrae. A fellow 2019 cohort member, Jatiziri, visited baking product manufacturer, the puratos group in Belgium, to validate her FERMENT-UP project, which helps chocolate farmers to practice better management.

Due to COVID19 global pandemic, the Mobility Grant activity will be delivered online.

Entry Fees

GFVP is funded by EIT Food. Programme activities are financially covered for all participants. If your application is successful, you are required to sign a consent form with EIT Food to confirm participation and the use of grant money for mobility purposes.

Entry fees will apply for Stage I & Stage II participants upon enrollment.

Stage I Fees: € 300 (Mai 2021) & Stage II Fees: € 300 (June 2021)

Contact & Social Media

For more information on our programme, shoot us an E-mail at Dimaki@zv.tum.de

Follow our hashtag #eitfoodGFVP on social media to take a glimpse on our activities.

COVID19

COVID19 global pandemic forces us to run Global Food Venture Program boocamps fully online. Our team will maintain program's high quality and deliver impact to our successful candidates once again! Contact us, if you have concerns regarding your participation.