Air Protein - Most Innovative Woman of the Year - Technology

Company: Air Protein, San Francisco Bay Area, CA
Company Description: Air Protein is on a mission to feed our growing population with meat made from air. Using a proprietary production process, we’ve created the first carbon negative, earth positive protein source. We believe climate change and food scarcity can be solved by reimagining food creation. We didn’t try to reinvent the process, but rather, created an entirely new one - making meat from air.
Nomination Category: Individual Awards Categories
Nomination Sub Category: Most Innovative Woman of the Year - Technology

Nomination Title: Dr. Lisa Dyson

Dr. Lisa Dyson is a mission-driven entrepreneur, co-founder and CEO of Air Protein, a World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer company reinventing how food is produced to sustainably feed the world.

Air Protein’s vision began with a devastating climate chaos event, Hurricane Katrina. In 2005, upon witnessing the destruction up front and onsite, while in New Orleans, Dr. Dyson came up with a bold idea - to create solutions to meet the fundamental climate change problem head on. This led to the creation of Kiverdi, a biotechnology company working with corporations to achieve circular solutions, leveraging the science of carbon transformation - and years later, in 2019, to Air Protein.

Earlier in her career, as a Management Consultant at The Boston Consulting Group, she worked with executives of Fortune 100 companies to help them solve complex business challenges. Dr. Dyson has a PhD in Physics from MIT, was a Fulbright Scholar at the University of London, where she received an MS in Physics with an emphasis in Quantum Fields and Fundamental Forces, and has degrees in Mathematics and Physics from Brandeis University. She has conducted research in bioengineering, physics, and energy at multiple universities including Stanford, UC Berkeley, Princeton and MIT.

At Air Protein, we recognize the way we currently produce food is unsustainable; to feed 10 billion people by 2050, food production must increase by 70%. We believe climate change and food scarcity can be solved by reimagining food creation. We didn’t try to reinvent the process, but rather, created an entirely new one - making meat from air. We have re-imagined a way to make meat using a technology inspired by NASA but designed by Air Protein, that erases harmful greenhouse gases and uses the least amount of water and land requirements of any protein source on the planet today, to pioneer a way to produce tasty, nutritious meats.

Since our inception in late 2019, we’ve achieved several accomplishments:

We created the first meat (chicken) made out of air,
We assembled a strong patent portfolio and proprietary IP (50+ patents granted or pending),
We perfected our protein production process, achieving commercial yields and target nutritional profile,
We’ve assembled a talented team and experised advisory board,
We completed a $32M Series A funding with leading investors including Barclays, ADM, and Google Ventures,
2021 ProteinX Foundation Alternative Protein Innovators Award Finalist (still in process for finalist selections)
2020 Unreasonable Covid-19 Grant Award Recipient
2020 World Economic Forum Technology Pioneer Recipient
2020 SXSW Interactive Innovation Award Recipient

We completed the first phases of our regulatory work, and proceeding with the additional regulatory requirements to obtain GRAS (generally recognized as safe) certification and finalizing our product development work toward a path to commercialization.

Please find attached links that include 2 videos from Dr. Dyson talking about our innovative solution, as well as her TED Talk on climate change and various links to media coverage and recognition.

Today, we stand at a climate abyss. Carbon dioxide (CO2) and methane levels in the atmosphere continued to rise in 2020, with CO2 levels reaching their highest point in 3.6 million years, according to calculations by the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration. https://research.noaa.gov/article/ArtMID/587/ArticleID/2742/Despite-pandemic-shutdowns-carbon-dioxide-and-methane-surged-in-2020

Although the transportation industry (e.g. cars, trucks, trains, boats and planes) often gets blamed as the primary culprit, many aren’t aware that the second largest contributor of GHG is agriculture - accounting for over 24% of GHG emissions, and rivalling all of the fossil fuel burning transportation modes combined. We are literally eating ourselves into climate chaos, a growing threat to humanity.

Air Protein has pioneered a way to produce tasty, nutritious meat without dependence on animals and agriculture, and is transforming the future of meat. Deployed on a global scale, Dr. Dyson’s air farm technology can help reverse climate change. Using a highly-innovative and unique process, carbon dioxide is removed from the atmosphere as part of our food production system.

Our transformational and disruptive solution not only allows us to affordably and nutritiously feed the world, but also doing so in a way that is socially responsible, mitigating climate change, decouple from deforestation, animal cruelty and other externatlities (like weather and pandemics) that can currently disturb our food supply. Our mission is to feed the planet’s growing population with planet friendly, healthy, nutritious and tasty air-based meat alternatives.

Reference any attachments of supporting materials throughout this nomination and how they provide evidence of the claims you have made in this nomination (up to 250 words):

Dr. Lalaine Calonzo accomplishments in detail https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CE9F5zHOsxPH3xFSEPvscxFxGYubJXyO/view?usp=sharing
Testimonials for Dr. Calonzo https://drive.google.com/file/d/1A3Ud7MSDsN3S_mJPUdG1PlI1ueJAm1ap/view?usp=sharing
Department of Health Philippines COVID-19 tracker https://doh.gov.ph/covid19tracker
Dr. Lalaine Calonzo accomplishments in detail https://drive.google.com/file/d/1CE9F5zHOsxPH3xFSEPvscxFxGYubJXyO/view?usp=sharing
Testimonials for Dr. Calonzo https://drive.google.com/file/d/1A3Ud7MSDsN3S_mJPUdG1PlI1ueJAm1ap/view?usp=sharing