Komal Ahmad
Komal Ahmad, a UC Berkeley alumna and the founder of Copia, spoke about her journey in starting a company. She is an award-winning changemaker, humanitarian, entrepreneur, and a Nelson Mandela Humanitarian Award Recipient. Ahmad initially went to UC Berkeley to study medicine. However,听one day things changed when she saw a homeless man begging for food. She stopped and asked him out to lunch. In between bites, she found out he was a veteran waiting for his benefits to kick in and had gone weeks without eating a proper meal. This while the dining halls threw away so much food across the street at听UC Berkeley. Ahmad understood early on that the problem with world hunger is excess and access. There鈥檚 enough food to feed everyone in the world, but because of liability reasons, companies and dining halls must throw it away. Ahmad couldn鈥檛 fathom that if UC Berkeley students were eating dining hall food 10 minutes ago, why couldn鈥檛 the homeless people across the street eat it too? Thus, she began her mission of transporting the excess dining hall food to local nonprofit organizations.
This process was not without complications. At the first outing, Ahmad was told she had two hours to pick up 500 gourmet sandwiches from the dining hall. However, this proved to be a challenge because she couldn鈥檛 find any places that would accept the food, and if they did, they would only take 15鈥�20 sandwiches. From this experience, she realized that the main problem was ineffective food distribution.
While she was committed to the mission, she realized that the model was not sustainable after working 16-hour days on her own. After graduation, she secured a job at Google as an account technology strategist, but after six months, she was fired and hit rock bottom. She was in a dark place for a while, but eventually understood that rock bottom could be a foundation for building a new life鈥攕he was free from her doubts, fears, and the burdens of high expectations.听
Fixing world hunger听was always at the back of Ahmad鈥檚 mind. She recalled seeing a line of people waiting听outside a church, and upon realizing it was a food pantry, she began听volunteering. She learned that not only homeless people were going to food听pantries but even UC Berkeley students she recognized along with well-dressed听people. With a new focus and drive, Copia was born to deliver food to听nonprofits so excess food wouldn鈥檛 go to waste. To date, Copia has recovered more than 6.5听million pounds of food and delivered more than 5.4 million meals.
With all the ups and downs, Ahmad said that it鈥檚 possible to overcome any challenges that come your way and that it鈥檚 impossible to go through life without failing. She said she鈥檚 living proof of that, and that nothing is an overnight success. Ahmad hopes that everyone follows their heart, and said that it鈥檚 so important to build a solid support system and keep moving forward.听
Kevin Lux Ven, Carroll School Undergraduate Program Assistant
Presented with the Portico Program
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