Meet the woman using tech to tackle poverty

As part of our Future Shapers series, in partnership with Neutrogena, we've scoured the country to find 2016's hot new innovators

The food-waste visionary: Iseult Ward, 25

Ward is the CEO and co-founder of FoodCloud, a start-up creating social solutions to food waste, which connects businesses with surplus food to local charities

One in ten Irish people suffers from food poverty. Growing up in Dublin, I witnessed deprivation in communities, but it wasn’t until my third year at university that my co-founder, Aoibheann – a fellow student in environmental science – introduced me to the shocking stats about how much food we waste.

Failures teach you a lot. We launched a few weeks before my final exams but, having only received one donation, we quickly realised that our first launch had failed. Walking away from it was difficult, but looking back it was one of the best things that could have happened because it positively influenced the solution we have in place today.

It only takes one breakthrough. Tesco agreed to trial FoodCloud and we successfully scaled the trial to 18 stores within six months. We now have 600 stores donating food across Ireland and the UK, and nearly 4 million meals have been redistributed to more than 1,000 charities since we launched.

Having a co-founder is invaluable. Every low moment I have had on this journey, she has been there too. Equally, reaching our first million meals milestone together was a huge achievement.

#passiton ‘Surround yourself with positive people who believe in you.’

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