ALEX VELEZ AND NIKHIL ARORA (Berkeley, CA) are striving to convert waste into quality crops and good jobs in agriculture. While undergraduates the pair founded BTTR Ventures (Back To The Roots)— a 100% sustainable, for-profit urban gourmet mushroom farm. Alex and Nikhil have created a closed loop, zero-waste system that turns one of America’s largest waste streams — used coffee grounds — into a highly-demanded, nutritious, valuable food product. While diverting more than 7000 pounds of coffee ground waste from landfills every week, their production process also creates nutrient rich soil amendment that is used as a plant bloomer for both fruits and vegetables. BTTR Ventures’ grow-at-home kits and premium soil amendment are currently sold on their website and in the Northern California, Rocky Mountain and South regions of a global natural food supermarket.

ANDREW BUTCHER (Pittsburgh, PA) works to link economic and environmental justice with urban community development. He co-founded GTECH (Growth Through Energy + Community Health) in 2007 as a nonprofit social enterprise dedicated to revitalizing communities by cultivating a green economy. GTECH works with land owners (community development corporations, public agencies, and private developers) to repurpose neglected land, cultivating alternative energy crops to improve contaminated soil — thereby addressing a significant health concern — and producing an oilseed for biofuel feedstock. By investing in these projects, GTECH generates revenue by providing services to landowners, offsetting the cost of vacant land management by cultivating oilseeds and creating platforms for education, training and employment. GTECH’s programming help build the capacity of and access to opportunity for low-wealth individuals, converting environmental liabilities such as blighted vacant space into valued community assets.

JESSAMYN RODRIGUEZ (New York, NY) is a passionate advocate for human rights. She founded New York City-based Hot Bread Kitchen (HBK) as a way to tap the unrealized human capital of immigrant women. An artisanal bakery, HBK uses traditional recipes and techniques as well as organic and local ingredients to produce and sell a diverse line of multi-ethnic breads that are sold to pay for training and generate wealth for low-income immigrant women. As a nonprofit workforce and microenterprise development organization, HBK fights poverty by providing fair-wage paid training and individually tailored classes to the lowest paid workers in the US workforce: foreign-born and minority women. The training encompasses all components necessary for success in the growing food manufacturing industry, like English classes to women who need it.

ROHAN MATHEW and JOSEPH SHURE (New Brunswick, NJ) aspire to support low-wealth entrepreneurs on their path towards economic self-sufficiency. The pair founded the Intersect Fund while undergraduates. This urban-based-based non-profit enterprise empowers aspiring low-wealth entrepreneurs to start businesses, build assts, generate income, and ultimately spark change in their communities. Fee-based services include business development strategies, credit-builder loans, and tax preparation assistance. The Fund’s core product is an 8-week business training course that teaches clients how to write a business plan, market products, register a business, and manage cash flow. The Fund also offers graphic and web design services, strategy consulting, and microloans. The assessment that they apply to underwrite microloans encompasses traditional and less conventional means to determine the credit-worthiness of these entrepreneurs.

CALEB ZIGAS and LETICIA LANDA (San Francisco, CA) aim to enhance family and community quality of life in their urban region. Both have been integral in building La Cocina, Inc., a nonprofit, full-service, shared use commercial kitchen and microenterprise business with a mission to assist low-income food entrepreneurs to formalize and grow their business. La Cocina provides its target population with subsidized commercial kitchen space; professional food industry technical assistance; and facilitated access to market opportunities in an effort to expand these endeavors into viable micro-enterprises. The organization’s support helps transform these enterprises from income-patching to asset-generating endeavors.

JASON ARAMBURU’s (Austin, TX) goal is to enhance economic and energy security for low-wealth individuals in rural American communities. Through his education and experiences, Jason witnessed a need for improved agricultural technologies in the United States and throughout the developing world, as these communities have been underserved given their relatively low income and low population density. In response, in 2007 he launched re:char — a cleantech company that designs and builds low-cost, biochar plants for low-income agricultural or forestry communities across the United States. The patent-pending technology converts waste biomass (agricultural waste, wood waste, and animal waste) into energy and biochar without the use of subsidies. Biochar is a carbon-negative soil amendment that can be tilled into agricultural or forest soils, improving crop yield by as much as 200%. On a large enough scale, biochar also acts as a long-term carbon storage mechanism, generating carbon credits and potentially fighting the effects of global climate change.