UrbanGeekz 50 List: Food, Climate & Health

Toyin Ajayi – Cityblock

Dr Toyin Ajayi is at the forefront of driving health equity and innovation across the U.S. As the CEO of Cityblock, she’s using her position to improve health outcomes for underserved and systemically marginalized populations.

Cityblock provides healthcare services to Medicaid and dually eligible Medicare beneficiaries, ensuring they have access to high-value personalized services. The company, which is a unicorn, has raised nearly $900 million and has a valuation just shy of $6 billion.

Previously, Dr. Ajayi worked as Chief Medical Officer at Commonwealth Care Alliance, and at Boston University/Boston Medical Center as a Family Medicine Hospitalist, Clinical Instructor, and Global Health Fellow.

She was named one of Modern Healthcare’s Women to Watch in 2023, 2021 Entrepreneur Magazine 100 Women of Impact, on the 2020 Inc Female Founders 100 List, and among Business Insider’s Top 30 Leaders under 40 Transforming Healthcare in 2019.

Dr. Ajayi received her undergraduate degree from Stanford University and an MPhil from the University of Cambridge. She is a member of the 2023 Class of Henry Crown Fellows within the Aspen Global Leadership Network at the Aspen Institute.

Lisa Dyson – Air Protein

Dr. Lisa Dyson is a thought leader in sustainability. She is the CEO of Air Protein, which is focused on feeding the world’s population with the most sustainable protein made from elements found in the air.

Using a proprietary probiotic process, Air Protein is forging the way into a new era of sustainable food production by creating food from CO2. In January 2021, Air Protein announced a $32 Million Series A Funding.

Dr. Dyson holds a Ph.D. in physics from MIT and has done research in bioengineering, energy, and physics at Stanford University, UC Berkeley, and Princeton University, among others. She was a Fulbright Scholar at the Imperial College London in the United Kingdom, where she received a master of science.

She’s been the recipient of the following awards: Inc. Magazine – Top 100 Female Founders 2019, 2019 Verge Vanguard Award, 2018 United Nations Global Citizens Award, Women in Natural Sciences: 2018 WINS 35 Award, Fast Company: 100 Most Creative People 2017, San Francisco Business Times’ Forever Influential Honour Roll C3E award from MIT and the Department of Energy.

Iman Abuzeid–Incredible Health Co-founder & CEO

Iman Abuzeid is a medical doctor and a healthcare technology entrepreneur. Dr. Abuzeid founded Incredible Health in 2017.  Incredible Health is the fastest growing career marketplace for permanent healthcare workers. Incredible Health is the first and only platform to focus on permanent employees rather than contractors. Incredible Health’s proprietary algorithm-based technology custom matches the needs of hospitals with the right nurses.

Abuzeid is passionate about health care technology that improves lives. She has a background in product management at VC-backed startups and healthcare management consulting. The Incredible Health platform saves each hospital at least $2M per year.  Abuzeid is one of only a handful of black female founders to run a company valued at more than $1B dollars.

Abuzeid plans to expand her customer base beyond hospitals to urgent care, surgical centers, skilled nursing facilities and home health. Incredible Health might eventually serve doctors, physical therapists and pharmacists.

Ikenna Okezie–CEO and Co-Founder of Somatus

Ikenna Okezie is a medical doctor and healthcare innovator. Okezie is the CEO and Co-Founder of Somatus. Somatus is the market leader in value-based kidney care. Somatus provides integrated care for patients with or at risk of chronic kidney disease and end-stage kidney disease.

In 2016, Dr. Okezie and his business partner founded Somatus, to completely revolutionize the kidney care industry. He developed a model that would help more patients be seen and heard before their kidneys failed and with time leverage more treatment options. No model like this exists in healthcare. Dr. Okezi, his Co-Founder, and half of his board of directors are people of color.

Fun Fact: Dr. Okezie was captain of the wrestling team at Yale University, a 1994 Scholar-Athlete of the Year, and a Rhodes and Marshall scholar finalist.

Julia Collins–Founder of Planet->FWD +Moonshot Snacks

Julia Collins is all things climate change, entrepreneurship, and supporting black female founders, like herself. Collins is the Founder of Planet->FWD and Moonshot Snacks. The mission of Planet->FWD(pronounced forward) is to decarbonize supply chains for the consumer industry.

In 2022 Planet->FWD received 10M Series A dollars to continue developing technology so that the 1.5 trillion dollar consumer products industry can more accurately measure and reduce their carbon footprint. Planet->FWD just recently released an AI-powered decarbonization platform. This platform enables companies to be aware of how they’re impacting their communities and ways to decrease their impact. The decarbonization emissions platform leverages AI to help lower carbon modeling costs and expedite decarbonization across several markets.

Prior to launching Planet->FWD and Moonshot Snacks, Collins became the first black woman to co-found a billion-dollar company–Zume Pizza.

As a mother, she wanted to make the world a better place for everyone, including her son.

In 2020, she launched Moonshot Snacks. Moonshot Snacks is the first climate-friendly snack brand and proofing ground for Planet->FWD software. This carbon management platform is helping food, fashion, beauty, and personal care brands take climate action and reach their climate goals.

Tinia Pina–Founder and CEO of Re-Nuble

Tinia Pina is a startup executive, staff accountant, financial analyst, and business developer turned agritech developer. Pina is the founder and CEO of Re-Nuble–an agritech company. Pina began her career in sustainability as a student pursuing a Masters of Science degree at Columbia University. Re-Nuble partners with cities and multiple technology and service providers to create a scalable vertical farming model. Re-Nuble aims to use food waste to make indoor agriculture more sustainable.

In 2012 Pina volunteered as a SAT prep instructor in New York City. She saw firsthand how having limited healthy food options impacted her own students’ productivity. The mission of Re-Nuble is to improve local food production. Her passion is to ensure that people living in low-income communities have healthy food options, including fruits and vegetables.

Her dream became a reality after her own initial investment of $140,000 and later the Food-X Business Accelerator and other venture capitalists poured more than $1 million into her business.

Pina observed how food waste was disposed of.  The solution is Re-Nuble. Re-Nuble uses food waste as a viable alternative for chemical fertilizers in indoor grow environments. Re-Nuble has created organic compounds sourced from food waste for sterile, technology-driven, hydroponic, and soilless systems.

Pina is a strong advocate for sustainable waste management and closed-loop agriculture. She has a consistent focus on helping indoor growers use unique and distributed technologies to extract optimal value from organic waste streams.