Ben Collier and James Kanoff are two co-founders of The Farmlink Project, a student-led movement that has provided over 100 million pounds of nutritious food to communities facing hunger in the United States. They started the project out of their college dorm rooms at Brown and Stanford University during the pandemic by renting a U-Haul truck to connect farmers with surplus to their local food bank. The project became an overnight sensation, going nationwide with an entirely volunteer-based movement of thousands of students delivering millions of meals to the families that needed them most.

Today, in addition to growing their food program nationwide, they are now launching a fellowship described as “Teach for America for our food system,” placing the brightest young minds on the frontline of the food system to learn, grow, and create more efficient solutions for hunger and waste. 

The team has been awarded the Congressional Medal of Honor, the Jefferson Award for Public Service, Forbes 30 Under 30, a Pritzker Environmental genius nomination and more. Their work has been featured in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, ABC World News Tonight, and nearly every national television network in the U.S.

The Farmlink Project is now a rapidly growing team with 20+ full-time employees on a mission to make the world’s abundance of nutritious food accessible for everyone. They believe there will be a day in our lifetime when every person has access to the food they need to succeed and want to be there to celebrate that day together.

This appearance by Ben Collier and James Kanoff is part of the Entrepreneurial Thought Leaders series. Join us virtually at youtube.com/ecorner as we bring founders, investors and industry influencers to center stage and invite them to share what it takes to become a disruptor.

Ben Collier

James Kanoff