Invited Speakers

Mohammed Ashour is the Co-founder and CEO of Aspire Food Group, a global pioneer in insect agriculture. Aspire targets markets that utilize insects for applications in nutrition, biomedicine and agrochemicals with a vision to alleviate global food insecurity. Under his leadership, Aspire Food Group is building the world’s largest cricket farm in London, Ontario with significant support from prominent investors including JC2 Ventures, TELUS Ventures, and Northern Private Capital.

Aspire was launched in 2013 after Mohammed led a team of five students from McGill University to defeat over 10,000 teams from around the world to win the prestigious US$1mm Hult Prize (dubbed the “Nobel Prize for Business”) presented by President Bill Clinton. With expertise in business development, finance and strategic partnerships, Mohammed leads Aspire’s growth internationally. Mohammed is a leading voice in alternative protein, social enterprise and innovation entrepreneurship. He is a frequent speaker at global conferences including the Clinton Global Initiative.

Mohammed is the recipient of the Specialty Food Association Visionary Leader Award and the Muhammad Ali Humanitarian Award. In 2015, he was recognized as a “Top MBA Impact Maker” by McGill University and in 2016, inducted to the renowned Forbes 30 under 30 list.

Mohammed pursued a Doctor of Medicine and Master of Surgery (MD-CM) degree from McGill University. He holds M.B.A. and M.Sc. (neuroscience) degrees from McGill University and a B.Sc. degree in Life Sciences from the University of Toronto.

Prof. Dr. Alexander Mathys, a food technologist, received a doctoral degree in food processing in 2008. Since 2015, he has been Assistant Professor in Sustainable Food Processing at ETH Zurich, Switzerland, where he is focusing on more efficiency and sustainability of value chains in food and feed. His current research focuses on material and energetic utilization of plant based side streams, micro process engineering and extrusion for tailored structure formation and synthesis, innovative multi hurdle technologies for gentle preservation of healthy and high quality food, novel protein sources from algae and insects to improve food security as well as multi indicator sustainability assessment as basic analysis in food processing. Dr. Mathys was Head of the Bioeconomy Department at German Institute of Food Technologies DIL in 2012-2015. He was expert in non-thermal preservation and sterilization technologies at the Nestlé Research Centre Lausanne in 2009-2012. He has won several prestigious research awards from the International Union of Food Science and Technology ((IUFoST); International Congress on Engineering and Food (ICEF); Institute of Food Technologists (IFT); and European High Pressure Research Group (EHPRG).

Dr Chrysantus M. Tanga is a research scientist with the Insect for Food, Feed and Other Uses (INSEFF) programme at the International Centre of Insect Physiology and Ecology (icipe). He and his partners were the first in Africa to successfully engage policymakers in the creation of an enabling environment for the rapid adoption of insect-based protein feed technologies. This led to the development of standards in support of legislations and policies that approve the use of insect-based protein ingredients in compounding animal feeds in Kenya and Uganda. Dr Tanga is also working closely with the Kenya Bureau of Standards (KEBS) and Uganda National Bureau of Standards (UNBS).

To keep up with the growing demand for alternatives to the expensive fishmeal and soya bean protein sources, Dr Tanga is training small- and medium-scale farmers as well as private companies in the industrial mass production of insects. The result is an eco-friendly source of high-quality protein for resource-poor farmers rearing fish, poultry, pigs and other livestock. Using various organic wastes to feed the insects and sustainably produce animal feeds is co-shaping the transformation towards resource-sufficient agriculture, creating employment and improving livelihoods.

Prof. Leen Van Campenhout obtained her PhD in 2000 at KU Leuven, Belgium. She then worked a number of years as R&D Manager Enzymology and Microbiology at Kemin Europa, with focus on antimicrobials, acidifiers and enzymes as feed additives mainly for pigs and poultry. Currently she is full professor at KU Leuven, teaching courses such as ‘Fermentation Technology’, ‘Biotechnology’, ‘Feed and Petfood Technology’, ‘Food Microbiology’ and ‘Conservation Technology’, and co-teaching in ‘Insects for Food and Feed’. She coordinates the research group Lab4Food at KU Leuven Campus Geel (https://iiw.kuleuven.be/onderzoek/Lab4Food). The microbiological and chemical aspects during the rearing and processing of insects on an industrial scale have been the group's main research line for several years. More specifically, chemical and microbiological safety, management of the microbiota and new valorisation opportunities represent the key points in the research. Research projects consist of precompetitive, collaborative projects with industry or bilateral projects with companies, and are based on internal funding from KU Leuven, national funds and European funds. Not only the insects typically reared in Europe are studied, but also some African and Asian species.

Prof.Dr.Ir. Arnold van Huis completed his undergraduate studies at the State Horticultural College in Utrecht and his graduate studies at Wageningen University in the Netherlands. He worked from 1974 to 1979 in Nicaragua for the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the United Nations in a research project on integrated pest management (IPM) in food grains. Based on these studies he got his PhD from Wageningen University. From 1982 to 1985 he coordinated in Niger a regional crop protection training project for eight Sahelian countries. From 1985 to 2015 he worked as tropical entomologist at Wageningen University, the Netherlands, and has been responsible for a number of IPM and biological control projects in tropical countries. From 2000 to 2014 he coordinated a project dealing with interdisciplinary agricultural research in three West African countries. He supervised 24 PhD theses, published more than 300 papers of which about half refereed, co-authored three books and edited more than 10 conference proceedings. Since 2015 he is emeritus professor and concentrates on insects as food and feed. In 2013 he published with FAO the book ‘Edible insects: future prospects for food and feed security’ which has been downloaded seven million times. He is also the first author of the ’The insect cookbook’ published in 2014 by Columbia University Press. In 2017 he (co)edited the book “Insects as food and feed: from production to consumption”. In 2014 he organised with FAO the conference ’Insects to feed the world’, attended by 450 participants from 45 countries. From 2010 to 2014 he was responsible for a Netherlands’ funded project entitled ’Sustainable production of insect protein’. He is in the scientific advisory board of several projects on edible insects. He is chief editor of the Journal of Insects as Food and Feed. On edible insects, he (co)authored several books, ten book chapters, and about 30 refereed and 20 non-refereed publications. Each year he gives numerous presentations in and outside the Netherlands on insects as food and feed.

Prof. Dr. Andreas Vilcinskas is the director of the Institute for Insect Biotechnology , which he has founded at the Justus-Liebig Institute of Giessen in 2015 (https://www.uni-giessen.de/fbz/fb09/institute/iib) and the head of the Bioresources branch of the Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology (IME) in Giessen Germany. He is the coordinator and the spokesman of the LOEWE-Center for Insect Biotechnology and Bioresources, funded by the Hessen State Ministry of Higher Education, Research and the Arts (HMWK) via the excellence program LOEWE (€ 42 Million, 2014-2022): (http://www.insekten-biotechnologie.de/en/). He studied Biology and graduated 1994 at the Free University of Berlin, where he was also working as postdoc and junior group leader at the Institute for Zoology (1994-1998) and where he obtained his habilitation in Zoology (1998). After an interim professorship at the University of Potsdam (1999-2004) he was appointed as a full professor at the Justus-Liebig University in Giessen. He is a recognized pioneer in insect biotechnology and has published more than 240 papers in peer-reviewed journals.