Komal Ahmad

Komal Ahmad, a UC Berkeley alumna and the founder of Copia, spoke about her journey in starting a company. She is an award-winning changemaker, humanitarian, entrepreneur, and a Nelson Mandela Humanitarian Award Recipient. Ahmad initially went to UC Berkeley to study medicine. However, one day things changed when she saw a homeless man begging for food. She stopped and asked him out to lunch. In between bites, she found out he was a veteran waiting for his benefits to kick in and had gone weeks without eating a proper meal. This while the dining halls threw away so much food across the street at UC Berkeley. Ahmad understood early on that the problem with world hunger is excess and access. There’s enough food to feed everyone in the world, but because of liability reasons, companies and dining halls must throw it away. Ahmad couldn’t fathom that if UC Berkeley students were eating dining hall food 10 minutes ago, why couldn’t the homeless people across the street eat it too? Thus, she began her mission of transporting the excess dining hall food to local nonprofit organizations.

This process was not without complications. At the first outing, Ahmad was told she had two hours to pick up 500 gourmet sandwiches from the dining hall. However, this proved to be a challenge because she couldn’t find any places that would accept the food, and if they did, they would only take 15–20 sandwiches. From this experience, she realized that the main problem was ineffective food distribution.

While she was committed to the mission, she realized that the model was not sustainable after working 16-hour days on her own. After graduation, she secured a job at Google as an account technology strategist, but after six months, she was fired and hit rock bottom. She was in a dark place for a while, but eventually understood that rock bottom could be a foundation for building a new life—she was free from her doubts, fears, and the burdens of high expectations. 

Fixing world hunger was always at the back of Ahmad’s mind. She recalled seeing a line of people waiting outside a church, and upon realizing it was a food pantry, she began volunteering. She learned that not only homeless people were going to food pantries but even UC Berkeley students she recognized along with well-dressed people. With a new focus and drive, Copia was born to deliver food to nonprofits so excess food wouldn’t go to waste. To date, Copia has recovered more than 6.5 million pounds of food and delivered more than 5.4 million meals.

With all the ups and downs, Ahmad said that it’s possible to overcome any challenges that come your way and that it’s impossible to go through life without failing. She said she’s living proof of that, and that nothing is an overnight success. Ahmad hopes that everyone follows their heart, and said that it’s so important to build a solid support system and keep moving forward. 

Kevin Lux Ven, Carroll School Undergraduate Program Assistant

Presented with the Portico Program