Komal Ahmad was a student at UC Berkeley when she experienced a life-changing moment. She had just returned from summer training for the U.S. Navy when she met a homeless veteran on the sidewalk. He hadn’t eaten in three days. Yet, across the street, thousands of pounds of uneaten food was being thrown away by her school. This was unacceptable to Ahmad, so she did something about it. “Those who have and are wasting and those who need and are starving — and they’re both living quite literally right across the street from each other,” she told the New York Times. “That’s just ridiculous.” [Her efforts have grown] into Copia, a food redistribution app that has given away an estimated 600,000 pounds of food to 720,000 people in the Bay Area.
