M51 Community Spotlight: Lukasz Aleksandrowicz from The Weston Family Foundation
Discover Lukasz Aleksandrowicz’s mission to spearhead a more sustainable world by funding research on extending Canada’s growing season!
Discover Lukasz and his Quest for a More Self-Sufficient Canada
Did you know Canada could run out of fresh produce without imports in just 10 days? Canada imports roughly 80% of the fresh produce Canadians consume daily, making Canada hugely reliant and vulnerable to potential supply chain disruptions, such as pandemics and foreign wars. That is the issue Lukasz is working on solving: creating a more self-sufficient Canada.
Lukasz Aleksandrowicz is the Senior Program Manager at the Weston Family Foundation, where he is responsible for overseeing the Homegrown Innovation Challenge. This philanthropic program awards grants and donates money to spearhead the development of technologies used to help extend Canada’s agricultural growing season for fruits and vegetables, with a focus on berries, so that more healthy and nutritious foods can be grown here for an extended period of time rather than being imported from elsewhere.
About the Homegrown Innovation Challenge
Funded by the Weston Family Foundation, university and college teams participating in the Homegrown Innovation Challenge take various approaches to solving this unique problem, from modifying berry genetics to grow in energy-efficient greenhouses to harnessing robotics and AI in the production process to lower labour costs. The challenge takes place over 7 years and has 3 phases. During the second phase, 11 teams are given up to $1M each and have 1.5 years to develop a working prototype. If successful, 4 teams are selected and Lukasz’s program grants each team an additional $5M to hone the research further.
In tracking the remarkable research innovations of teams, Lukasz emphasizes that the goal of the Homegrown Innovation Challenge is to fund research projects from which the findings will have real-world applications and impacts that will transform Canadians' relationship with their fresh produce. As such, beyond simply conducting research, teams work with and are mentored by industry partners with backgrounds in finance, business development, and investment to ensure the successful commercialization of the potential technology developed.
From the World of Academia to Philanthropic Causes: Lukasz’s Journey So Far
Lukasz’s career began in academia, where he was a researcher, much like the participants of the Homegrown Innovation Challenge he oversees today. Specifically, Lukasz concentrated on public and global health, understanding the patterns of diseases in society, their causes, and potential solutions. From there, he shifted his focus to environmental health, researching how climate change affects agriculture and human nutrition.
However, after completing his PhD, Lukasz realized that research was “not his forte.” Instead, he wanted to look at the bigger picture rather than one specific research question. He decided to transition to working on the funding side, where he could evaluate the research landscape with a broader bird’s eye lens and strategically decide where foundations should invest their funds to get the most significant impact from funding academic research.
Lukasz calls his role at the Weston Family Foundation “a dream job,” as it combines his passion for philanthropy, agriculture, health, energy, and strategic funding all in one.
Lukasz’s Advice to Readers: Be a Lifelong Learner
Moving away from academia and into research funding, Lukasz faced new challenges as he was unfamiliar with how he could help the teams participating in his program with the entrepreneurial aspect of their journey. Specifically, Lukasz wanted to learn more about how financial investors think about early-stage products so that he could support his teams. As such, he took the initiative to enroll in M51’s Investor Lab to learn more. There, not only did he learn technical skills, such as reading cap tables and term sheets, but above all else, Lukasz highlights how the program helped him gain confidence when talking to other investors as the program connected him to a community of investors, which gave him a sense of belonging: “[I felt I was no longer] on the outside.”
Further, Lukasz points out the interesting parallel between philanthropy work and financial investing despite the two worlds rarely interacting: In both cases, money is invested, and both are looking to maximize returns – the only difference is that financial investors look to maximize monetary return, whereas philanthropic foundations look to maximize societal impact given the amount invested.
So what is Lukasz’s advice and key takeaway? Regardless of what role you are in, always look out for innovative ideas that you can apply to your own life. Think outside the box and “steal ideas” from different industries by learning how they solve similar problems, just as Lukasz did by applying the principles of financial investing to his philanthropic work. He encourages people to take the initiative to learn more, expand your horizons of knowledge, and better yourselves to become more well-rounded individuals.
