A University of Guelph graduate student has been selected as a Top 30 under 30 social entrepreneur by Forbes magazine. Gavin Armstrong, a PhD student in Biomedical Sciences received recognition for his project, the Lucky Iron Fish. The award celebrates the entrepreneurship of candidates under 30-years-of-age, and includes categories such as healthcare, education, manufacturing, and music. Armstrong was selected from 15,000 nominees. The finalists are chosen from an array of categories including creativity, impact, scalability or adaptability, and number of people reached.
His project, the Lucky Iron Fish, addresses world hunger. The project aims to combat iron deficiency anemia, which affects more than two billion people in the world. He does so by commercializing fish-shaped cast iron ingots that, when put in boiling water, add 75 per cent of a family’s daily iron intake. Armstrong says that the product is an “affordable and effective health solution for iron deficiency for people in developing countries.” The fish is added to boiling water, and for 10 minutes, leaches iron into the water. The fish can then be taken out and the individual can resume cooking as they normally would. The fish can be used once a day for five years. The product also has a social entrepreneurial focus, surrounded on “environment footprint [and] transparency,” Armstrong says. The Lucky Iron Fish also ranks as one of the top ten Benefit Corporations in the world. He believes that “businesses have the resources to solve some of the world’s greatest challenges.”
Armstrong has targeted trials in Cambodia, and research has shown that women who have used the iron fish for nine months reduced their anemia by half. The iron fish is commercialized and developed on a larger scale, and is promoted to rural areas. Many families in places such as Cambodia cannot afford dietary supplements or other iron alternatives, such as iron cooking pots. The Lucky Iron Fish provides a solution for the families. With help from the Gates Foundation, Armstrong plans to do more clinical trials in Latin America, India, and Southeast Asia. He says the trials will “ramp up the evidence that this is a global solution for a global problem.”