Cal Poly Pomona Team Wins Grand Prize at SDSU Social Venture Challenge
A team of food science graduate students earned the $15,000 grand prize at the SDSU Social Venture Challenge.
FPI-Lab, led by food science graduate students Elizabeth Alcarraz and Sherlly Shi, represented CPP with a venture focused on helping people better understand iron absorption and bioavailability. The team competed under the mentorship of Belal Hasan, nutrition and food science professor, with support from Yao Olive Li, professor and faculty director of the Student Innovation Idea Labs.
The opportunity was first presented to Li through SDSU’s ZIP Launchpad and I-Corps program, which invited CPP students to participate in the venture challenge. The SDSU Social Venture Challenge is a live collegiate pitch competition where student teams present innovative solutions to social and community challenges.
The competition brings students from universities across Southern California together to pitch their ventures to judges for mentorship, networking opportunities and cash prizes supporting the development of their ideas. Li helped facilitate the partnership and connect students whose work aligned with the competition’s theme, “Achieving Food Security Through Innovation” with the opportunity.
For Li, the partnership was a natural fit with Student Innovation Idea Lab’s mission to support student-led innovation, including social venture and community-service startup projects related to food insecurity, accessibility and community impact.
“This is what student innovation looks like at Cal Poly Pomona,” Li said, “Students are identifying real world problems, developing thoughtful solutions and gaining the skills to make an impact beyond campus.”
For Alcarraz and Shi, the competition offered more than the chance to present a project. It was an opportunity to tap into their research to come up with a practical solution to help address nutritional deficiencies.
“This project addresses a real need that many people are facing, especially women,” Shi said. “It felt important to pursue this idea because I wanted our work to have a meaningful impact and support people in a practical way.”
Alcarraz said that the project also helps reframe how people understand nutrition.
“I hope this project helps people realize that it’s not just about how much iron is in food, but how much your body can actually use,” Alcarraz said. “As a student, it’s been really motivating to work on something that could make nutrition more accessible and practical, especially for people who struggle with deficiencies.”
Hasan said the students demonstrated both creativity and an entrepreneurial mindset by moving beyond traditional academic expectations and approaching the project through scientific and market-based lenses.
“What stands out most is their readiness to innovate once provided with the right support and mentorship,” Hasan said. “Their curiosity to explore beyond the traditional graduate curriculum, combined with access to advanced facilities in the Department of Nutrition and Food Science, allowed them to explore ideas at a higher level and rapidly move from concept to application.”
Through the project, Alcarraz and Shi integrated knowledge from food science, nutrition, consumer insight and market analysis to identify a market gap and connect it with lab-based solutions that could be scaled to a commercial process.
Alcarraz said the project reflects how students can turn scientific concepts into real-world solutions.
“This project began as a thesis research idea and evolved into something I could build, test and present,” Alcarraz said. “It reflects student innovation by showing how we can take scientific concepts and turn them into real, usable solutions beyond the classroom.”
Shi said mentorship was essential to helping the team refine its ideas and build confidence.
“Our mentor constantly encouraged us, challenged us to think more deeply, and helped us approach problems with stronger critical thinking and a comprehensive perspective,” Shi said. “That support gave us the confidence to keep improving our ideas.”
The team’s grand prize win highlights the impact of student innovation and entrepreneurship, while demonstrating how research, mentorship and experiential learning can help students develop solutions with impact beyond the classroom.