Humanity: Cultures + Cuisines + Stories

My journey as a child immigrant during a time of racial and political tensions (Iranian Revolution and the hostage crisis), and later as a single mom restarting from zero, has been a colorful one, filled with experiences and life lessons that have compelled me to become a social impact entrepreneur. As Founder of Warehouse Apps, I've injected my own DNA into my first mobile app solution (BITES|EAT WITH YOUR TRIBE) that re-envisions our food system, nurtures cultural understanding, offers work opportunities, supports urban growers, is accessible to all socio-economic levels, celebrates diversity, and creates resilient communities. My background is a blend of writer, poet, dancer, painter, technology attorney, urban gardener, and single mom. I am intentional about living an inspired life of meaning and purpose and I choose to make it my mission to lead fundamental change within our food system while healing our social fabric. 

I'm committed to moving us away from globalized commercial food production toward localized, sustainable sourcing of food, while healing our social fabric through cultural understanding, inclusivity of all socio-economic levels, and celebration of diversity. 

I'm proposing to get Bites|Eat With Your Tribe onto all university and college campuses in the US so that students (who are still formulating their world views and still open to new ways of thinking) can connect with other students at their universities for mini cultural immersions through food-centered experiences (students cooking for students and sharing their cultures and stories) that will help the newest generation of future leaders step out into the world in a more thoughtful, conscious, and evolved way. While this mobile app will be used by society at large, the focus of this project is on students across the US.

I have chosen to focus my energy and intentions on birthing a new script for our food system that simultaneously embraces inclusivity and diversity, empowers people with creative and flexible work opportunities, encourages people of various cultures to express themselves through storytelling and their cultural cuisines, injects money into local economies, supports urban food growers, and builds resilient communities. I apply a systems-thinking approach to connect the dots between seemingly unrelated issues to solve for how we engage as humans with one another and as a collective. Everyone is affected as everyone is part of a larger, fragmented ecosystem.

I've created a mobile app that uses farm-to-table meals that are budget-friendly for all socio-economic levels (no tip, no tax, no service charge, no delivery charge) to connect eaters with cooks representing all world cultures for in-home farm-to-table dining experiences that source ingredients from local urban farms, micro farms, co-ops, backyard gardens and community gardens. Cooks of all skill levels (amateur student cooks, home cooks, professional chefs, and independent eateries) generate an income on their own terms (they share their bios, set their own prices and minimum charges, cuisine offerings, availability to cook, and can choose to offer drop-off meals, meal prep services, in-home dining experiences, and interactive classroom lunches). When a cook from another culture comes into the eater's home, the cook brings all ingredients, along with cooking gear, and preps and cooks for the eater and their friends/family/guests. During the experience, the cook talks about their dining rituals and cultural foods. The cook shares her stories of what it was like to grow up in that culture, as well as talking about the local growers the cook sourced her ingredients from. The experience is intended to be interactive and experiential - serving as connective tissue for social healing.

As an immigrant who grew up in Logan, Utah, a place that lacked diversity, inclusiveness, cultural understanding, and job opportunities, I'm working to directly and meaningfully improve the lives of the collective - the disempowered, the marginalized, the ones who have challenges finding work opportunities for which they're "qualified", the ones who don't feel included or that they belong or that their culture or identity is accepted by the messaging that comes through on the media, as well as their actual experiences on a day-to-day basis. I'm working to directly and meaningfully raise our collective consciousness through up-close-and-personal experiences that can bring down our walls and rebuild bridges of our shared humanity. 

My project seeks to elevate our collective consciousness through interactions that organically bring people of various cultures and backgrounds together for food-centered experiences, and have a cascading effect that touches and expands our cultural understanding, community building, job opportunities, sense of inclusivity, and sustainable sourcing of food. By bringing the app into university and college settings, we're helping to shift old paradigms into new ones before students go out into the world to make their mark.

Several years ago, in the midst of divorce, and being a single mom, I sought to create a sense of renewed purpose and meaning in my life. One day, while daydreaming, I was taken back to an assortment of childhood memories. I recalled being taunted as I grew up in Logan, Utah - "camel jock" and "go back to your country" and "do you live in a tent?". I recalled how I never felt I belonged as a child and how the Persian foods that my mom cooked for me to take to school were looked at with disgust. I recalled the challenges my mom had in getting a job as a foreigner. In contrast, I also recalled working on my uncle's farms at age 13 and bringing fresh produce home to make dinner. I also recalled my first foodie experience at age 13 - my first sensory experience with food. I felt trapped during my divorce and needed a break but couldn't afford to travel. I thought - "If I can't travel to experience the world, how can I bring the world to me?" Working in the tech space, I set out solo to create what I envisioned.

In 1978, my mother, younger brother and I left Tehran, Iran on vacation in midst of my parents' bad marriage. We had come to visit an uncle living in Logan, Utah. He was pursuing horticulture studies. Within a few months, the Iranian Revolution and hostage crisis broke out. For political reasons, we were stranded in the US for the foreseeable future. And so, we began a new life with nothing but our suitcases. Our home and belongings in Iran were seized by fundamentalists. Growing up in a town that was 99.9% Mormon, I experienced slurs cast at me, was excluded from activities, and made to feel like an outcast. I saw the challenges my mom had in getting work and so I began working on my uncle's farms. Fast-forward - I was pushed to go to law school to "make something" of myself. I married. I divorced. I became a single mom raising a little girl. I wanted to show her that you could leverage challenges in your life to dream up a new reality for yourself and do good in the world. I injected my own DNA into founding a startup focused on cultures and cuisines - my passions.

My life story is the fabric of the project - I gathered the pieces of my own life  and brought them to the surface for myself so that I could see what really mattered to me and what I was passionate about and what my contribution to society and humanity would be. I have lived all that I am seeking to offer up to society in the most loving way. I am sharing myself with the world in the most meaningful way I know how. I hope that resonates with someone who can see what I can see - a new paradigm that disrupts our broken food system, that normalizes cultural understanding, and builds resilient communities. 

My background is that of a writer, poet, creative, and technology attorney. I'm interested in inspiring change through organic human interactions that comes into people's homes in joyful ways. 

Carlo Petrini, Founder of the Slow Food Movement, once said: "If you want to make a change in the world, do it with joy, not with sadness." It is my sincere intention that BITES | EAT WITH YOUR TRIBE brings joyful, connective experiences into people's lives in a way that's accessible to all. 

Several years ago, the company I was working for was acquired. The acquiring company was not seeking to bring me on (I was then in-house counsel) as part of the acquisition, as they had their own legal team. Instead of doing the "practical" thing as a single parent and applying for another job, I decided I was going to take a leap of faith and turn this obstacle (lack of a job) into the opportunity of a lifetime - pursuing my passion to become a social impact entrepreneur. And so I did. I took on small legal matters just to survive financially, down to $100 or less in my back account over the last few years, in order to pursue my life's work. Challenges have been part of my life from the beginning and so I'm not fazed by them. I truly believe two things and they have guided me: 1) fear is irrelevant; 2) opinions are irrelevant. To live is to encounter the uncomfortable. Deal with it. Look forward regardless. And at the end of the day, everyone's got an opinion...so what? Adversity has made me stronger and more determined. If I fall, I just get back up.

When I was an undergraduate at Arizona State University (one of the largest universities in the US), studying English literature, I worked on campus as head tutor of the Writing Center. I worked with students who were undergraduates and graduates. I noticed a pattern - those who came in and were very quiet, almost silent, when i was working with them on their papers, didn't seem to be able to construct proper sentences. I was confused as to how it could be that someone who couldn't properly piece together a sentence had gotten into the university. I shared my concerns with the head of the department about these students and she asked what I proposed as a solution. I proposed creating a Literacy Center that could help students while easing their embarrassment with regard to their literacy issues, as well as helping members of the local community. At age 22, I wrote a proposal with funding source, and presented it in a one-on-one meeting with the President of the University, Lattie Coor. He accepted the proposal and acknowledged that my proposal had founded a literacy center on campus for the good of the students and the community at large. 

My work solves for multiple issues in society through a single mobile app - it has a spider web effect, with each strand of the spider web becoming more resilient through its interconnection with the other strands. It uses a systems-thinking approach and leverages the desire of humans to connect with one another to change an entire system, envisioning a brighter, more hopeful future for all.

My goals within the next year are to get the university campuses in Arizona to support social change and change of the food system through their student body's awareness of this app and through their participation - students cooking for students, getting paid cooking opportunities, sharing their cultures with one another and storytelling - bringing down silos among the various cultural groups on campuses. Within the next five years, it is my goal to have this app expand outside the US to countries abroad. 

The barriers that currently exist for me to accomplish my goals in the next year and in the next five years are financial in nature.

In the past, I declined several investor opportunities that were presented to me (not any I sought out) because I wanted to ensure that my vision for the app would not deviate from the integrity and heart behind it. I have come to a point where my own financial resources have been fully utilized and I am seeking strategic partnerships and ethos-driven investors whose vision and values align with my own desire for healing the social fabric and the food system. 

BITES | EAT WITH YOUR TRIBE is a free app with zero advertising. It's new on the App Store. Cooks on the app collaborate with the eater on a menu for a drop-off meal, meal prep services, in-home dining experience, or interactive classroom lunch. The eater tells the cook their maximum budget for the meal. The cook and eater collaborate on a menu that suits the eater at their budgetary level. The eater reserves the cook through the app. The cook provides all ingredients and cooking gear to prepare the meal. The eater pays the total bill through the app (no tip, no tax, no service charge, no delivery charge). The cook keeps 80% of the total bill. The app gets 17% of the total bill. Stripe payment processor takes 3% of the total bill. 

Those with basic cooking skills, as well as professional chefs, can use this app for paid cooking gigs - a chance to do creative work on their own terms, according to their own schedules and financial needs. Those who are eaters will find this app provides them with homecooked meals that are more cost-effective than dining out or ordering from Uber Eats and others, because there's no tip, no tax, no service, no delivery charge. It's a win-win for eaters and cooks, plus it gives visibility to local growers whose produce are sourced by the cooks on the app. 

My path to financial sustainability is built into the app through the revenue sharing model. Each time an eater uses the app, the app gets paid a portion of the revenue from the bill. Separately, I'm seeking ethos-driven investors and strategic partnerships whose vision and values align with my own.

In the specific case of student cooks and student eaters at universities and colleges, the app has a tagging feature that tells us what university or college the student cook attends. With that tag, we can allot any part of the 17% that the app would otherwise take as its revenue, back to the school or school programs for the benefit of making change happen at the university or college level. It is my desire to give back the majority of the 17% to the university or college for the benefit of students growing foods representing the various cultures on campus, sustainably for the benefit of the students. So, instead of the app getting 17% of the total bill, it would get 7% and other 10% (majority of revenue) would go to the school's efforts in growing food sustainably for the student population. To illustrate, it would look like this: 80% to the student cook; 10% to the school to grow food on campus; 7% to the app; and 3% to Stripe payment processor. 

We had begun to generate revenue through the app right before the Coronavirus issue arose. Everything was paused with the Coronavirus as the app at that stage was built for in-home farm-to-table dining experiences. We've since newly added drop-off meals and meal prep services, but have lacked funds to market these time-relevant features to eaters and cooks alike. 

We're seeking to raise $1Million to market the app nationally this year. The type of funding can be a combination of grant and equity (convertible note). 

I'm applying for the Elevate Prize as I'm confident that BITES | EAT WITH YOUR TRIBE is a powerful tool for transforming our food system and healing our cultural divide - both require our attention, our efforts, and our intentional actions in elevating our human experience.