When founder Somdip Dey was a master's student in computer science at the University of Manchester, his parents were killed in a car accident. He sent all of his money back to his parents in India to help with their medical bills, but then he ran into a problem that was all too familiar: if he wasn't going to be paid for another week, how was he going to feed himself?

“Luckily, this happened around when the summer holiday started, so a lot of students were moving out and literally throwing away unopened food,” Dey remembered. “I realized that there’s too much waste that could be used by other people who might need it.”

This helped him stay fed during a crisis, but as an AI researcher, he began to consider how technology could help reduce food waste and feed hungry people. Dey founded Nosh Technologies with co-founder Suman Saha after completing his master's degree and moving on to pursue a PhD at the University of Essex.