The students convert grass into edible starch flour that can be used to make ugali and porridge. They believe that this will help the entire world to save the lives of people struck by hunger. Faith Wandia, 24, a Business Administration (Finance) Master’s student who is the brain behind the project, says she came up with the idea two years ago. She later incorporated three other students; Bahati Innocent, a Clinical Medicine student, Salome Njeri (Economics), and Edgar Ruto (Computer Science). Together they embarked on research and were able to break its code this year Ms Wandia told Nation. Africa that the increase in the price of maize flour in the country forced them to come up with a solution. They ended up with a project of converting non-food plant material into food. She said they opted to venture into converting cellulose contained in grass into starch that is good for human consumption. “About 9 million people die of hunger, 3.1 million are children. This means that 24,000 people are dying daily and 1,000 per hour and about 10 per cent of the world's population go to bed hungry. In Kenya, 17 per cent of the total population live below the poverty line,” she said “Last year, maize flour used to retail between Sh40 to Sh55 per kilogram, and it shot up this year to Sh90 up to Sh120 per kg. As innovators, we decided to come up with a project that would make food affordable and save people from dying of hunger,” she added. Ms Wandia says they opted for grass which grows on 50 to 60 per cent of the total surface area of the earth. They settled on drought-resistant Bermuda grass and Ryegrass, which take only two months to grow. After harvesting grass, the innovators wash it to remove contamination, dry it and grind it into powder (cellulose powder) before adding enzymes to break down the cellulose into starch. After harvesting grass, the innovators wash it to remove contamination, dry it and grind it into powder (cellulose powder) before adding enzymes to break down the cellulose into starch. When Wandia told me about the project I didn’t think it was something viable. I laughed it off but I later sat down and reassessed it,” he said. https://youtu.be/lX3bRdnlnW0