Nour Akbaraly completed a master’s in engineering at Centrale Lille and also a master’s in applied mathematics at Lille University in 2010. In 2011, Akbaraly joined industrial manufacturing consultancy firm Avencore as a consultant in Paris.The avid photographer and F&B enthusiast also went to various tea-tasting classes at a tea specialist college until 2015. Passionate about gastronomy, he began exploring alt-protein alternatives to address the environmental and ethical challenges of food supply chains.In 2016, he went on an engineering training course for agronomy and agri-food at AgroSup Dijon, the National Institute of Agronomic, Food and Environmental Sciences.A year later, he founded Les Noveaux Affineurs, a startup specializing in plant-based alternatives to cheese. His ambition is to create a new range of French gastronomic vegan cheese products for consumers in France and overseas.Since 2010, Akbaraly is also a volunteer at the Action Contre la Faim, a Paris-based international NGO founded in 1979. The “Action Against Hunger” projects include running awareness campaigns on food security issues in colleges and schools in France and other countries like India and Sudan.