Warwick Economics alumnus listed in Forbes 30 under 30 for Europe 2025

We are delighted that Josef Chen, a former student of the Department of Economics has been listed in the 10th edition of Forbes Europe 30 under 30 List for 2025. The list, published by Forbes annually, recognises exceptional achievements of 30 individuals under 30 years old, in 19 different categories.

Josef, who graduated with a BSc Economics, Politics and International Studies in 2023, has been listed in the Manufacturing & Industry category alongside his business partners, Piers Millar and Ivan Tregear, for creating Kaikaku, a robotics and AI startup that raised $4 million to scale the next generation of restaurants where repetitive tasks are automated so that humans can focus on the hospitality part.

The Forbes profile gives praise to Josef and his co-founders of Kaikaku for pioneering food-safe 3D-printed plastic components and manufacturing all of their hardware and software in-house at a central London lab behind its robotics-powered restaurant.

We asked Josef to tell us more about his career to date and his innovative business venture and here is what he said:

What was your career ambition after graduating from Warwick in July 2023?

"After graduating from Warwick, I was offered a place on the MSc programme at Imperial College London. But by then, I had already experienced investment banking, private equity, and venture capital through internships, and realised I wasn’t built to just analyse other people’s companies. I wanted to build, not watch. I felt a deep urgency to create something that could reshape the world. So, I decided to channel my creative energy into setting up Kaikaku rather than doing the MSc course.

In under a year, we launched the UK’s first robotics-powered restaurant with a fully operational site in London, open to the public, where our engineers work behind a one-way mirror. We call this our “living laboratory” because it allows us to iterate daily and gather feedback from paying customers in real time. That speed and obsessive execution earned me a spot on Forbes 30 Under 30, but the real credit goes to the entire team for their tenacity and true grit.

What is Kaikaku?

"Kaikaku is building the next generation operation system for restaurant chains, powered by robotics and AI but defined by customer experience. Our mission is to create the best restaurant experiences by building the world’s most vertically integrated restaurant hardware, software and AI.

Our first product is Fusion, a robot that can assemble more than 360 customised bowls per hour on autopilot, increasing throughput compared to a traditional operation by more than 300%. The goal isn’t to remove humans, but to automate repetitive processes so they can spend all their time delivering unique hospitality to our customers.

How did you come up with this idea?

"My parents opened a Chinese restaurant in a small Austrian town after immigrating from China. Growing up in that household meant 14-hour shifts stacking used dishes and translating stacks of German documents into Chinese starting when I was just 6 years old. That kind of trauma stays with you. Especially a hatred towards your parents for making you work while all your friends are spending their childhoods playing video games.

So, as a teenager, I swore I would never follow my parents and set foot in the restaurant industry again. But then, my mom said something that turned all my hatred into a lifelong challenge: “Making you work in the restaurant was the only time me and your dad as restaurant owners got to spend time with you.” Few weeks later, Kaikaku was born.

What does ‘Kaikaku’ mean?

“Kaikaku” means radical change in Japanese. While most of the food industry embraces Kaizen, the philosophy of continuous, incremental improvement popularised by Toyota, we take a different path. We’re fundamentally rethinking the entire system.

What’s your key business goal and how are you going about it?

"I want to be synonymous with restaurants just like Bernard Arnault is synonymous with luxury goods. While still very early, we’ve already proven our ability as an extremely lean but top-tier team, to consistently ship technology 10 times faster and cheaper than most of our competitors. We are excited to announce a string of significant partnerships very soon!

What’s your vision for the restaurant of the future?

"I imagine it to be an extremely personal and human experience with technology handling everything that’s transactional. By removing the repetitive grind, our team can focus on what truly matters: the customer. Robotics doesn’t replace the human touch but enables it.

What Warwick skills and experiences shaped you?

"For me it’s time management. Warwick’s community gave me the motivation and energy to achieve more. For example, during COVID, I launched a nonprofit alongside 15 other Warwick students where we digitised 250+ restaurant menus across the Midlands to allow for digital ordering.

What was the most valuable part of your BSc in Economics, Politics & International Studies?

"The most important aspect of my degree was learning to think in an interdisciplinary way. Economics and Politics may seem like separate fields, but in the real world, they’re deeply interconnected. For example, economics taught me how to dissect market behaviours and incentives, while politics helped me understand the power structures and institutions that influence those behaviours.

This combination has been key in shaping how I approach real-world challenges like incentive structures behind restaurant operations and how technology can reshape that. It’s helped me design solutions that are not just innovative, but practical, by considering the entire ecosystem, from people to processes to technology."

We thank Josef for this interview and congratulate him on his success.