Finagnon Toyi Kevin Fassinou was born on June 3th 1993 in Porto-Novo, Republic of Benin. After completing his elementary and secondary education, he proceeded to pursue an undergraduate study in the School of Science and Technology of Conservation and Transformation of Agricultural Products at National University of Agriculture, Benin. After graduating in 2015, he obtained an internship at Laboratory of Food Science where he improved his laboratory analysis skills and scientific skills through survey preparation and implementation, data analysis, scientific reports writing, etc.
During his internship, he developed a strong interest in the valorization of local resources through the feeding of vulnerable groups including under five years old children and women in child bearing age. In 2019, Kevin obtained a Master degree in Food Science and Nutrition from the Faculty of Agronomic Science, University of Abomey Calavi- Benin. Following his interest in local resource valorization, during this master degree, he obtained a support of Regional Universities Forum for Capacity Building in Agriculture (RUFORUM) through project CARP+ implemented in Benin on Baobab products.
He worked on the development on a complementary food supplement based on local resources to address iron deficiency among children aged 6 to 59 months. This complementary food supplement has recorded high acceptability levels and has good nutritional content. This achievement enabled him to be awarded the Field Attachment Program Award (FAPA) in 2020 funded by RUFORUM. This FAPA grant has allowed him to strengthen his community cooperation and to share his research findings with the community.
After implementation of FAPA, Kevin Fassinou worked as research assistant in the Laboratory of Food Sciences, Technology and Human Nutrition at National University of Agriculture and Laboratory of Agricultural Entomology ; University of Abomey-Calavi. His engagement at this level was characterized by involvement in different research projects such as project that aimed at improving the vulnerable groups nutritional status using edible insects. Currently, Finagnon Toyi Kevin Fassinou has be awarded the Train Agribusiness and Food Systems Scientists for African Agriculture (TAFSA) mobility grant and is enrolled as PhD student at the Faculty of Agriculture and Environment of Gulu University, Uganda.