One of the greatest challenges facing humanity is how to feed a burgeoning global population given the deleterious effects on crop production of climate change and decreasing arable land area. A step change in genetics and agronomy will be required to even get close to meeting world food demand. Recently, improving photosynthesis through molecular genetics and synthetic biology has become a major breeding target to help address this challenge. This presentation tells the story of one of the longest running and arguably the most ambitious crop engineering programs ever attempted: The C4 Rice Project. This project, funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation in 2008 and now in the fourth phase of its life, is tasked with increasing rice yields by 50%. This is to be achieved by installing the C4 photosynthetic pathway into the world number one cereal crop, which uses C3 photosynthesis. The story begins with the Australian discovery of the C4 photosynthetic pathway in 1966, then over 40 years later, 16 labs in 11 countries got together to assemble the genetic parts to turbocharge photosynthesis. Using Synbio principles before they were even labelled as such, this project has now assembled the basic biochemical pathway, many of the metabolite transporters and some of the anatomical specialization in rice required to meet project goals. Recent progress, remaining challenges, the outlook and likelihood of success will be presented and discussed.