Empowering Youth-Led Innovations: Showcasing Resilient Food Systems at Regional Demo Day
Updated: Jan 17, 2025
As a Thematic Forum of Green Entrepreneurship as part of the Asia Pacific Youth Development Forum (APYDF) 2024 and in line with the celebration of World Food Day, a Regional Demo Day on Resilient Food Systems was co-organized by Youth Co:Lab co-led by UNDP and Citi Foundation with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). It provided a platform for young entrepreneurs from the Asia-Pacific region and partners to showcase innovative solutions that promote sustainable and resilient agricultural practices.
Ten young social entrepreneurs showcased how they are developing solutions that enhance the sustainability and resilience of agricultural systems while contributing to climate adaptation and inclusive economic growth.
A panel of judges consisting of Ayesh Rajapaksha, Vice President, Chief Administrative Office, Citi, Mameaw Sapprasert, Partner, 500 Global Thailand, Charles (Chongguang) Yu, Technical Specialist in Climate Finance and Investment, UNDP, Sridhar Dharmapuri, Senior Food Safety and Nutrition Officer, Food and Agriculture Organization and Amra Naidoo, Co-Founder and General Partner, Accelerating Asia Representative provided insightful feedback on the young entrepreneurs’ projects, offering recommendations to enhance their scalability, sustainability, and alignment with climate and food security goals.
From the participants four winners were also selected for four awards namely; Best Idea Award won by AI-Powered Crop Monitoring (Bhutan), Best Scalable Solution Award won by Sattva Food Products (Nepal), Social and Environmental Impact Award won by JUNLEN (Cambodia); Audience Choice Award won by FAM (Indonesia).
The other young social enterprises joining the showcase were Pure Bhutan (Bhutan), Bhutan Astro Foods (BAF), Towerganics Nepa Pvt. Ltd (Nepal), Jyoti Healthy Snacks (Nepal), Girls and Renewable Energy Academy (GAWIREA) (Indonesia) and TAXIKEL (Philippines).
The Regional Demo Day on Resilient Food Systems also facilitated networking and knowledge exchange between young social entrepreneurs, experts, and multi-stakeholder partners in the food security ecosystem and strengthened the capacity of youth-led ventures by connecting them with key resources, partnerships, and opportunities for sustainable growth.
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Love seeing the spotlight on youth-led food systems innovation across Asia-Pacific—especially how the Demo Day connects young entrepreneurs directly with FAO and UNDP partners. Curious if any of the showcased solutions are tackling post-harvest loss in smallholder supply chains, since that’s such a critical gap. I’ve been digging into similar tools https://make-ai-video.com
This is exactly the kind of platform young agripreneurs need to scale climate-smart solutions. The collaboration between UNDP and FAO really highlights how cross-sector support can turn local food system ideas into regional impact. I've been exploring similar youth-led initiatives and found a great resource at https://hy-3d.com