Sustainability Trade is EB Affect’s flagship mentorship programme, launched in 2019 with help from our anchor associate, multinational expertise group Meta. Since its inception the programme has garnered important curiosity amongst stakeholders within the sustainability area and efficiently accomplished three iterations, impacting over 130 youths.
Agroath, the primary recipient of OCBC’s #OCBCCares Atmosphere Fund, is a first-rate instance of the programme’s impression. Introduced collectively by the programme based mostly on shared pursuits in Singapore’s meals and vitamin, the workforce includes of Jansher Singh, Jing Ting, and Yiong Jon Lon, three of whom have been enrolled in college and one in Nationwide Service. The workforce has now expanded to incorporate Anushka Puri, Aastha Trivedi and Hitesh Kishnani, who cowl content material writing and social media advertising and marketing roles.
Agroath’s purpose is to experientially educate round 50,000 distinctive youths and encourage them to safe Singapore’s meals future. They tackle the revolutionary strategy of a useful resource hub and a recreation that reinforces consciousness and demand for native produce.
Learn on to be taught extra about ‘Breakfast Tales’, an interesting on-line recreation they’ve developed to simulate the impacts of various sorts of provide chain disruptions. From conceptualisation to design and coding of the sport, the mission is absolutely youth-led.
Mentored by Loh Yi Ting, then a Programme Supervisor at Massive Concept Ventures (a number one international investor in FoodTech), Agroath recognized key challenges within the native produce market throughout the programme. By way of analysis and consultations with Yi Ting, they discovered that restricted public consciousness concerning the penalties of overseas provide chain interruptions continues to hinder the acceptance of regionally sourced meals.
Agroath acquired S$10,000 in seed funding a 12 months in the past from OCBC to implement their mission. We spoke with the mission lead, Jansher Singh to listen to about Agroath’s progress and plans.
What’s the story behind Agroath?
The title Agroath, pronounced “a-growth”, is a mix of three phrases: Agriculture, Development, and Oath, reflecting our dedication to “drive the expansion of native agriculture” in Singapore. We search to develop youth consciousness and involvement in Singapore’s meals future by means of gamification, giveaways, and participation in occasions to advertise native farms, farm-to-table eating places, dwelling gardening, and different sustainability initiatives.
Agroath co-founder Jansher Singh at a group occasion, sharing about native farming and Singapore’s meals future. Picture: Agroath
Since being awarded, Agroath has related with over 10 native farms and labored on campaigns for 3 of them. We’ve had productive conferences with VegeMagic, Singrow, and Greenhood, and the expertise has been glorious. Our most in depth collaboration has been with VegeMagic, which generously sponsored a number of vegetable samples for us to showcase and provides away at occasions.
Most farms have been receptive to our collaboration proposals, emphasizing the necessity for higher engagement amongst Singaporeans in two key areas: growing the adoption and consumption of regionally farmed meals and growing curiosity in farming as a profession to develop the expertise pool within the native agricultural trade.
To attain this, we emphasize not solely the well being and environmental advantages of native farming but in addition showcase the distinctive strategies every farm employs, akin to aquaponics and vertical farming, with the hope of sparking curiosity and empathy amongst our readers.
What led to your curiosity in addressing meals safety?
Throughout my time as an Analyst and later as a Analysis Director at Singapore Administration College’s Sustainable Funding Membership, I developed an impression funding case deck on an Indonesian start-up within the agricultural trade. My analysis on the sector knowledgeable me of the challenges confronted by farmers, corporations, governments and shoppers.
This expertise, mixed with my financial coursework, sparked a powerful curiosity in international meals provide chains. My curiosity was lastly channeled right into a mission upon my enrolment in EB Affect’s Sustainability Trade in 2022.
Are you able to touch upon the progress throughout the final 12 months? Is there an accomplishment you’re most happy with?
I’d say progress has been good to this point. After receiving funding on 31 Could 2022, we developed our web site and expanded our social media presence. We expanded the workforce to 6 folks and carried out offline engagement occasions and street reveals. Maybe most meaningfully, we piloted our recreation “Breakfast Tales” on the Acutely aware Pageant x i Mild Market from 7 to 9 June 2024.
Agroath’s workforce and former EB Affect programmes and partnerships supervisor Erin Gunanto collect to debate plans. Picture: Agroath
It’s been thrilling to develop right into a extra various group that sees high-school graduates, grasp’s college students, and even seasoned professionals working collectively, confirming our perception that meals safety is an issue that impacts all of us.
What suggestions have you ever acquired from the general public?
We have been excited by the invite from the Acutely aware Pageant x i Lightorganisers as a result of we felt it mirrored our progress in establishing a presence in Singapore and successfully speaking our mission. It was the results of sluggish but regular work over the previous 12 months, ranging from a small sales space at a group truthful to showcasing our mission to a world viewers at Marina Bay Sands.
It was the most important occasion we’ve taken half in, and of the a number of significant interactions we had, two varieties stood out.
The primary was conversations with fellow impression creators with backgrounds in schooling, educational analysis, agriculture and even a restaurateur thinking about adopting native produce. Every of those great people supplied us help and alternatives to collaborate, which we plan to observe up on and are immensely grateful for.
The second notable interplay was with fellow youths and kids who engaged with us and tried Breakfast Tales. We have been pleasantly shocked by how rapidly they grasped the sport’s ideas, underscoring its academic potential. This expertise has impressed us to rethink our outreach technique.
Whereas we initially deliberate to scale our impression by means of a B2C strategy, we are actually eager on adopting a B2B technique by partnering with faculties and universities to run workshops, utilizing the sport as a central software to interact and educate college students.
Inform us extra about Breakfast Tales.
Breakfast Tales is a decision-based recreation that simulates real-world occasions like pure disasters, coverage shifts and ailments to focus on their uncertainty and impression on meals costs. Over eight rounds, the participant must determine between regionally and internationally sourced meals, factoring in worth shifts and funds constraints. It takes round 5 to eight minutes to undergo.
We wished to lift consciousness about meals safety issues in Singapore amid worsening local weather change and geopolitical uncertainty. These ideas are sometimes solely realized in secondary faculty, highschool, or college if one research Economics or Enterprise. We already see faculties and oldsters introducing subjects of monetary literacy at a younger age to inculcate higher saving and spending habits — so why not meals safety?
We hope to instill higher consumption habits among the many youth by means of our recreation. As we see it, whether or not it’s investing to safe one’s monetary future or making the fitting consumption selections to safe one’s meals future, each are immensely necessary.
The preliminary idea was created by Agroath’s co-founder, Jon Lon, and later refined and executed by the workforce with the help of Gan Kah Loke for growth and Shalyn Roslee for the art work. Though unplanned, collaborating with fellow youths has been extremely rewarding, because the shared studying expertise has given everybody a powerful sense of goal in contributing to one thing larger.
The beta model of our recreation is now stay on our web site (solely optimised for desktop in the meanwhile). We’d love for everybody to attempt our recreation and provide any suggestions as we work to refine it additional!
What are your plans over the subsequent three to 6 months? How has your imaginative and prescient modified?
Initially, we deliberate to forged a wider internet by way of social media platforms to interact folks of all ages. We did, nonetheless, discover this strategy to be much less impactful and more durable to measure. By way of our experiences, we’ve realized that nothing can exchange the efficacy of face-to-face interactions.
A customer performs the Breakfast Tales recreation throughout a group sustainability occasion in Singapore. Picture: Agroath
We plan to make use of the sport as a software to interact the youth on subjects of meals safety within the subsequent three months. When testing the beta model of the sport on the Acutely aware Pageant x i Mild competition, we acquired glorious suggestions from youth of all ages, whilst younger as eight years outdated (though the sport wasn’t designed for that age group). This has inspired us to interact extra faculty college students and spark their curiosity in meals safety. We’re collaborating with Chthonia Consulting, a founder-focused advisory agency for early stage ESG start-ups, to plan a method and execution plan for this renewed strategy to scale our impression.
How have Eco-Enterprise, EB Affect and OCBC supported you on this journey?
We’re profoundly grateful to the workforce at Eco-Enterprise and EB Affect for his or her unwavering help. Their help in connecting us with mentors, volunteers, and companies in Singapore has been invaluable, permitting us to remain on monitor. Moreover, their promotion of our initiative by means of invitations to prestigious occasions just like the Earthshot Prize and posts on social media has considerably prolonged our attain and impression.
We additionally prolong our heartfelt gratitude to OCBC for his or her preliminary grant, which has been very important in enabling all of the progress we’ve made on the sport, web site, and engagement occasions. Their monetary help has been the cornerstone of our success, empowering us to carry our imaginative and prescient to life and make a tangible distinction in the neighborhood.
We purpose to determine a sustainable income mannequin for Agroath that may allow us to proceed our mission of securing Singapore’s meals future. The grant from OCBC has been pivotal in facilitating our development, however we hope to determine a extra constant circulate of funds to make sure Agroath’s longevity and impression.
What recommendation would you give to these seeking to launch a sustainable initiative or firm?
Earlier than Agroath, none of us had any expertise constructing a sustainable initiative or firm. We’ve needed to be taught and determine issues out as we went alongside. I consider this journey has taught us that one of the best ways to be taught is by doing. That is essentially the most beneficial recommendation I can provide to others embarking on an analogous path.
How is your time divided up between different tasks and Agroath?
Balancing my tasks between college, co-curricular actions, and private life, whereas managing an initiative like Agroath, has positively been difficult. I strategy it one week at a time, fastidiously planning out my duties and striving to combine every part seamlessly. Prioritisation typically varies relying on urgency, impression, and private success. Over time, I’ve found a stability that works for me. Equally, you’ll discover your personal stability—it simply takes beginning and progressively adjusting as you go alongside. In abstract, suppose in massive steps, and act in small steps.
By connecting youth-led initiatives with seasoned professionals, Sustainability Trade empowers younger leaders to develop options for particular sustainability challenges aligned with Singapore’s Inexperienced Plan, which goals to advance the city-state’s nationwide agenda on sustainable growth and obtain internet zero emissions by 2050. With the help of key companions together with Meta, OCBC, Metropolis Developments Restricted, and the Ministry of Sustainability and the Atmosphere, the programme has grown to supply a wider vary of capacity-building workshops and seed funding to promising initiatives.
EB Affect launched the fourth version of Sustainability Trade this July, with functions open till 25 August. members might apply right here.
