On October 31st 2015, in Jatinangor, West Java a workshop with the theme “Thought For Food Innovation Catalyst” was being held for the first time in Faculty of Agriculture, Padjajaran University, Indonesia.
The workshop, a collaboration between Thought For Food (TFF), International Association of Students in Agricultural and Related Sciences (IAAS), and Student Executive Associations of Padjajaran University brought together at least 40 students from various universities in Indonesia with an aim to boost the creativity and ideas to tackle the global challenge: how to feed the 9 billion people by 2050.
“We are the generation who will be leaders in the future and will be faced with many challenges including food security,” said Siti Nisrina Hasna, Local Committee Director of IAAS LC-UNPAD. “Through this workshop, we’ll enhance your creativity in tackling the challenge.”
The Workshop and its Aims
The workshop was held as part of the ongoing TFF Challenge, where TFF is currently in search of world’s best and brightest university students with breakthrough ideas that have the potential to be further developed. The ten best team finalists will be sent to the TFF Global Summit 2016 in Zurich to present their projects to the world and compete for $20,000 seed investment.
Led by Ratih Nawangwulan, Global Ambassador of TFF, the workshop gave an insight of the challenge and how university students could contribute to tackling the global challenge. There after, the students were divided into five multidisciplinary groups each being led by facilitators from IAAS. Each group was given case studies on food waste, nutrition and food safety, climate change, food system and land usage to brainstorm for solutions amongst themeselves. The outcomes of the workshop were solutions to answer those food challenges and young innovators to continue their steps to the challenge.
Reactions from the Workshop Participants
Diah Ayu, a Bioengineering student from Bandung Institute of Technology said, “I feel excited to be part of this workshop as I can explore more about food problems with friends from different universities. Even so, I hope that this workshop could be more focused on the system of TFF challenge.”
While Naufal Musyaffa from Marine Science, Padjajaran University expressed, “The TFF Workshop has broadened my knowledge about food security through brainstorming soultions with different perspectives.”
Local Solutions to Local Problems
Various food issues were being discussed with an aim to find the appropriate solutions using local resources. For instnace, a group from the Nutrition and Food Safety issue used “Hanjeli”, a locally produced plant that can be found in many places in Indonesia as a substitute for imported wheat since this plant is just equally nutritious as wheat. Another group who discussed Food System offered a solution for the detrimental middlemen problem in Indonesia by generating a collaborative system between government, private sector, universities and local community.
Through group discussions and brainstorming sessions in TFF Workshop, participants were able to further analyze the problems and to find innovative solutions to the problems by thinking critically, as well as building network with new friends.
About Thought For Food
Thought For Food is a movement dedicated to tackling the global challenge of feeding 9 billion people through bold, breakthrough solutions generated by the world’s best and brightest university students. Thought For Food was founded in 2011.
A huge thanks to our supporters and partners who have made this event possible:
Thought For Food Foundation
IAAS LC-UNPAD
BEM Agrokompleks UNPAD