Greenairy

🥁 Drumroll please...  We are thrilled to announce our last group of Global Innovation Challenge 2024 winners! 🌟1st Place: Tanvi R Thombre 🌱 from Greenairy Greenairy tackles air pollution by providing an air purification tower that supercharges nature to clean air 10-100 times faster, helping improve air quality. 🌟1st Place: Sarah Bailey from Even Even tackles the lack of affordable menstrual products for refugees by developing low-cost period underwear, helping women manage menstruation more sustainably. 🌟2nd Place: Clara Maspons from Maternia Health Maternia Health tackles maternal health challenges in low and middle-income countries by developing a low-cost, low-tech solution to improve prenatal care, helping mothers access essential healthcare services.   🌟2nd Place: Nora E. Torres Castillo from Káapeh México Káapeh México tackles environmental and socio-economic challenges for smallholder coffee farmers in Mexico by transforming coffee waste into biodegradable growth slabs and providing education, helping improve waste management and farmer livelihoods. A huge thank you to JPMorganChase for supporting these game-changing innovations! 👏

Pinch me - meeting Prince William, DESMOND Alugnoa, Björn Söderberg, Francis N., Florent Kaiser, Jacob Johnson Attakpah, Kevin Li, The Earthshot Prize finalists, corporate supporters, and 119 other incredible youth leaders in South Africa was a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity that left me inspired, humbled, and more determined than ever to drive meaningful change with Greenairy. It was humbling to be in the presence of those who had achieved so much, but had taken the time to connect with us and share their stories. 🫂Empower the community to make a living creating positive impact. This was my big takeaway from the finalists. 🗑️Green Africa Youth Organization (GAYO) empowers vulnerable youth and women in Africa to make a living in circular waste management. 🏘️Build up Nepal empowers builder entrepreneurs in Nepal to make a living building affordable, eco-friendly, earthquake-resilient homes. 🪸Coast 4C empowers seaweed farmers in Philippines to make a living growing regenerative, reliable, traceable red seaweed. 🌲Acción Andina empowers indigenous communities in the Andean forest to make a living restoring native forest ecosystems. 🎣Keep IT Cool | Earthshot Prize Winner 24 empowers small farmers and fishers in Kenya to make a living selling fresh refrigerated food. So the next time you see an opportunity to make impact, ask yourself - "Who is closest to this problem? How can I make the sustainable option economically feasible?" ✍ Tell your story to find supporters. "Convincing people was the toughest part when I started at 23." "I have a document listing all the ways I introduced myself." As a founder, these statements felt so relatable. Sharing your work and advocating for causes is a multiplier to your consistent efforts. You just need to "Find that one person who believes in you and is already connected to people". 🌍🥇 What is The Earthshot Prize? Since I've been getting this question from friends - started by The Royal Foundation of The Prince and Princess of Wales in 2019, TEP (earthshotprize.org) awards 5 winners £1M / SG$1.7M each, under "5 ambitious goals for 2030 to fix our biggest environmental problems": Protect and Restore Nature, Clean Our Air, Revive Our Oceans, Build a Waste-Free World, and Fix Our Climate. It turns "Anger and anxiety into agency and action" - Hannah Jones. To anyone looking to be nominated, please reach out. There's more to share but I'm over the word limit, so there will be a part 3 - about South Africa, what I learnt from the amazing African youth, and opportunities shared. Huge thank you again to Temasek Trust, TPC (Tsao Pao Chee). DP World, Paul G. Allen Family Foundation, Bloomberg, Common Purpose, Adirupa Sengupta, Thoz, Kim Veltman, Elsbeth Dixon, Lebogang Molote, Katherine Woods, Benjamin Ng, Shing Yi Poon, Christabel Reena David, Tess C., Jennifer Lewis, Sarah Cragg, Anna Lovell, Fran Wilski, Caroline Weston Goodman, Claudia Holdcroft. #EarthshotCapeTown

Honored to be 1 of 20 Asian youth selected by Temasek Foundation, TPC (Tsao Pao Chee) and Common Purpose as part of The Earthshot Prize (TEP) Asia Youth Leaders Programme 🌍 to fly to South Africa to meet 100 other amazing African youth and Earthshot Finalists in person in Cape Town 🇿🇦. On the first leg in Asia, we explored innovative players in the Singapore sustainability ecosystem 🇸🇬. Some takeaways: "Biodiversity loss is an existential threat. The biggest extinction threats were the meteorite☄️, Ice Age❄️...and now, humans🧍♂️" - Jessica Lee from Mandai Wildlife Group, which uses 80% renewable energy☀️, harvests rainwater💧, and maximizes natural ventilation using passive design💨 "In agriculture, first it was the age of physics for tools 🚜, then chemistry for fertilizers 🧪, and now it's the age of biology for crop modification 🌾" - Peter C., Somika Bhatnagar, Jocelyn Pang from Temasek Life Sciences Laboratory which developed Temasek Rice, Our Fish Storey, and Zero2.5 ionizers (great demo!) "From our A, B, Cs and 1, 2, 3s to so much more, we learn everything in school. So why shouldn't it prepare us for our greatest test - the threats and challenges of a changing planet" - School of Tomorrow by Kinetic Singapore, which features so many genius alternatives and offers a new way to think about using resources, a must visit "The sustainability space doesn't have a solutions problem, but a scaling problem - this is what the Earthshot Prize aims to address with the £1M funding" - Sarah Cragg on their journey with the #EarthshotPrize Media recommendations:  Prisoners of Geography, Why Nations Fail - RUDY ABRAHAMS (thank you for the fascinating sharing about South African culture - and Ubuntu!) Abang Adit (a look into statelessness in Malaysia) - Tasha Sabapathy Thank you for the generous opportunity, and for taking care of us in Singapore Benjamin Ng, Swati Mathur, Ziying Teng, Jennifer Lewis, Shing Yi Poon, Tess C., Christabel Reena David, Jamie Sim, and glad to have made friends with these inspiring youth Steffi Tan, Ajay Ram, Nayli Raifana, Tasha Sabapathy, yiwen liu, Tan Yock Han (陈学汉), Rishika Selvan, Kemas Rahmat Mubarrak, Hellen Nguyen, Aonthada Chotkrittichai, Xu Jie Ng, Edu Macabatas, Matz Chan, Sinoretha Sining, Nattakan Saiwongpanya, Duong Tuan Minh, Michael Yiin, D Riz, Mun Cong. Stay tuned to an even more exciting part 2 from South Africa!🥳🌎🇿🇦

Left the We Got This Youth Dialogue by WWF-Singapore and Temasek Foundation with 36 new friends from Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Thailand, and Vietnam - and new sustainability insights from the pre-event icebreakers (with snacks from everyone's home countries!), Tech for Nature Fireside Chat, Vidacity tour, scientific communication and purpose workshops, incredible Innovation Black Box pitches, singing and dancing, and Time Capsule journaling at the Singapore Sustainability Gallery. A few takeaway quotes: "There are more barbers in the UK than forest rangers in the whole world" - WWF CEO Vivek Kumar, F.IOD "Singapore's reefs have decreased by 60% over the past decade" - Lionel Ng (These Scientists Are Rebuilding Singapore’s Coral Reefs – With Lego. Vice) "Theory Of Change saves you from using the wrong method, or facing unintended consequences, like in Operation Cat Drop" - Kah Mun J Chan “It’s getting hot in here” - Bonnie Chia on effective scientific communication by Masagus Achmad Fathan Mubina's shirt “Accountability is very important in sustainability assessment - beyond cradle to grave” - Chu Xian Oh on Magorium's NEWBitumen upcycling strategy “Accelerate technology to make climate action easier” - Akash Verma "Irresponsible production of palm oil has been one of the major drivers of deforestation, biodiversity loss, climate change and social conflicts" - Irfan Bakhtiar “I never thought I would go into business. I had to sit down and really ask myself, why am I doing this and who am I doing this for?” - Jodie Monteiro "Early on, work with people who have risk appetite. Your prototype is ready when you start getting yeses" - Qi Herng Kong Thank you to the WWF team Jayasri Narayanan, Eliza Lim, Noelle Anne Cubacub, Rephael Torrence Raagas, Amira Rafi, Jing Ru (景茹）, Lok Chi Audrey Chan, the experts Jomthip Chareonsri, Tatiana Ratcu Siufi, Tasha Sabapathy, Alya Annabi, Chee Yung Kuan, and new friends Adriani V Tobing, Sathvika Subramanian, Lauryn Chan, Nadiah Hazirah, Sasmini Bandara, Zi Xuan Soh, Janice Khoo, Mirus Ponon, Zavier Clifford Chua Lin, Rehan Raif, Sachi Emelin Carissa, Anupama Priyadarshani, Joshua Kam, Jolene Chew and more (haha I've hit the mention limit). #WeGotThis

What an incredible night pitching and winning at the Launchpad X CRIB Business for Good Pitch Festival 4th Edition at Trehaus. The energy was electric, and we are beyond grateful for the experience. A huge thank you to the Launchpad team for your support and hard work behind the scenes Chris Edwards, Edoria Ridzmann, Faherah Begam, Lord Dennis Joplin Acuña, and the pitch mentors who elevated our delivery and storytelling Mayur Singh, Michael Blakey, and Zal Dastur (with a 100% win rate). Thank you also to our awesome mentor Christopher Leow who helped us with the tower in time for the pitch. Congratulations to the other winners Wendy Wei G, PhD (Nubiotech Company - your probiotic drink was delicious) and Cissy Kang and Jasmine Huang Qian (MOMIJI - with the cutest kids rattan toys), and Florence Leong (KosmodeHealth Singapore). The thoughtful questions and feedback from the judges were invaluable in clarifying our product and mission, thank you to Hester Spiegel-vdSteenhoven, Haoming Lee, Anna Pearson, Mayur Singh, Carol Cheung, Hyuk-Tae Kwon, Tianna Nguyen, and Rufus Sorsa. , Thank you to my dear friends Navaneetha S. (Togather for Good) and Alya Annabi (Positive Push) for boosting my energy and hyping me on my favorite Sustainability Women Whatsapp community. We also look forward to meeting more amazing people from the Launchpad community like Jamie Pierre, Dr Jyothi Kosaraju (lovely soap), Kelly Jeon, Agathe Colom, Samika Biswasroy, Anshul Magotra. Thank you to the sponsors of the $10K in prizes, Honeycombers, Trehaus, 88 Productions Pte LTD, Theodora Maria Voutsa for the lovely pictures, Dance Embassy, Tinted Wateva, and Fiore Arte for the beautiful bouquets. The night was topped off with delicious food from ahimsa sanctuary (wow the ashwagandha latte), LUSH PLATTERS, and Free Spirit. Cheering on this community, here's to more impact and success! 🎉

Honored to announce that Greenairy has won 2nd at the ASEAN China India Youth Leadership Summit Youth Leadership Summit Singapore Finals 2024 by Alibaba Cloud South APAC and OSG Youth Alliance held at NCS Group🌿🏆 Onwards to the global rounds in September, where we look forward to making international friends! This year's theme was “Prioritizing and Integrating AI To Build a Sustainable & Resilient City" (SDG 11 and 7) - aligning perfectly with Greenairy's mission to provide #cleanair for healthier urban spaces using nature x technology 🏢🪴 Congratulations to my friends and fellow winners: 🍓🥤 Yiong Jon Lon from Noshinom - delicious smoothies made by freeze-drying unwanted fruits and vegetables 🪸🛍️ Elizabeth Tseng, Aik Heng Ch'ng from Clitech Solutions - proprietary seaweed-based bioplastic which replaces single use plastic We hope all the other amazing teams continue to work on their solutions as well, kudos on creating a solution of your own!👏 A huge thank you to the judges for their expert questions David Wu (thank you for the 2nd pic!), Patrick Ng, Maw-Der Foo, Edmas Neo, MBA, Chong Lee Fong, Jayne Leow, Emmanual Tay, Edward Tay (Prof), Ferdin Joe John Joseph, the team working hard behind the scenes Claudine Chantelle, Shirley Y., Dr TAN Eng Han .. We look forward to the finals!

Celebrating our superstar intern, Kate!🌟 As we say goodbye, I want to take a moment to highlight the amazing contributions she made during her time with Greenairy: 💲 Developed a dynamic pricing model that informed key pricing decisions and commercial viability. 🍃 Uncovered new opportunities for our outreach, design, and operations. 💻 Enhanced our online presence to better engage customers, even learning coding to build a dynamic air quality quiz. 👩🌾 Ran an educational workshop with Girl Guides Singapore about sustainable urban farming. 🤝 Proactively applied to funding and partnership opportunities. 🏢 Actively engaged our partners during networking and sustainability events. Thank you Kate, for your hard work, creativity, reliability, and enthusiasm. I'm glad you were able to learn about continuous product iteration, the dynamic life of a startup founder, strategies for securing funding, and the power of building a strong network. I learned just as much from your fresh outreach ideas, your approach to financial modeling, your ability to adapt quickly - and about the joy of working together in person. I'm confident you will continue to achieve great things, and we look forward to continued collaboration, especially as we explore opportunities in Aussie offices and schools! 😉 A big thank you to UQ Ventures Accelerating Asia Ventures Frances Jillian RPm for the opportunity, SMU Institute of Innovation & Entrepreneurship Sooji Lee for sharing the opportunity and space, Rollen Gomes Joe Chung for hosting us at the R/GA office, and all the mentors who support us.

Honored to have represented as the Singapore Champion in Manila, Philippines 🇵🇭 at the regional Youth Co:Lab Summit 2024 by UNDP and Citi, together with ADB NGO and Civil Society Center, DTI Philippines, United Nations ESCAP, International Labour Organization, Aspen Network of Development Entrepreneurs, CVC Capital Partners, SGV & Co. and EY, The Commonwealth, Islamic Development Bank (IsDB), The Spark Project, at the lovely Asian Development Bank (ADB) HQ. #YouthCoLabSummit2024 Our team Tanvi R Thombre Tanishgaa Ponnarasu met many other incredible social entrepreneurs, government representatives, and social catalyst program teams. Thank you to Rita Pandey, Isabell Chew from National Youth Council Singapore and Karla B., Jey Chan, Yaqi Chu, Dipesh P., Cynthia Cheung (whom we had been seeing on a screen for weeks) from UNDP for all your support and hard work behind the scenes. Throughout the program and discussions, we got reminded that it takes a village to raise a social enterprise. Thank you all for being part of our village! Some take-aways on promoting inclusive social entrepreneurship: "The transgender/women employees resigned due to a lack of safe public transport and housing options" - Beniam Gebrezghi and Dr Selva Ramachandran on unpacking systemic issues that affect inclusive social enterprise, both in the communities being served and those getting the opportunity to serve them #leavenoonebehind (More on transport policy: https://lnkd.in/gkk4PtKp) "We didn't know how to make PowerPoints before UNDP stepped in, after the website our revenue went up 12X" - Ladakh Basket on the power of digitalization for inclusivity (More from Strategic Intelligence Hub's best practices in youth entrepreneurship in different countries, Singapore: https://lnkd.in/g9nxNeDx) To our new social entrepreneur friends, let's continue to innovate for underserved groups, and we hope to meet you again: 🥣Varden Toh, the moonbeam co., our fellow Singapore Champion 👗Alinta Tatana, Alinta.co 🔋Hai Ho, Alternō 🌾Robyn Camille Patos Mijares, Grow School Philippines 🧺Thinles Norboo, Ladakh Basket 🫚Intan Rahmaningtyas, Lestari Jamuku 🦶Abrahim Ali Shah, Mobiliti 💧 Lawrie Cate, mymizu 🤝Emily Pek Yeng Wong, Native Discovery 🥛Alex Pang, NE8T FoodTech 🏳️🌈Amber Jones, PEERS 👁️Lamia Sreya Rahman, Seekr 🏥Mark Virgil Jamer, Rise Rural Philippines 🗣️Yuha Jin, TELLA 🧑🌾Md Mahmudur Rahman, WeGro Global spm.industries, stargallery.xyz, zakatthailand.com Our feature on the UNDP website can be found here, let's collaborate for #cleanair and #farmingeducation: https://lnkd.in/g_m2_n3u

"Gender gap in the digital age: empowering girls in STEM and Tech" - honored to have been selected as a Youth Voice, and panelist with the talented Candice Wang, Angela Ng, and Tanushah Ramadass to speak on my experience as founder of Greenairy, at the Women's Forum for the Economy & Society (A Publicis Groupe company). Had a blast meeting the other Youth Voices - inspirational young women leaders who flew in from near and far Jodie Harper Sivakami Chloe Tanaka Renata Kirthi Susmita Reem - I enjoyed hearing your journeys and starting collaborations✨ Some initiatives that are shifting the needle for women: 🦾 Robotics education for young girls and boys, who are excited to learn as long as they can include their favorite Harry Potter characters (Candice Wang Coding Lab) 🧬 Hormonal health awareness and fem-tech solutions empower women to live life fully (Mayra Hurtado 🐝Hormony ® (Prelude Health) Mabel Yen Ngoc Nguyen, PhD Navneet Kaur Sastya Wardani Lindsay DAVIS) 🤳 Social media, because visibility = opportunity. Be find-able to be "fund-able" (Jingjin Liu ELEVATE), and to be a visible role model to young girls 🧘♀️ At the same time, social media literacy to limit its impact on young minds, who are always being sold a lifestyle (Helen Lee Bouygues) 🤝 Programs for women in underrepresented areas, like the Lien Centre for Social Innovation Women In Entrepreneurship incubator, where I finally met a network of driven women founders to exchange notes and support with 👩🏻💻 Flexible work arrangements. Employee Resource Groups. Policies that ensure women not just get fairly hired, but fairly promoted as well. Removing gender as a resume filter. 👩🏿🤝👨🏼It's not just about gender. Inclusivity extends to age - make concepts simple for all ages, have intergenerational dialogue (Selma Bichbich). Inclusivity affects everyone, we're all in this together (Yaewon H.). Don't shoulder the load alone, invite others to your cause (Zac) 🩷 Finally - start somewhere, start today, start small. This was my first time saying yes to a panel because it was on a topic I felt strongly about. I had to start somewhere, so I can do better on the next one :) Thank you FriendzoneSG Grace Ann Chua for the icebreakers, Magdalene HO for the coaching sharing, Justin Tan for the Singapore landscape sharing and Noelle Martin for the women's digital safety sharing. Thank you to the other panelists Anand Govindaluri Huh Dam (Adam) Jamie Yau for their insightful sharings. Thank you Karla B. for sharing this opportunity with me (and being an amazing moderator during the Inclusivity panel) and Silvia Race for organizing everything so smoothly! I look forward to what is next for these amazing women, and to championing diversity together💕

🧑🎓💡Are we doing enough to equip our students with the knowledge to tackle the pressing issues of climate change and sustainability? Last week, during the Careers, Scholarships, and Higher Education Day at Dunman High School, I was privileged to speak to over 80 young minds who signed up to learn more about a career in #innovation and #entrepreneurship - #sustainability was the biggest area students wanted to work on. This week, I was at the Open Government Products Build For Good hackathon (https://www.build.gov.sg/), where they shared that 80 of us had been selected - out of over 700 applicants who wanted to use their weekends to "Build a Greener Singapore". The overwhelming interest to work on innovative sustainability solutions underscores a crucial question: How can we provide practical, impactful learning experiences that inspire and equip students to work on problems that matter? 🌍 🥵 Understand the stakes: Climate change is not a distant threat - it's a present challenge. While we are experiencing rising temperatures in Singapore, other impacts may seem distant - crop losses affecting global food supply, more frequent and severe weather events disrupting lives and economies, and rising sea levels threatening coastal communities around the world. Our #education systems must prepare students to broaden their worldview and understand these challenges. 🤝 Real-world insights: There’s a gap between student interest in climate tech and their understanding of what can be done. Real-world insights from governments and founders, like National Parks Board, Singapore Food Agency, Cloop, treatsure, Siemens who shared at the hackathon, are invaluable for students, showing them the problems they might solve and the impact they can achieve with #climatetech. 💡 Hands-on problem-solving: Let's rethink our educational frameworks to include more hands-on, problem-solving experiences that focus on sustainability. As educators and industry leaders, it's our responsibility to ensure students understand the scale of environmental issues and are empowered to tackle them head-on.🌏💚 Thank you to Chee Kam Lim Bock Boon Wee Siang See Staff Tan Kae Ling Weiren Loh for reaching out and coordinating this opportunity!