Being home to over 85% of the world’s smallholder farmers, they are the backbone of food production in Asia. What solutions can APAC entrepreneurs build to assist them with information & connectivity?

With increasing urbanization and evolving eating habits, Asia will need to increase food production by 70%. Can innovation help feed the growing and more demanding middle class of Asia Pacific?

Eastern ingredients find their way in leading meat alternatives and Asian companies are an integral part of new tech such as AI and Blockchain. Which APAC startup will emerge as the unicorn in the FoodTech sector?

DAY 1 | JUNE 3, 2019

2 PM TO 6:30 PM (followed by networking dinner)

DAY 2 | JUNE 4, 2019

8:30 AM TO 6:30 PM

• With the AgriFood industry often considered among the least innovative, can industry stakeholders leverage AI to tackle perpetual problems and catch up?

• How can the AgriFood industry leverage AI to help increase trust and predictability from farm to fork?

• Cost effective and scalable models are a pre-requisite for new technologies in the food industry, does AI make the cut?

• Incremental food production requirement is forecasted to mainly come from small holders. How can innovators adjust their business models to make novel solutions relevant to smallholder farmers?

• Digital connectivity in Asia Pacific has said to have reached 50%, has the surge in ICT benefited the smallholder?

• Could digitization help smallholders with increasing production, market linkages and inclusive financing?

• Does big data raise more questions than answers for farmers?

• Before doing AI and even data mining, how is data engineering compatible with a fragmented farming landscape?

• Is big data for big landholders only?

• Can farmers get actionable insights from big data?

• As citizens transform, so do their cities. Is urban agriculture an efficient solution to feed the increasing urban Asian populations?

• What is the role of governments, technology providers and farmers in the urban agriculture landscape?

• Is urban agriculture cost effective in the long-term? What best practices can stakeholders adopt from traditional farming to help propel urban agriculture?

• Sometimes considered impact investing and sometimes the next big thing, how do investors perceive AgriFoodTech start-ups?

• What additional caveat emptor conditions do investors need to know before investing in AgriFoodTech start-ups?

• How can AgriFoodTech start-ups in Asia Pacific better position themselves to raise capital from various different types of investors?

• In the past two years, the Future Food Asia stage has hosted 20+ AgriFoodTech startups from 9 countries and in 2019 the same jury will select 10 new finalist start-ups from APAC raising their Series A

• Apart from competing for the US$ 100,000 Future Food Asia grand prize, start-ups will also compete for the ADB Ventures Grant to fund their expansion pilots in emerging markets worth up to US$ 200,000