An application-based food waste management program created by a team led by a Psychology student from Universitas Brawijaya, Aurora Adelia Asmara Putri, was able to win 1st place at the World Food Forum competition in Rome, Italy at the end of 2024.
Aurora was not alone in designing this program. She and three of her members, namely Zulfikar Dabby Anwar (FTP UB) and Risa Salsabila and Syahdad Nabil Mudzaffar from FP UB. Aurora’s journey to win 1st place was not easy. She joined the Eco Living Community environmental community.
“This community has been around since 2023. There are members from other faculties such as FTP, FP including from FISIP as well,” she explained.
Starting from the ReThink Waste Challenge competition in 2023 which was participated by her community, Aurora and her team were recommended to join the World Food Forum competition, namely the Youth Food Lab (YFL) Program launched by the World Food Forum (WFF), Wageningen University & Research (WUR) and the International Association of Students in Agriculture and Related Sciences (IAAS).
“This program is a forum and platform for young innovators to develop their innovative ideas into transformative projects aimed at ending hunger and achieving the Sustainable Development Goals or SDGs under the auspices of FAO,” explained this 2022 batch student.
The recommendation to join the competition was just the beginning. Aurora was then appointed as the person in charge of the program. The journey was not short. Starting in 2023, they began to conduct selections and were finally selected as 10 finalist countries.
“From December 2023 to October 2024 we held a booth camp every week online,” she said.
Bootcamp is over, Aurora was chosen as EcoLiving’s representative who departed for Rome on (14/10-20/10/2024).
“The event lasted a full week starting from the discussion session until one day, I presented about EcoLiving,” she explained.
Aurora explained that her team raised an application-based food waste management program that aims to reduce waste, turn it into a source of income, and provide education to the community.
“This program itself involves housewives and young people in processing waste into compost, earthworms, and fish pellets, as well as utilizing digital applications for managing and marketing the results,” she said.
This program also bore sweet results. Aurora and her team won 1st place after beating participants from several other countries such as India, Kenya, Nepal, Nigeria and several other countries.
This achievement made Aurora feel relieved since the process she went through had been going on for 1 year.
“For sure, I am very happy and relieved that what I have been working on for more or less 1 year has paid off. Moreover, the competition took quite a long time and had to compete from various countries,” said Aurora who was also recorded as the youngest participant.
Furthermore, with the capital from the 1st place prize from the competition, Aurora and the team plan to make the EcoLiving Community legal and move on environmental-based issues. (*/UB PR/ Trans. Iir).
