MALAYSIANS KINI Like any other 15-year-old, Ivan Avannus of SM St Michael Penampang, Sabah, was scrolling through his Facebook when he saw an advertisement on the inaugural Sime Darby Young Innovators Challenge (SDYIC) on his newsfeed.

“They said they were looking for innovators to join this camp, and I already had an idea lingering at the back of my mind for a while now, so I decided to sign up,” he said during an interview with Malaysiakini.

At the camp, he was placed in the same team as three other teenagers; a fellow Sabahan Ezra Robert, 15, from All Saints’ Anglican Academy, Allegra Chan, 16, who is from Lodge International School Sarawak and Joseph Chung, 14 from Tunku Putra.

“Initially we were awkward (around each other), but then we realised we were kind of the same type of people so we clicked,” Avannus said.

This team eventually went on to win the SDYIC on a national level in June this year, with their innovation; Robin Food, a mobile application and desktop website.

“It is an application that connects supermarkets which have extra food with NGOs which do not have enough food to feed the needy.

“The supermarket can key in how much extra food they have and the NGO can request how much food they need,” Chung explained.

For Chung, he said, his school had put up the flyer for the camp only two days before the deadline, so he almost did not sign up for it.

Meanwhile, for Chan and Robert, they found out about SDYIC through their teachers.

“My teacher introduced it to me and I joined because it seemed fun,” Chan said.

“At first I was a bit hesitant to join because I don’t know what it is, but in the end, I do not regret it,” Robert said.

Intense brainstorming

All four of the teenagers were neatly dressed in Sime Darby red shirts as they were attending the launch of the app later that afternoon, but while Avannus and Chung were more eager to talk about their experiences, Chan and Robert appeared to be more reserved.

They spoke about the camp they attended, which Avannus said was very different from others he had attended as they were very open and respectful of all ideas.

It created an environment where those participating in the camp were not afraid to put out their ideas, he said.

Avannus’ lingering idea, which was about transforming old magazines into decoration product materials, never made it past the drawing board, but the teenagers had put their focus on the issue of food wastage early on after attending the workshops at the regional SDYIC camp in March.

“We met an expert from World Wide Fund for Nature (WWF) and she told us that food wastage is actually a big environmental problem.

“When we waste food, we waste not just food but water, energy, time and if the food is imported, fuel also,” said Avannus.

They came up with their winning idea only after intense brainstorming, he said, which included ideas that “didn’t make sense”, such as drones which collected food waste from individual houses and delivered them to the NGOs.

After refining their idea for Robin Food and developing a prototype of the application, the teenagers went on to win the regional and later on, the national SDYIC, netting them RM10,000 along with a trophy and MacBook Air each ahead of the three other teams at the finals.

But that wasn’t to be the end of Robin Food, a name the teenagers chose after the folklore hero outlaw Robin Hood who is depicted in stories to steal from the rich to give to the poor.

“Obviously we are not stealing from the supermarkets, (but we are getting) from people who have the food to give it to the needy,” Avannus said, eliciting laughter from his fellow teammates.

Sime Darby decided to develop their prototype into a full-fledged application after they won in June, and on Dec 15, they finally launched a working version of Robin Food, in collaboration with Tesco Stores (M) Sdn Bhd and Food Aid Foundation, among others.

“We thought that after the grand finals, that was the end, but then when Sime Darby said they would be building the app, we were very surprised and happy,” Chung said.

Only the beginning

This is only the beginning as, according to Sime Darby representatives, they plan to continue expanding the application, such as working together with hotels and restaurants to provide surplus food to the needy through the app.

“(It is) surreal because we used to think we were just a bunch of teenagers and now we are the creators of Robin Food.

“We are still teenagers, but we are teenagers with an app,” Avannus said with a grin.

Malaysians Kini is a series on Malaysians you should know.

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