Thought For Food Academy and Summit Head to ASEAN for 2020

BASEL, Switzerland, October 2, 2019 (Newswire.com) - ​​​​The Thought For Food (TFF) Foundation announces that the next editions of its TFF Academy and TFF Summit will take place in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia in March 2020.

The key events and dates are as follows:

• TFF Academy: March 21-25, Kuala Lumpur
• TFF Summit: March 26, Kuala Lumpur​
• TFF Next-Gen Innovation Retreat: March 27-29, Kedah 

​The TFF Academy and TFF Summit will be held at Sunway City, Malaysia’s first integrated green township and sustainable community created by visionary developer Tan Sri Jeffrey Cheah. Sunway City contains world-class universities, an award-winning shopping mall, lagoon and leisure park, and is completely dedicated to enhancing livelihoods and furthering the 17 United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals.

Thought For Food is partnering with the Sunway Group and the Jeffrey Cheah Foundation, who are the venue hosts and core strategic partners for the event. In addition, the TFF Academy will be powered by the Sunway iLabs to empower global collaboration via a food and agriculture-focused startup bootcamp, focusing on pitch preparations, business model development and community-building activities as well as post-event incubation support.

This global event is brought to you by the Asian Strategy and Leadership Institute (ASLI), an independent and not-for-profit think tank, who will also bring to life the inaugural TFF Next-Gen Innovation Retreat in the Malaysian state of Kedah, focused on revitalising the region as the “rice bowl of Asia” through sustainable agri-tech and business model innovation.

Malaysia’s food and agricultural sectors serve as a microcosm for the manifold challenges and opportunities that face countries across the SE Asia region, and the world. Moreover, the unique climatic and environmental conditions position Malaysia perfectly to play a key role in driving regional food security and climate change strategies. By connecting Malaysia’s growing entrepreneurial ecosystems with TFF’s global network of elite entrepreneurs and innovators, the partners aim to develop the essential collaborative capabilities, breakthrough technologies and impactful social enterprises needed to help tackle Malaysia’s and the SE Asian region’s most pressing environmental and social challenges.​

Click here to read more about the events.

“By working with TFF and its diverse and impactful global network, we are able to benefit from youth-led innovation and creativity that will enable sustainable agri-food tech entrepreneurship that will benefit our country and the region tremendously,” stated Melissa Ong, CEO of ASLI.

“The Sunway Group believes that TFF will inject new ideas for technology-driven innovations and will help to construct and empower the ecosystems needed to implement and scale those ideas effectively. This will hopefully position Malaysia and its neighbours in SE Asia as frontrunners in this region to seek solutions to collectively achieve the Sustainable Development Goals,” stated Tan Sri Dr. Jeffrey Cheah, Founder and Chairman of Sunway Group.

“TFF is thrilled to be bringing our flagship global events to Malaysia, and to be partnering with such mission-aligned organisations as Sunway Group and the Jeffrey Cheah Foundation,” states Christine Gould, Founder and CEO of the Thought For Food Foundation. “At a time when we face unprecedented challenges that require urgent attention and new ways of thinking and acting, it makes sense to join forces in our shared efforts to support, mentor and invest in the next generation of change-makers, because they are exactly the right ones to be solving Planet Earth’s biggest problems.” 

Speakers and program details will be announced in the near future. 

Want to become a partner for TFF’s programs in Malaysia or do you want to invest in the startups we help create in diverse locations around the world? Get in touch with us to learn more about our partnership opportunities. Follow our activities on LinkedIn, Instagram, Twitter, Facebook or sign up to our newsletter.

_{About Thought For Food:
Thought For Food is the world’s entrepreneurial innovation engine for food and agriculture. They work with more than 15,000 next-generation leaders from over 160 countries, helped scale thousands of ideas and run an annual collaborative prize competition, digital educational program and global conference to bring the next-generation voice into the conversation and solution development about the future of food and agriculture. On October 16th, they are launching the TFF Digital Labs, a startup acceleration and collaboration platform that improves the speed and impact of beneficial innovation across the entire food and agriculture value chain. Thought For Food is a 501c3 non-profit entity.} 

_{About Jeffrey Cheah Foundation: 
Jeffrey Cheah Foundation (JCF) is a unique, first-of-its-kind structure in Malaysia within the field of private higher education, modelled along the lines of some of the oldest and most eminent universities in the world, such as Harvard University. To date, the Foundation retains ownership and equity of 16 learning institutions and entities valued at more than RM720 million (now in excess of RM1 billion), making it the largest education-focused social enterprise in Malaysia. The Foundation is also the education philanthropy arm of Sunway Group, one of the largest conglomerates in Malaysia.}

_{About Sunway Group: 
Established in 1974, Sunway Group is one of Malaysia’s largest conglomerates with 12 business divisions that operate across 50 locations worldwide. Its core interests are focused on real estate, construction, education, healthcare, retail and hospitality. Powered by a 16,000 strong team, Sunway Group are committed to advancing the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) and continue to align our business strategies to meet the needs of our communities in line with the SDG agenda.}

_{About ASLI:
Asian Strategy and Leadership Institute or in short "ASLI" is Malaysia's leading independent, non-partisan and not-for-profit think-tank. Since its establishment in 1993, ASLI has established a renowned reputation as the definitive link between the public sector, the private sector, academia and civil society in pursuit of its mission of creating a better society. ASLI is owned and governed by the Jeffrey Cheah Foundation. We curate thought-provoking and intellectual dialogues in an effort to bring change in public policies for the betterment of society. We provide strategic analysis and advice on critical issues impacting the nation and beyond. In the wider Asia Pacific region, (APAC) we capitalise our influential network to harness best practices and connect strategic partners across APAC on highest-value business investment and trade opportunities to foster bilateral relations across economic growth.}

Source: Thought For Food Foundation