LANGKAWI: A desire to help empower her fellow Sabahan sisters resulted in an idea for platform which connects rural women farmers in Sabah with buyers looking for locally-grown agricultural products.
Sabahan Faezrah Rizalman, and her friend Jeanette Goon, came up with a mobile app and e-commerce platfrom called Bayu Harvest which makes it possible for these farmers to move their produce into a high value supply chain.
For their idea and app, Faezrah and Goon were named winners of the 2019 APEC Digital Prosperity Award, which was presented on the sidelines of the recent APEC Informal Senior Offical’s Meeting (ISOM) and Senior Officials Meeting (SOM) earlier this week.
It was particularly significant that the award winners were from Malaysia, given that we are hosting APEC 2020 next year.
They received their award during a ceremony officiated by APEC 2020 SOM chair, Hairil Yahri Yaacob and witnessed by APEC Chile 2019 SOM chair Mathias Francke.
Also present was APEC Secretariat executive director Tan Sri Dr Rebecca Fatima Sta Maria.
Faezrah and Goon developed the app for the May 2019 APEC App Challenge, which was hosted by the Chilean government, APEC, The Asia Foundation, and Google and held in Viña del Mar, Chile.
The challenge brought together nearly two dozen teams from across the Asia-Pacific region in a competition to create mobile and web apps that can help women entrepreneurs grow their business.
"The app will make it possible for farmers in rural areas of Malaysia to bring their products to high-quality restaurants and markets. This is a very good lesson for the region," said Francke.
Faezrah, who runs a coding school in Sabah, realised there were local ingredients and foods from Eastern Malaysia that were not available elsewhere.
She was also frequently asked by women farmers in the state how they could improve their income and livelihood.
Teaming up with Goon, who is an experienced digital entrepreneur from Kuala Lumpur, the duo decided to build a digital solution that could empower Sabahan women and grow their market.
“We wanted to create a platform for the farmers so they can manage their produce, and learn to be entrepreneurs, such as how to price their crops, and brand and market their products,” said Faezrah.
This would enable the farmers to connect with the buyers directly unlike the usual practice where farmers would sell their produce to the middlemen who would acquire the harvest in large quantities but at the lowest price.
Goon said the idea for the app came about after they had met several farmers to see if an app would be met with good response.
She said the app was a lightweight app which doesn’t need the best Internet connection or a large memory space on their phones, making it user- friendly for the farmers.
Besides providing training to the farmers on the app, they were also going to conduct digital marketing to promote Bayu Harvest to the farmers.
“Our target to help as many farmers as we can and we are looking into how we can create the most impact for them in term of increasing their income and helping them improve their livelihood,” she said.
In the new year, Faezrah and Goon hope to show that the app can connect farmers to new opportunities not just in Malaysia but throughout APEC.
"We can help rural farmers expand their markets in ways they may have never expected," said Faezrah.
"Bayu Harvest is an exciting illustration of how new digital economy tools can facilitate growth and development that is shared and inclusive," said Rebecca.
APEC senior official from Malaysia, Aida Safinaz Allias said leveraging the digital economy to promote shared prosperity is a goal of APEC 2020.
"We’re excited to be supporting the APEC Digital Prosperity Award for 2020 and we wish the Bayu Harvest team great success in the New Year."
