Innovation challenge ‘food frontiers 2.0’ concludes

Campus Life :
Application phase of Innovation Challenge ‘Food Frontiers 2.0’ aimed at motivating young entrepreneurs for investing in nutritious and safe food concluded today.
Today (January 22) is the last date for online submission for the contest.
A total of 130 applications have been submitted till Sunday afternoon. Of them, 22 are females.  
The campaign for the contest started from December 2 last year. As part of the initiative, online campaigns, and road shows were held at six universities in the country. The universities are the University of Dhaka, Sher-e-Bangla Agricultural University, Cumilla University, Jashore University of Science and Technology, and Daffodil International University.
Webinar was also arranged as part of the campaign. Contest applications were encouraged through webinars.
S M Mahmudul Hasan, Acting Coordinator of SUN Business Network, S M Arifuzzaman, Professor of Canadian University of Bangladesh, and Shakib Bin Rashid, consultant of Ten Minutes School and social influencer, were present in the webinar.
Scaling Up Nutrition (SUN) Business Network, which is co-convened by the Global Alliance for Improved Nutrition (GAIN), a Switzerland-based international organization, and World Food Programme (WFP) jointly organized the contest.
Seven winners (two each from three categories) including one reserved prize for the International Nutrition Olympiad (INO) will get cash and pre-seed funding for implementing business plan, expansion of the business, and infrastructure development.
There were three categories in the contest. Number one category is Inclusive Business Models for Reaching Lower Income Consumers; number two thematic area is Disruptive Technological Innovation; number three thematic area is Innovative Marketing Campaigns.
The last date of submission in the contest was fixed till January 15. The submission deadline of 22 January 2023, was extended later due to massive responses from the applicants.  
A short-list was made after scrutinizing the submissions as first round of selection through a panel of judges from diverse entrepreneurship and academia.
Representatives from the 10 selected business organizations attended a three-day residential boot camp session in the capital as part of investment readiness training and business expansion.
The entrepreneurs whose activities will show new innovative models and technological solutions for the supply of safe and nutritious foods and encourage the intake of those foods will be considered qualified in the contest.
Food Frontiers is an innovative challenge aims to identify new and innovative ways to reach lower-income consumers with nutritious food products; build the capacity of young entrepreneurs on a sustainable food systems approach and business skills for managing social enterprise.
The objective is to support innovative business models and technology-based solutions that could be implemented to increase access to nutritious foods.
National Association of Small and Cottage Industries of Bangladesh and Bangladesh Agricultural University are the strategic partners of this event.