 Aloha y bienvenido to Hispanic Hawaii, I am your host, Richard Concepcion. Today's program is about Rise Up. This organization combines technology with farmers, empower farmers to be able to communicate and sell their products straight to the consumers, removing the middleman and also able to farms and harvest products that is requested directly from the consumers. Therefore, they reduce waste. We here with my good friend Arvin Laceda, James, and Joseph. So welcome to the show. Oh, thank you. Thank you for letting us. Thank you. All right, so let's start by asking you, the president and the one who came out with this great wonderful idea, tell me a little bit about yourself and your student at the University of BYU here in Hawaii. So Tom, tell me how everything happened. So I came from Tampanga, Philippines, it's in Central Luzon. I was raised in a farm by my grandparents. So I was blessed to have them as my mentors and as my guidance. And before coming here, it was a struggle in coming here in BYU Hawaii, but I am fortunate to have mentors and was able to pass the exams, the papers, necessary. I was denied once, but I was accepted after that. And because of my background in a rural village, we came up to this idea and also to give back to my home community. So let me ask you, this idea was creating while you were in the Philippines when you came to BYU, you created this great and wonderful thing that's supporting you and able to build the technology that you want to build to support the farmers in the Philippines. Before coming here in BYU Hawaii, I actually studied agricultural engineering for three years. Since that, I've seen a pattern in my life that this flex of ideas are coming, just coming, but I don't have really those resources, I don't have those resources that will enable me to make this idea become real. And when I came here to BYU Hawaii, the first month that I came here, I started seeing this pattern that there will be something that I can do to help my fellow farmers rise up. So rise up. Well, let's talk about rise up. What is the meaning behind rise up and what inspired you to get to this point to say, you know something, I wanted to do something that really is going to help the farmers in the Philippines. You know only in the Philippines now is here in the United States and maybe around the world. Tell me about that. I understand that the issue is global, but before coming here in Hawaii, I was able to go to Mindanao in southern island of the Philippines, where there are some conflicts between people. But actually I love the place, it's called the Promised Land of the Philippines. And then I've seen the real problem in agriculture, and then the people who produce our food, they're the poorest. Actually farmers are superheroes. I call them our superheroes, because they feed us three times a day, and even more in the Philippines. And it came to a point that I needed to act. And then rise up is a word that enables people to rise up above their circumstances. And I think farmers have the ability to rise above and they need something that will give them hope for the future. Because when we talk to them, some of them are hopeless at this moment. But when rise up came, they've seen a glimpse of hope. So let me ask you, talk to Josie and James right here. So he came to be with you. How you got connected with Alvin? It was actually for me when the app ideas began. It was for our great ideas competition on campus. And we were part of that competition. He was with Rise Up and I was with another company. I saw, from my perspective, that he was setting up by himself and I thought, oh, maybe we need some help. And that's how we first got introduced. And since then we've talked about it, and he invited me if I wanted to help out. I said, why not? It's my country too. And now you're part of the team. James. Yeah, for me, same situation. I remember he posted a kind of a notice on Facebook. Okay. And he said, I need somebody to help me bring my vision to life. So we saw his post and we created a video and we went back behind the school. We kind of reenacted the scenes from the farmers back there and we created this cool little video for him to actually win first place in the competition, which was pretty nice. Wonderful. So the application that you mentioned kind of helped connect the farmers directly to the consumers. So you are removing the middleman. So we're going to play a video that you guys created and tell us in details about Rise Up. Yeah. Okay. The Philippines has been endowed with great natural resources and farmers are to be regarded as saviors of more than 100 million Filipinos and one of them is Arturo. Arturo amid his hard work, passion and dedication is being taken for granted exploited and left behind. His income is disproportionate with his hard work and toil. But with the advent of new technology, change has come. Arturo can now directly connect with his consumers. He's now financially independent and he has increased self esteem. Not only Arturo benefits from this, the communities and small businesses can now afford basic necessities and no prices. From a poor farmer, Arturo is now empowered and now with his family, they harvest what is truly theirs. Rise Up. Empowering those. There it is Rise Up. What a wonderful video. Break it down exactly what Rise Up is all about. Thank you. So let's break it down more in detail. So let's start about how you created the application to be directly communication with the consumer from the farmers. How does the work explain to me? So we have a team of app developer both here in campus in Hawaii and at the same time in the Philippines who are really working with us to make it. The design was because in the Philippines there's this disparity of income, 83% of the profit goes to the middleman and only 17% goes to the farmers. And the design was consumers can create an account on our mobile application and at the same time they will identify their meal plan per week. And in their meal plan per week, our farmers can identify as well the products that they can supply through that meal plan. We are now calling it as a food basket subscription. That's another option for local consumers. And then farmers can receive it through our center. We have a community center and we have someone in the Philippines donated three computers for our center and through that center farmers are receiving the orders and then farmers now can identify what are the products that they can supply and then they deliver it directly to consumers. In this way we simplify the logistics and we avoid food waste which is really important. At the same time farmers can get the money that they deserve compared before. Before it's really disheartening to see farmers are being abused and exploited. So you're removing the middleman. So therefore the farmers are making more money and the products are cheaper for the consumer. That's what the whole idea behind it. The food is more affordable now and it's fresh and the quality is good. And at the same time what we are doing here is a community movement rising up like a revolution. We call it agri-revolution. Where in each community member has their own contribution. So this creation, the application for the local consumer in the Philippines, how is the relationship James talked to me about the relationship between the consumers and the farmers. It's getting stronger, it's getting better because of the application. That's a great question. So as Evan said in Times Pass, people had to go travel long distances. They had to deal with time being spent to go out and shop. Food was a little bit more expensive and things weren't as fresh as it could be. But now since Rise Up is being implemented we have 50 farmers working locally to be able to provide this system and kind of really get people to come close to their geographical locations around. For example in Lubao in the Philippines, in the island of Luzon they're able to actually receive the vegetables a lot easier. It makes the whole process so much more simpler and in turn the actual consumer has a discount as compared to if they went straight to the middleman. So these consumers are getting a better price. The farmers are making a better profit and unfortunately the middleman still has opportunities and other things we're trying to figure out too because we don't want them to be completely left out. So we're thinking of solutions. So you wanted to participate in a different way. Yes, we want them to be involved too because we don't want anyone to lose. So as of now it's still developing but what we've seen is pretty miraculous so far with these people in the Philippines are able to be able to feed their families in a whole new way. It's pretty cool. So looking at your application I noticed that it's something that has to do with post-harvest. Jose, talk to me about that. Is it better to do a post-harvest or just wait until somebody plays their order? How does it work? I think for the most part when we talked with a lot of people that are experienced because last year we were able to speak with a lot of farmers locally here in the Hawaii Agricultural Improvement Association. And so from their perspective we found that it might be good to be able to receive the orders and prepare to serve that. That way we eliminate food waste. And so by controlling the supply chain that way we'll be able to provide them with fresher goods every single day that we can anticipate for beforehand and not end up with so many stock in storage that will go bad one day. Now this application is free. Yeah, it's free to download. So it's free to download the king download and the cell phone. So this July 20th and 9th we'll be launching it in the Philippines. For the whole country. But the ordering process is not only for the central zone area. Now in the NOAA has something to say real-time. Talk to me about the real-time. That means that I can just order something right now and you are at all the ends. See what I order? Yeah. Actually it's like it's a principle that it's like can I say like Uber? Okay. Like for example the consumer can see on his app who is the nearest farmer. Okay. There's some GPS locations like GPS sensitive and then in that way they can see, they can actually choose if it's pick up or delivery. And then. So then you can deliver as well. Yeah. These farmers have their own like tricycles. We call them tricycles. And they can go to the location and bring whatever you request. The nearest farmer can supply the nearest consumers. But if there's a way that we can export it to another province we are open to that as well. So now you have these applications. You have everybody coming in or the product, they receive the product. Now if I order something and you receive my order, I'm legally binding to pay for the order in case if I cancel, how does it work? Yeah. So we have, we are creating a policy between like agreement between consumers and farmers because it's really important. But what we've seen is first we are contacting established consumers like government employees, the hospitals, the restaurants. So we have an agreement to them that for example after three days ordering they should place the, I mean the payment. And then it's also can be in credit card or debit card that we are enabling the system in the next few months to accept those kinds of payments. Wow. That is great. So now the farmers getting great day out of this, the consumers, the middlemen is disappear. You do post harvest is helping with food waste. Now increase in profit. You are training the farmers. So talk to me about the training, it's not online application, it's more than that. So the training part of the farmers is probably one of the key components of this movement because first of all we need farmers that will be able to use technology, the app. And second the Philippines is a little bit behind many other countries when it comes to agriculture because it's been a weakening part of the country. We need to be able to help them get up to speed so that they can compete in the market. And third, we need to help the farmers become educated so that they can become their own businessmen, become free to be able to choose their own prices, their customers, their market and compete in a fair negotiable market and have that freedom for themselves. And hopefully that will incite their younger generation to be able to decide that yes there is profit in farming, there is life in farming, let's build it up. Perfect. We're going to take a quick break and we're going to come by and talk some more about the younger generation and the future farmers in the Philippines. You're watching Think Tech Hawaii, 25 talk shows by 25 dedicated hosts every week helping us to explore and understand the issues and events in and affecting our state. Great content for Hawaii from Think Tech. You're watching Think Tech Hawaii which dreams live on ThinkTechHawaii.com, uploads to YouTube and broadcasts on cable OC16 and Ollello 54. Great content for Hawaii. I'm working back to Hispanic Hawaii, we're talking story, we rise up. So we was talking about the future generation of the farmers in the Philippines. What is your expectation and what is the reality between the farmers that are working right now and those who don't want to work in the field because they want to do something or they want to go to the university, they want to do something with technology. Can you talk to me how it's working in the Philippines? The reality is before 1960, the Philippines is really a booming agricultural economy. But later years, the average age of farmers in the Philippines is 57. And there's no, I mean, the youth or the young people are not really interested in that profession in being agriculturist or being a farmer. And we made a survey to all our 50 farmers and none of their children will continue. So what do you think is the memory some for that? Okay, first is that the young people doesn't see any like lucrative or any monetary gain of farming. Second, they see it's really hard work and it doesn't pay back more profit or more income. And third, lack of support from the whole community and the government as well. And I think if we can revive those feelings of the young people, because young people are really enthusiastic. I can see that. Yeah. That's why we are providing an inspiration team. In our team, we are 18 young people working together as one and we've seen a future in agriculture. Great. So you are a team right now at BYU and as a team, you're participating in a few competition that you got first played as a social entrepreneur category and you made some cash money. So talk to me about that. Yeah. So our recent competition that we had is called Empower Your Dreams, held by the school. And so there's different categories, international, domestic, and social. And so each one of these had a first place and they were all geared towards helping the students to kind of develop their skills a little bit and kind of go that extra mile to present to a real life panel of judges who have experience in the real world, like for example, the founder of Ancestry.com was there, one of the judges. And we really got to see and learn from them as well as to have this chance as a team to kind of develop and really work hard, okay, how can we put these principles together? How can we learn to present to a greater audience and how can we get up there in front and speak to people? It sure was nerve-racking, but it was really good experience to be able to get out there and talk to people. And so we won first place. We had no idea. Congratulations. Yeah. The grand prize was $5,000. $5,000? Yeah. Which you... How do you invest the money? So we are, because we're launching the app on July 29, we are using that to support our app developer, to pay them for that. And then we're building two model farms, which will serve as a training center for farmers and then for supply of our basket. I met you guys at the Filipino festival, and I saw you talking to the mayor, and you was invited for the gala dinner with Governor Iggy. Tell me, what were your experiences and what they say about your idea or rise up? It's kind of overwhelming because these are high officials of the government of the United States, but they've shown a keen interest in what we're doing. For young people like us, it's inspiring because it means that these people are listening to us. And then they said that even Governor Iggy said, oh, we can start a rise up for Hawaiian farmers here. We like that idea. So you're making a big impact. Yeah. And then I was surprised for that because I never expected to hear from... Yeah. So you got the opportunity to visit different farms around Oahu. And tell me, what was your experience about technology and GMO? What is your opinion about it? Can you talk about it? Yeah, definitely. It was definitely... We were able to visit Monsanto farms and who we all know is popular for their research and the scientific developments that they're creating in the agricultural world. And so with that, we thought, because in the Philippines, we're already using some GMO and we thought that it would be a great benefit for our farmers because not only will it save them a lot of investment money to begin with, but it will also help produce more for them. And can I add something about it? So I studied agriculture engineering for two years in the Philippines and I'm studying biology now. So as a student of biology, I really need a look at this perspective in balance thing. But I think that biotechnology will enable farmers, for example, in the Philippines, to supply the whole population. We are 109 Filipinos, million, 109 million, and we need farmers that can supply the whole population. GMO is one of the options, but there are lots of options as well. But we don't see any real reason to stay away from it. Yeah, stay away from it. All right. So talk to me about your annual Hawaii Crop Improvement Association that you're participating. Did you create a lot of connection with all the people, the agriculture, and what was their opinion about RISA? So we actually got to speak with a lot of different people, company owners, people involved with Monsanto, people in the government, talking a little bit about how we can actually achieve funding. And so this is a big issue that we've kind of been talking about. We're a small group and we're a small startup. But the power that we were able to kind of communicate and make these connections with some of these individuals here in Hawaii that actually do have some Filipino ties in the Philippines gave us more momentum for the process of communicating with them, understanding more of a corporate side of things, kind of branch out to be able to get more funds to make these dreams of the farmers possible. So it was really interesting to be able to get the business cards and get all the connections. You're just like, you feel like such a young kid or whatever. And you see these great people who have gotten so far. And to be able to be there with them is kind of, I don't know, very humbling. It's an honor. It's an honor. Well, let's talk about, you guys went to the National Export Agriculture in Kansas. So you got to be so busy and prepare yourself to go to this in not to this World Cup challenge. So we're going to show a video so people understand what this competition is all about. OK? Every year, right here at home, our world loses or wastes more than one third of the food we produce. It all adds up to 1.3 billion tons of food each year. It's an economic loss you would not believe. Equal to $750 billion. Over one fourth of the world's land grows crops that go to waste. That's more than the total land mass of the United Kingdom, South Africa, Kazakhstan, and all of China. The water alone used to grow these crops could cover all the household needs of every single human on Earth. This waste affects poverty levels, world hunger, compromising health, education, our economy, and life below water and all life on land. One way or another, it is going to end. So what on Earth are we doing about it? For starters, Enactus students all over the world have been focused on challenges like these for over 33 years. And with your help, we're about to turn it up and turn the world around. Aligned with the United Nations Sustainable Goal Number 12, leading innovative companies are partnering with Enactus to turn the attention of tens of thousands of bright young college minds from 36 countries towards one race to end waste. It's already begun, and it's about to get better. All right, so you guys are going to participate on this competition, I think it's on September 26th to the 28th, right? So tell me how you're meeting this challenge. So we started on February to build vermicomposting facilities in the Philippines so that farmers can have the ability to turn the food waste into something beneficial. And I would just like to say that out of 300 universities that submitted entries, we are now in the top 12. That's all out of 300. Yeah, and then there will be announcing on July 7th if we advance to top four to go to London. That's a great accomplishment. We are the only United States team advancing. All right, let's watch the video that you guys create and send it to Inato's competition. The Philippines is an island nation rich in opportunity, talent, and natural resources. Filipinos have an amazing ability to convert that which is considered waste into something beneficial to everyone. Just like the ash from Mount Pintitubo's eruption in 1991, the citizens of Pampanga turned it into an entrepreneurial opportunity. Now, like other nations, Filipinos face another challenge, a food waste crisis. In Pampanga, RiceUp has developed an innovative strategy by dealing with the problem in two ways, prevention and a cure. Since January, we've trained farmers in local households on specific ways to manage food waste. We've set goals and made plans with them. Now, two communities have adapted to our new program responsible and are being more conscious of their actions. As a cure, we developed the way to utilize existing food waste through the process of vermiculture, which takes farmers 50% on fertilizer and is more eco-friendly solution. As a team, we saw an opportunity. We organized an entrepreneurial solution and stepped out to create a better world for us all. Great video, thank you so much. Who created the video? James, yeah. James, I'll stand here. What are you doing to help in the Philippines to reduce waste? You always mentioned the vermiculture. Talk to me a little bit about it. So, we approached that problem in two ways. First is prevention. We need to inform the community, for example in Pampanga, that most of their waste actually is farm waste or agricultural waste, that before they harvest rice, corn and vegetables, it's just going to the waste and they cannot earn from it. And then second, if there's a waste, we can turn it to something beneficial through the vermicomposting, and then they can use it. So, with the 5,000 that you made, you went and created the place when you can. We already created before the 5,000. Oh, okay, we already created it. We have some. That is wonderful. So, we waste summer's food, water, land not only around the world but in the Philippines because the country is primarily for farmers. And you try to eliminate the problems. Is the government participating, supporting, helping in this great idea that you came up with? Last March when we went to the Philippines, it's our pleasure to meet the former president of the Philippines and supporting us. She's a current road maker and the senator, Villar, who helped us. And the most important thing here is actually the people, the story behind this project. Like for example, Mang Dolpho, he was a rice farmer and now he changed his plan because of what we talked to him, like integrated farming. He's now planting watermelon and just recently he harvested 1,200 watermelons, increasing his income for 250% compared before for rice production. Well, I see like a rice up is helping, educating, training and empower the farmers in the Philippines and hoping that you can do the same thing all over around the world. And there's great things that you do in any final thoughts. Final thoughts? Yes. Actually, a rice up is my tribute to my grandfather who was a farmer and I really owe him a lot and especially now that I am here in Brigham Young University, Hawaii. It is my great privilege to represent my people at the same time with my team. I cannot do it alone. They are amazing people and with a good heart. Well, we wanna say thank you, Jens, Joseph, Alvin for being here, rice up and good luck and continue working hard, changing people mind and heart. Oh, don't forget those who miss Hispanic Hawaii, you can go anytime at thinktechhawaii.com and re-watch the show. And if you wanna get in contact with me, you can send me an email at richardconception.com or you can send me a Twitter, richardconcession.com, and we wanna say thank you guys for coming. Thank you. Aloha. Salam Apo. Salam Apo. Mabuhay. Mabuhay. Gracias.