Coimbatore-based social entrepreneur Padmanaban Gopalan has done the country proud by being selected as one of the speakers at the prestigious 2018 Borlaug Dialogue in Des Moines, Iowa, USA. It is held every October during or around World Food Day (Oct 16). He will follow in the footsteps of past illustrious speakers such as Tony Blair, Bill Gates and Ban Ki-moon, to name a few.

Padmanaban rose to fame after his initiative ‘No Food Waste’ became a national phenomenon a couple of years ago, after its initial humble beginnings in Coimbatore. The start-up focuses on collecting excess food at any spot (weddings, functions, gatherings) through a helpline and re-packing and serving it to the hungry at orphanages, slums, shelter homes and so on. After popularising No Food Waste across India, Padmanaban launched Edudharma, the country’s first 100 per cent free crowd funding platform for education and special needs of youth.

“It is the world’s most prestigious event for food security and is held in honour of the World Food Prize — the Nobel Prize for food and agriculture annually. I will be there from October 17 to 19. I will be presenting a session on the food waste scenario in India and how we created the ‘No Food Waste’ model to handle food recovery and how the technology and process can be adopted by global cities. I will be meeting global leaders and youth from different countries working on similar projects and hope to gain inspiration and collaborate more,” says the youngster who is in Des Moines.

He adds, “I am hoping to learn and spread awareness on reducing food waste globally. For World Food Day, my team in India is working with the FSSAI on the Swasth Bharat Yatra ‘Eat Right’ India movement.” He will also be speaking at the Urban Design and Sustainability panel at Harvard’s northwestern labs later in October.