International laurels for Coimbatore social entrepreneur

It might have been just a few years since he launched his initiative- No Food Waste- but Coimbatore-based social entrepreneur Padmanabhan Gopalan is already going places. The youngster was recently invited as one of the speakers at the prestigious Borlaug Dialogue International Symposium which was held from October 17 to 19 as part of the World Food Prize annual series of events in Des Moines, Iowa, USA. Padmanabhan was recognized for his NGO, No Food Waste, which donates excess food to the hungry and needy and prevents food from ending up in trash.
Speaking to us from the venue, an excited Padmanabhan says, “This is one of the most premier conferences in the world around global food security and is held around World Food Day (October 16) every year. It’s really great being surrounded by all these people who are tirelessly working towards eradicating hunger. A recent study says that despite all the initiatives, hunger has increased in the last three years and that there is an increase in hunger during migration, conflicts between communities and when women aren’t given their due importance. Hence, the theme for this year is ‘Rise to the challenge’ where everyone discusses sustainably and nutritiously feeding billions of people.”

The icing on the cake is that Padmanabhan got the opportunity to spend some quality time with Lawrence Haddad and David Nabbaro, the World Food Price laureates of 2018. “They have been working extensively on child and maternal nutrition and I got to know about their initiatives. I spoke to them about the food drives held back home in India. Haddard appreciated our work and assured his support to scale up our operations which is a major shot in the arm. I got connected to people from many global institutes who are doing research on hunger and global leaders working on food security. I am looking forward to bringing all these learnings back to the country.”

However, international affiliations are not new to Padmanabhan. “Our team was awarded a grant in appreciation for our work by The Pollination Project, California. After this conference, I will be speaking at the Urban Design and Sustainability panel at Harvard’s northwest labs, the largest undergraduate conference on social innovation in the world. All these are a major motivation for me.”

Despite the humble beginnings in Coimbatore, No Food Waste, has now expanded its operations in nine places – including Chennai, Salem, Dharmapuri, Krishnagiri, Trichy and Tadepalligudem. “Most of the food drives are measured on quantity and not quality. We want to change that. I have seen many workers who have only tea and bun and go to work. They do not get adequate nutrition. Our next step will be to work on providing nutritious food to the hungry. At the same time, we want to start the process of hunger mapping and come up with innovative solutions on reducing food waste. I want to make the most of this trip in the US,” he says. Padmanabhan is a State Youth Award winner and also runs a crowd funding organization, Edudharma that helps students. He has been selected for the young achiever’s program in the Global crowdsourcing week as Washington DC as the founder of Edudharma.

International laurels for Coimbatore social entrepreneur