Team I-Farm from UTAR managed to secure third place in the National Final of Alibaba GET Global Challenge 2020. The national final was held on 15 August 2020 at the Malaysian Global Innovation and Creativity Centre (MaGIC), Cyberjaya. It was also broadcasted live on Alibaba GET Global Challenge 2020’s official Facebook page. The team will represent Malaysia in the Alibaba GET Global Challenge Global Final on 25 August 2020 along with other finalist winners.

The team consisted of five members, namely UTAR Faculty of Accountancy and Management (FAM) students Hoong De Shan, Chang Yik Khoon, Lee Shi Zhang, FAM Graduate Assistant Seah Choon Sen and Universiti Tun Hussein Onn student Loh Yin Xia (team leader). They were mentored by FAM Deputy Dean Dr Hen Kai Wah.

Organised by Alibaba GET Channel Partner- ITS Management Sdn Bhd, the competition was attended by several judges and guests, including Organising Chairman-cum-Managing Director of ITS Management Sdn Bhd Chong Hoi San, Founder of Stellavingze International Sdn Bhd DPSM Datuk Prof Dr Stella Chin and Chief Operating Officer of Malaysia Digital Economy Corporation (MDEC) Dato’ Ng Wan Peng.

The nature of I-Farm’s business idea made them stand out from the rest of the other groups. The main theme of the competition was to create a distinct digital solution for individuals and businesses that have been affected by the current pandemic. Hence, the team came up with a unique idea to do so. They intend to transform traditional farming into “Vertical Farming” techniques, by introducing “Controlled Environment Agriculture (CEA)” indoors. I-Farm is a factory that will be placed in each city and area. With this idea, even confined places such as condominiums can be used to produce vegetables. Not only would they be able to grow vegetables, but also sell them to the local retailers in the area and people in the neighbourhood, using their e-commerce platform. Additionally, local farmers can also take this opportunity to use the platform to sell their vegetables to the retailers and people to earn some extra cash.

At the competition, I-Farm was the second team to present their business idea to the panel of judges, in which they did so brilliantly. Even though they had a limited time of 10 minutes, they managed to execute their presentation within the allocated time and convey their business idea clearly and concisely. Not only that, during the Q&A session with the judges, they answered all the questions directed to them calmly.

When asked about their inspiration, they explained, “Due to social distancing and the pandemic, most of the time, people need to go through long queues to buy vegetables. We wanted to have our own mini-farm to grow vegetables, so that we do not need to queue up in such a long line and thus, with that the idea I-Farm, was born.” They then started to work on the project and reach out to investors to run the business. From there, they built their first prototype and sold their first batch of harvest through their Facebook page.

The members of I-Farm said that their success is largely due to their hard work and discipline. They have sacrificed their time and put in a lot of effort to ensure that everything was perfect in order to achieve great things at the competition. According to them, the MCO period was very helpful for them as the organisers provided them with effective online training. They also had online meetings with their investors and the company involved.

When asked about what the future holds for I-Farm, the members said that their goal is to make this project into a real business, not just for this competition, but to actually earn a profit from it, as they plan to put in even more effort into making this dream a reality.

At the end of the competition, top five national teams were chosen by the distinguished panels of judges. Overall, the results are as follows; FoodXless from HELP University was crowned champion, TheMovement from Taylor’s University was the second place, UTAR’s I-Farm was the third place, ACE from Sunway University was the fourth place, and the fifth place went to Team Fitee from Taylor’s University. All five teams will be representing Malaysia for the Alibaba Get Global Challenge Global Final and they will be competing against teams from 13 other economies, which are the Africa Region, Cambodia, China, Colombia, France and Morocco, Indonesia, Mexico, Philippines, Russia, Serbia, South Korea, Thailand and Uzbekistan.

Once again, congratulations to I-Farm for such an amazing achievement, and everyone at the university will be cheering the team on from home during the Global Finals of the competition.

Hosted by Global eCommerce Talent (GET) Network of Alibaba Group, Organized by Alibaba GET Channel Partner - ITS Management Sdn Bhd, Alibaba GET Global Challenge is an international youth digital solution competition with more than 10 countries taking part in the event. The objective is to encourage young entrepreneurs to exhibit their creativeness and talents in developing unique digital solutions for businesses, individuals and institutions affected by the pandemic outbreak.

We believe this event will inspire more young entrepreneurs to involve and create influential impact for entire communities in Malaysia and even globally.

FIVE shortlisted finalist teams will be representing Malaysia to compete with finalists from other countries at Digital Global Stage. The five shortlisted finalists will also receive GET Global Challenge Finalists Certificate, be able to enroll into Alibaba GET Network Talent Bank, and will receive an incentive of RM 1,000 per team.

In order to be eligible to participate in the competition, several requirements must be met, which are; the competition is open to all young entrepreneurs aged 18-30, the team registration is open to 3-5 members, with one member being able to communicate English fluently, the new or ongoing business idea has to be less than a year old, and the team must not receive any institutional funding more than USD 100,000 in their current project.

There will also be several prizes for the winners of the Digital Global Stage. The team that achieves first place in this stage will receive a grand prize of RM100,000 plus a fully sponsored digital economy dream trip to Alibaba HQs in Hangzhou. On the other hand, the second prize winner will be awarded RM50,000 and the third prize of RM10,000 will go to third place.