also published here: Isdabest: Winning Team of the Greenpreneur Program from the Philippines

The Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) is a very important international, inter-governmental organization formed in 2012 through a treaty signed by its member countries with the primary objective of promoting sustainable economic growth to create a globally green environment. South Korea is a major supporter of GGGI’s role in promoting this sustainable growth and has, in fact, entered into an Agreement to house the organization’s Headquarters here in the country. GGGI’s current President and Chair is former Secretary-General of the United Nations Ban Ki-Moon.

What is the Greenpreneur Program?

Greenpreneur is a mentoring program formed by GGGI with two other global organizations called Student Energy and Youth Climate Lab. This program started only in 2018 and continued this year to support start-ups through its intensive 12-weeks training after which winners were determined. Out of the fifteen teams who were mentored and coached, three winners were chosen: Isdabest from the Philippines, Kimuli Fashionability from Uganda, and Rent-O-Rewa from India. A representative from each team came over to Seoul to accept their award and had the opportunity to present winning business pitch at one of the events during the GGGW 2019. Each team received a seed funding of $5,000USD so they can move forward and implement their business.

Isdabest was founded by four ladies who attends the same university in the Philippines: Nicole Cruz, Seanne Esguerra, Iliana Tan, and Dominique Sy. They were student leaders who became friends and bonded over their common desire to give back to the community and the best way they know how was to establish a social enterprise that will possibly help in uplifting one of the two marginalized industries in the Philippines: the fishing industry. Thus, ISDABEST was born.

Thanks to GGGI’s Director-General Frank Rijsberman and Program Manager Hakku Bang, I was able to meet and interview the winner from the Philippines: Isdabest’s Chief Finance Officer Seanne Esguerra. I may not have seen her delivering her business pitch, but on our short interview her eloquence stood out.

Why Isdabest?

Seanne: “Let’s dig a little deeper into the meaning of ISDABEST. In Filipino, ISDA is actually “fish”. We wanted to create a social enterprise that focuses on empowering the fisheries sector. So, we thought about how commercial fishing is generally unsustainable. And it is the small-class fishermen that suffers the most. In the Philippines, we rely mainly on captured fisheries. Meaning, this is when fishermen go into the sea and then they catch fish through nets. So, in the Philippines especially, the Fisheries sector is quite backwards. These fishermen have small boats that are very risky and then they use old-fashioned nets while at the same time we have a lot of large companies that have these huge commercial boats and in the end, these fishermen end up losing being one of the marginalized in the Philippines. So, we thought why not find a way to help empower them. And that’s why we came up with Isdabest.”

What motivated you to focus on the fishing industry?

Seanne: “In the Philippines, we have two marginalized sectors: the agriculture sector and the fisheries sector. And in fact, the average age of our fishermen and farmers is around fifty years old. We believe that this industry should be a growth or something that will spur the growth for the Philippines. But when you ask the youth today about their opinions on agriculture and fisheries, they’d often say that it’s not the kind of thing they want to pursue. So, we want to focus on wanting to change that perception by letting them see that it’s a sustainable practice. Through sustainable business solutions, we can help improve this fisheries sector and actually be uplifted especially since the Philippines is an archipelagic country. This is one of our strengths. But the problem is, as what we are seeing right now, it is overly exploited. So, we could introduce new solutions, new ways of doing things that may want to perhaps change or revolutionize this industry in the long run.”

How did you know about the Greenpreneur Program?

Seanne: “In our journey trying to kickstart Isdabest, we were looking for various opportunities that enables us to actually launch this program and by chance, we came upon the Greenpreneurs Program through the internet. We were scouting for available and good escalator programs. It was Nicole or Dom who found out about it and when they pitched the idea of joining this competition, we realized that it was aligned with what we needed and what we wanted to see in the future so we decided, why not go for it.”

Was the application process hard?

Seanne: “It was very competitive. From what I heard, the pool of contestants who applied were around 300 hundred worldwide. And then they had to cut it down to specific numbers at several stages. I think the program is very holistic in itself wherein they don’t just give you grant funding, they actually train you at every step. What I also like from the program is we didn’t just get the training modules, we also get to interact with the mentors online.

What do you think made you eventually win?

Seanne: “Aside from having very good mentors, it was really getting down into the nitty-gritty details of what we do. So, I think for every number that we presented, we always have research backing it up. It’s what built our credibility. And aside from that, we also have a board of advisers.  We have different professionals from different fields – business, academe, research – who have helped develop this idea into what it is today.”

The group has already laid down the groundwork for the building of their planned ocean farm and will be rolling out their training from one of their partners in the Philippines after they get their seed funding award of $5,000USD.

The group will be kept busy in the last quarter of this year, but they are looking forward to roll out Isdabest as soon as the next year commences.

The trip to Seoul was a big experience for the young winners to have personally met the Heads of GGGI and other delegates. The recently concluded event was in partnership with the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, among others.