Jay Desan, Co-founder of BoomGrow, Malaysia

Today’s episode is with an entrepreneur, sustainability consultant, mother and former lawyer, Jay Desan.  She is the co-founder of BoomGrow, an agritech company that is growing clean greens in Malaysia. This mother of two never expected she would be in the tech space but she did know a lot about sustainability. Jay said that she spent many years in the UK  studying and understanding corporate responsibility in human rights which she later expanded to re-imagining the corporation. (ESG refers to Environmental, Social and Governance, the three key factors that measure the sustainability and ethical impact of a business or company.) It made her realise how shifts and changes can happen very incrementally, starting with one person but once it’s combined with multi-stakeholders, transformation can happen. She came back to Malaysia with the idea of making a difference but with the idea of staying in academia.  She began working in the sustainability area with companies but realized just as quickly that broken systems don’t make changes happen. Structural problems hounded her and she became frustrated at how food was grown and distributed.   Jay explains that they grow vegetables indoors in containers with technology that is set up to control variables such as water, light and humidity to maximize their output. With this setup, they are able to produce consistent yields for the supply chain.  For more show notes and website links, visit WomenpreneurAsia.com Send us your audio message and who knows, your message for us could be featured in the next episode! Leave us your audio message.