The Earth Prize 2025: Teenagers from the Philippines named as Oceania and Southeast Asia Winners in $100K global competition for food waste web app

• The Earth Prize is the world’s largest environmental competition and ‘ideas incubator’ for 13-19-year-olds, empowering young people with mentorship and $100K funding
• Seven Regional Winners have recently been announced, representing the regions of North America, Africa, Asia, Central and South America, Oceania and Southeast Asia, Europe and the Middle East
• The Winners representing Oceania and SouthEast Asia created a food waste web app that addresses supply chain efficiencies, saving both farmers and consumers money
• The 15-17 year olds are the first winners of The Earth Prize to come from UAE
• Each team receives $12.5K to develop and implement their idea
• The public vote is now open crown the Global Winner on Earth Day (April 22)

In a bid to tackle food waste, two teenagers from the Philippines have been named the Oceania and Southeast Asia Winners of The Earth Prize 2025. Hailey Yap and Yume Yorita’s solution is an innovative web app, called ‘Kultibado’, that connects farmers to consumers.

16-year-old Yume and 17-year-old Hailey were driven by a pressing issue in their community - 30% of agricultural produce in the Philippines is wasted due to supply chain inefficiencies. Delays, excessive handling, and poor logistics cause food to spoil before reaching consumers, contributing to waste. This not only leads to economic losses but also generates methane emissions and limits access to nutritious meals.

To combat this, they’ve created Kultibado, an innovative web app that reduces food waste by connecting farmers, consumers and cooperatives directly. The platform cuts out the middleman and shortens the supply chain, ultimately allowing farmers to sell surplus and ‘ugly’ but perfectly edible produce, as well as optimise transport. The result? Farmers earn more, and consumers pay around 70% less. Their multi-cooperative partnerships, robust support networks, quality assurance and user-friendly tools set them apart, positioning them for scalable expansion across the Philippines.

The team impressed The Earth Prize’s expert jury with their final pitch, having excelled in the programme’s incubation and mentorship phases, and will now receive $12.5K to scale up their app further. Hailey Yap and Yume Yorita commented:

The Earth Prize aims to empower the next generation with all the tools they need to develop their eco solutions for real life impact, including one-to-one mentoring, learning resources and funding of $100K for the winning teams to scale their solutions. Since 2021, The Earth Prize has reached over 15,000 young people across 160 countries and territories, and awarded $500K to the top teams.

Previous applicants have garnered global media attention in outlets such as Forbes, Business Insider, EuroNews, Positive.News and UN Today, and continue to scale their solutions after the competition has ended. For instance, team Delavo (Winners of The Earth Prize 2023), who invented a cutting-edge filter that recycles up to 90% of toxic laundry waste water, partnered with a national manufacturer and applied for a patent to make their solution a reality. 

The Earth Prize was started by The Earth Foundation, a Swiss non-profit organization based in Geneva, as a way to empower and educate young people to tackle environmental challenges. As young people live through and observe extreme weather events such as the LA wildfires, many are mobilized to act - choosing to create solutions for our planet.

A recent study showed that 59% of youth and young adults are very or extremely worried about climate change, and more than 45% said their feelings about climate change negatively affected their daily life and functioning. 

The Public Vote to decide the Global Winner is now open until Tuesday April 22 (Earth Day): https://www.theearthprize.org/vote