Learning at the Young Entrepreneurs Event

Last Thursday, July 23, 2026, I had the opportunity to attend "Taking on Food Loss": The Reality of an Overseas Entrepreneur — Hear the Beginning of Her Journey, in English, by Gillian Santos. This event, hosted at StartupSide Kyoto, is an initiative promoted by the Startup and Industry-Academia Collaboration Promotion Office of the Kyoto City Bureau of Industry and Tourism. This event is aimed at younger generations ranging from middle school to college students. The goal of these events is to educate and inspire these generations in the world of startup companies through lectures and guest speakers who can connect and relay their experiences as a startup company themselves.

At this event, I was introduced to the guest speaker, Santos, CEO of Anihan Technologies Inc., who explained what her company does and provided her firsthand experiences in the startup industry. 

AniTech specializes in agricultural software that can help detect valuable information for farmers to grow to the best of their capabilities. Santos describes how the Asian agricultural industry is not as advanced as other nations may be. She explains how many farmers don’t keep track of time or aren’t caring properly, leading to a lot of land, resources, and produce going to waste.  Santos states that AniTech’s goal is to reduce food loss by giving farmers the technological help they need and to highlight every step taken to bring the produce from farm to table.

As an agricultural major myself and with a history with farms and plants, Santos’ goal deeply resonated with me. Growing up, I was raised on a flower farm, which as of recently celebrated its 100-year anniversary. I understand firsthand the hard labor it takes to grow, produce, and sell an agricultural product. This background also inspired me to major in plant sciences, which I later switched to agricultural communications and agricultural business. With these majors, I still get to tie myself back to my flower farm while learning important life skills in the business and communication world.

Santos wants to tackle food loss, which differs from food waste, meaning she wants to emphasize the importance of all production factors that brought the food to a person’s table, and help farms understand their crops so no resource is wasted. I appreciate that she doesn’t take what she is given for granted and wants to make sure that every involved party- farmers, truck drivers, the land, animals, and other connections are all equally represented and celebrated. It makes me feel greatly appreciated that someone wants to emphasize the production process because a lot of times, with my farm, event planners will buy our flowers for other occasions and don’t always give the recognition for the hard work it took to grow, pick, and transport the flowers.

I have never really thought about starting my own company, but it was so interesting to learn about the startup process. Santos detailed her step-by-step process, such as why she chose this field, where she was before starting the business, and what she has done to reach her current area of development. She chose this field because, as she emphasized, this field of agricultural technologies is not as strong in Asian countries. She explained to the students how to find a field you know you’re comfortable enough in and that has an opening for you in it. Santos kept explaining the process: find a problem, ask yourself whether you are the right person to solve it, and finally decide what you will do before acting. 

Santos emphasized the importance of understanding your own capabilities, and that really stuck with me. She said she was a physics major in college, but discovered that she had a solution to an agricultural problem and took the opportunity. I personally don’t know what I want to do in life, but knowing that there are people who successfully moved out of their field into something else is really inspirational to me and opens a lot of doors I never noticed.

One student asked Santos what her biggest challenge was, and I really liked how honest and forthcoming she was about her struggles. She explained that she isn’t a sugar coater when it comes to startup companies.She expressed how startup companies have a high chance of failing for several reasons. She explained that for her it was a budgeting issue and trusting the wrong people; however, everyone’s experience will be different. I really appreciate her openness because if someone were to want to start a company, they should understand that there is a high risk of failure as well.  Santos told everyone flat out to find a good opportunity to join, but understand that a company isn’t guaranteed success. 

One piece of advice that I deeply connected to was that “feedback is everything.” I personally don’t take criticism well, but the way Santos explained why helped me understand that even if  I may not like it, it is necessary for improvement. Feedback helps a company get outside input into what they are doing right or wrong. This allows a company to fix their mistakes and hopefully become more appealing to more people. Santos also explained that if the company knows its target audience, it would want to hear from them to improve and become more appealing, thereby strengthening the current enjoyers.

Currently, AniTech is based in the Philippines and Japan. Santos is trying to formulate an exchange between the two. I asked Santos after her presentation if she would expand more, and she said she would want to expand into more Asian countries because that is currently where agriculture is lacking proper optimization. I pressed further, and she explained how she couldn’t compare to other technological companies yet, but she would be willing to go global with time. 

I am so glad I got the opportunity to go listen to "Taking on Food Loss": The Reality of an Overseas Entrepreneur. I learned so much about how to start a company, the rough side of that, and about AniTech. I also met a lot of aspiring entrepreneurs and learned a lot about them and their ambitions. Meeting everyone and learning from Gillian Santos, I know I will bring strong business skills with me into my future job. I learned to look for what I can solve, understanding the good and the bad, always having a positive spirit, and not being held back by my college degree. I hope to meet everyone I met that day in the future so I can ask them how much they have grown as a person and how their aspirations are going. I know they are bound to do great things.

Anihan Technologies
https://www.anihan.tech/