NxG Award 2020 - Finalist - Rehan Amarasuriya
Rehan Amarasuriya, 5th Generation de Silva group, Singapore
Founder of “Profile Print”
Rehan is 5th Generation, BP de Silva group, Singapore
Project Name: “Profile Print”
Year initiated: 2017
Project description: ProfilePrint is a Food Ingredient Analysis SaaS (Software-as-a-solution) platform based on non-destructive A.I. food fingerprinting technology, allowing rapid authentication, characteristics prediction such as taste profiles, which empowers B2B users to match, source and sell better.
https://www.profile-print.com
About Rehan
Graduating with a Bachelor of Finance degree from Monash University, Rehan Amarasuriya is the 5th generation leader of the BP de Silva Group - a local Singapore conglomerate with an extensive portfolio of lifestyle and luxury brands.
Anchored in the family’s 147 year heritage, he leads the Group’s strategy particularly in its tea investments with Nava 1872 - a specialty tea company based in Singapore, Tea Tang - a tea production plant in Sri Lanka that supplies tea to markets globally, and teapasar - a local retail-tech startup with a patented A.I. food fingerprinting technology, ProfilePrint.
With his passion in the tea industry, Rehan is a thought leader who continually seeks to reinvigorate an industry steeped in tradition with innovation.
How does your project provide a solution to a problem or satisfies a specific need?
Today there is no common practical ingredient standard, but heavy reliance on human judgement, resulting in billions of manhours and dollars lost per year in a 4 trillion industry ripe for disruption. ProfilePrint provides B2B companies SaaS subscription and an analyser to provide rapid A.I. authentication and prediction of quality via our patented Digital Fingerprint Technology, focusing on food ingredient such as tea, coffee, grain, herbs, tobacco, wines etc.
How do you create customer value?
Buyers get authenticated ingredients with more choices at better price, sellers access to a larger market, receive fairer deals, displacing low-value adding middlemen.
How is your project innovative?
Our digital food fingerprint technology combines sensor technology with A.I. and chemometrics, and is the first of the kind in the world, which allowed us to received patent granted with global protection. It helps prevent food adulteration and fraud, which impacts commercial interest but more importantly resulting in public health and food safety concerns, which have become more prevalent globally.
What is the most valuable mistake that you have made, and what did you learn from it?
As a young graduate, I had a lot of ideas but if we spread our time and energy on every single idea, we would not be able to follow through well. I learnt from past mistakes, that often overloading to complete many tasks at 50% is worth a lot lesser than focusing on complete one task well at 99%.
How being from a family business has impacted you as a person, and which influence this has in turn had on your project?
I look after BP de Silva’s agricultural enterprise, which includes Tea Tang, a tea production company based in Sri Lanka, as well as its own Singapore based brand, The 1872 Clipper Tea Co. Food ingredients resonates with me as it can have a huge impact on geographies. I strive to do good while doing well, for example when i was growing up, I spent a lot of time at the line rooms in Sri Lanka’s farm estates, where most plantation workers live. Entire families grow up in these tiny rooms, built like barracks during the colonial era. I hope through technology and digitalisation, to be able to to improve the quality of life for farmers who often receive the thinnest slice of the margin. That would be my ultimate success, if I could transform this industry to help people.