Food For Thought

Didi Gan, co-founder and managing director of biosciences start-up N&E Innovations, on staying the course and making a real impact in the sustainability industry.

- Alvin Wong

DIDI GAN'S AMBITIONS are huge and seem daunting. As co-founder and managing director of N&E Innovations, a biosciences company specialising in producing antimicrobial products derived from food waste, she aims to valorise up to 10,000 tonnes of food waste by 2030. Additionally, she is also looking to exponentially scale her business with more than 20 pilot projects in the pipeline all while setting an example for women in the biotechnology industry as well as for her three children at home. Yet, Gan is up for the challenge and relishing it all.

"I've learnt that I am a good multitasker and, like my mother, have a resilient personality. It doesn't matter what challenges I face. Having been on this entrepreneurship journey, I now know that I can overcome them and do so with a smile," she says.

Gan's disarmingly affable presence belies her steely character. Leaving her full-time job to start N&E Innovations in 2020 with Jaslyn Lee, PhD, Gan's biomedical science university classmate, the two women underwent a baptism of fire with their start-up.

From building a business during the height of the global pandemic, to embarking on "never-ending knocking" on corporations' doors first to introduce and then to convince them—of their sustainable antimicrobial technology, Gan and Lee’s experience has been nothing short of challenging and inspiring.