A big welcome to Meros’ new winter research assistant, Zhou Yunkai!

Zhou Yunkai, who goes by Shu in Japan, is a third-year student at Keio University studying economics. He is on a one-year exchange from his home university of Beijing Foreign Studies University and is taking this semester to work full-time at Meros.  Shu wastes no time and has been accompanying our team to meetings at the Ministry of Agriculture, Forestry and Fisheries (MAFF), supporting research on seafood exports to China and starting to dig into China’s food security policy.

Shu discussed why he was drawn to Meros. “ I majored in Japanese at my university in China and was very interested in agriculture. I was trying to find an opportunity that would be a crossroads between these interests. So fortunately I found Meros. To be honest, I love Meros as a team with its diversity of different backgrounds, individuality, and global experience. In this way, Meros can solve challenges by providing insights from different perspectives and can be more open and cohesive.”

In the next few months he will be taking a deeper dive into the most recent developments in China’s food security as part of his independent research project. He has already proven himself to be an enthusiastic and quick learner with an incredibly proactive attitude.

“Working as a research assistant, I want to help the team as much as I can. And at the same time, it is a great experience for me to learn Meros’ methodology for solving challenges. I expect the first weeks will probably be hard, especially the process of learning technical terms in foreign languages. But I believe that with the effort and help from team members, I can accommodate myself to Meros quickly, and have a better understanding of the consulting business and agriculture trends.”

Shu has big plans outside of work this season too. “As a big fan of Japanese food, I was so excited to find there are numerous great restaurants near Meros. So apart from work, my first goal is to experience all of these great restaurants, especially ramen! I also plan to travel to Kyoto to enjoy the scenery – and of course experience Kyoto’s famous Ramen Street while I am there.“

Happy Lunar New Year from our team!

As we take our first few hops into the Year of the Rabbit this week, Meros wishes all our partners, clients and friends an excellent year. We can’t wait to see what the year brings and what new adventures and synergies we can explore. Reach out – we look forward to connecting (or reconnecting!)

It’s On! The first Agri-food Tech Impact Pitch Event with AgFunder SIJ Impact Fund!

It’s on! Aug 3rd! The first Agri-food Tech Impact Pitch Event organized by our colleagues at AgFunder and SDG Impact Japan together with Norinchukin’s AgVenture Lab incubator.

In May we celebrated the Tokyo launch of the the AgFunder SIJ Impact Fund, Japan’s first ever agrifood tech investment fund with an impact investing focus.
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We are excited to confirm that interest in the fund is continuing to build and AgFunder’s Michael Dean and John Friedman will be back in Japan to explain more about the fund and gather with other VCs and agtech innovation supporters to hear pitches from some of Japan’s promising agrifood tech start-ups.

Sign up here! https://peatix.com/event/3304952