Hosted by Busan Metropolitan City and the Busan Startup Investment Agency, FLY ASIA 2025 was centered on the theme "Connect Asia, Fly to the World." The event brought together approximately 10,000 participants, including promising startups, industry experts, stakeholders, venture capital firms, and accelerators from across Asia. It aimed to foster a mutually beneficial investment environment, strengthen collaboration within the tech-based startup ecosystem, and discover and award outstanding startups from Korea and abroad.

Surplus Indonesia: Tackling Waste with AI-Based Innovation

During the FLY ASIA 2025 competition, Agung Saputra and Zuleika Almira presented their innovative concept: an AI-powered circular recommerce platform that comprehensively addresses the issue of unsold and wasted products in Indonesia. This problem is estimated to cause annual losses of $39 billion, largely originating from the hotel, restaurant, and retail sectors.

The Surplus platform offers a dual-sided solution. For consumers, the Surplus App allows the purchase of overstocked, near-expiry, or imperfect goods at discounts of up to 80%. For business partners in the hotel, restaurant, and retail industries, the Surplus AI system helps predict waste, manage inventory, and efficiently distribute products to buyers, resellers, or for donation.

Surplus Indonesia's innovation also extends to offline initiatives like Juicible, JuLing, Imperfashion, and Surplus Mart, which create new value from imperfect goods. With over 10,000 SME partners, including major hotel groups, Surplus has successfully rescued 10,000 tons of goods, prevented $1 million in losses, averted 10 million tons of CO? emissions, created over 100 green jobs, and boosted farmer incomes.

This solution directly supports the UN's Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly SDG 2 (Zero Hunger), SDG 12 (Responsible Consumption and Production), and SDG 13 (Climate Action). Surplus is now expanding across the ASEAN region, aiming to transform the tourism and retail supply chains into a circular, transparent, and climate-positive ecosystem.

Surplus Indonesia's success as a finalist at FLY ASIA 2025 not only solidifies its position on the global startup stage but also serves as tangible proof of Indonesia's capacity for innovation to address global challenges. The event marks a crucial moment for the company to build cross-regional business networks that will accelerate its global market expansion.