Lim Yuet Kim is the CEO and co-founder of PichaEats, a social enterprise that’s aimed at helping refugees earn a living using their culinary skills. Volunteering as a teacher at a refugee learning centre while in university, Lim and her friends founded PichaEats (formerly known as The Picha Project) as a solution to keep refugee children in school who were dropping out due to financial issues at home.

The social enterprise trains refugees who can cook to become professional chefs, and encourages them to help design the menu and packaging, run branding and marketing, and arrange the logistics for food delivery. Specialising in cuisines of the chefs’ homelands, the service offers meals prepared by chefs from Syria, Myanmar, Afghanistan, Palestine, Iraq and Pakistan. PichaEats has catered food for corporate events, home parties and even weddings, in addition to individual meal plans.

Since its inception in 2016, Lim’s social enterprise has generated nearly RM4 million in revenue, and given back RM2.5 million to the chefs and their families. Lim, who is in charge of business development, strategy and community building at PichaEats. She was shortlisted for Women of the Future South-East Asia Award, and together with her co-founders is among Forbes’ list of Asian 30 under 30, both in 2018.