Heifer International Kenya has awarded 3 agritech startups during the AYuTe Africa Challenge Kenya finals.
John Waweru, Founder and CEO of Optimerce Consulting Ltd, a business that Digitizes the process of produce collection at farm-gate through mobile apps was announced as the AYuTe Africa Challenge Kenya winner.
Joshua Gitonga, the founder and CEO RafikiPay, a company that deals with the processing of sunflower, groundnuts, soya and canola oil from the hybrid seeds was announced as the 1st runner up.
At the same time, Grace Kyarimpa, Managing Director of Agrodiverse Ltd Kenya, a business that converts insects, earthworms into sources of protein in animal feed and high-quality organic fertilizers, emerged as the 2nd runner up.
The Champions of the inaugural $20,000 Heifer International AYuTe Africa Challenge Kenya were chosen from an impressive field of young agritech innovators from across the country and were announced today at the gala awards ceremony in Nairobi.
The competition design targeted companies must have developed a tech solution to address smallholder farmer challenges with strong potential to scale.
The winner, 1st runner up and 2nd runner-up were awarded cash grants of Ksh1 million, Ksh 500,000 and Ksh250,000, respectively.
In addition, the 15 finalists will benefit from a 3-month accelerator and mentorship program.
Besides the top three innovations, other finalists included Azma Foods Ltd, Digital Farmer, Ento (insects) Solutions Ltd, Farm Mall, Farmerline Technologies, Limachain, Nalima Digital, Shambaline Ltd, Soluvax, Stofresh Africa, Toothpick Company Ltd, Vermi-Farms Initiative Ltd.
In June 2022, Heifer International Kenya launched the AYuTe Africa Challenge Kenya to promote and reward agriculture technology innovation across different agricultural value chains in Kenya.
The applications for the challenge ran from 14th June to 14th July 2022, while the proposal evaluation pitching and judging were concluded by 31st August 2022.
The top 15 finalists were competitively selected through a meticulous judging process and got a chance to do their final pitching where three winners were selected.
“Having worked with farmers for very many years we see the AYuTe challenge as an opportunity to identify exciting young innovators who have wonderful ideas to walk with them through the journey of fine tuning those ideas as well as providing linkage to the opportunities to scale up those ideas” said Esta Kamau, Country Director, Heifer International Kenya.
A 2021 study by Heifer International pointed to the need for more investments to embrace agriculture as a desirable career.
Funding, training, and access to agricultural technology were identified as the three key areas to encourage youth involvement in agriculture.
“The AYuTe Africa Challenge Kenya competition has affirmed our understanding that many young tech companies require a combination of significant investment and expert guidance, I am confident that we have filled that need, not just for the top three winners but also for those who made into the top 80,” said Esta Kamau.
Powered by E4Impact Accelerator, the competition aims to offer young entrepreneurs in Africa the opportunity to pitch for investment in their agritech solutions to boost the incomes and productivity of Africa’s smallholder farmers.
