The Global Index Insurance Facility (GIIF), a World Bank Group program, announced the three top winners of the Africa AgTech & Inclusive Insurance Challenge, a competition for technology-led enterprises in Africa to offer innovative solutions for agriculture and inclusive insurance.

The 1^st place Winner was Omishtu-Joy from Ethiopia which will obtain financial support of US$ 25,000. Omishtu-Joy is an agritech startup that develops hardware that measures soil PH, NPK, moisture, humidity, and temperature level, supported by an AI system that matches crops to farmlands. The use of technology for development coupled with the ability to improve farmer yield is yet another example of innovation and ingenuity in solving real problems. Omishtu-Joy today works directly with 5,500 farmers who use their device and is currently training an additional 4300 farmers. The company targets to onboard 18,000 more farmers by end of 2022.

The 2^nd place Winner was Rural Farmers Hub from Nigeria which will obtain financial support of US$ 15,000. Rural Farmers Hub collects and analyzes primary and secondary data from farmer groups and uses that data in e-extension and consulting services for smallholder farmers, showing how data can impact the agriculture sector significantly. They work with an extension worker network of over 200 members and has since reached over 25,000 smallholder farmers. The company targets 10 key corporate customers and an estimated 250,000 small-holder farmers within the next 24 months.

The 3^rd place Winner was Agrotech+ from Kenya which will obtain financial support of US$ 10,000.  Their digital platform LendIt enables small-holder farmers access digital services such mobile money payments for commodities sold, micro-lending/input financing, crop insurance and pension scheme for the informal sector. They have 6,800 registered smallholder farmers with 2,800 actively using the service, and are currently training over 4,000 farmers using SSD technology.

Each of the 3 winners help solve complex social challenges through cutting edge innovations and high potential entrepreneurship, and each of them have shown ability to scale, disrupt and transform the sectors with their promising ideas.

“The role of technology and innovation will be critical to driving growth in underpenetrated financial and insurance sectors across Africa, where a young and growing pool of tech talent and a dramatic increase in digital connectivity will directly boost Africa’s economic value,” said James Smouse, Global Head of Insurance in IFC’s Financial Institutions Group. “We are very excited to support Africa’s young entrepreneurs through the Africa AgTech & Inclusive Insurance Challenge.”

“This was a great opportunity for start-ups in this space to collaborate with IFC and its partners and bring to the fore game-changing ideas that will contribute to the transformation of Africa’s agricultural sector,” said Fatou Assah, GIIF Program Manager.

The challenge received 208 applications from 23 countries across Africa.  Innovations included crop and livestock insurance products, innovative credit scoring technologies, crop, and water stress detection technologies, to name a few.

According to Arielle Molino, VP of Intellecap Africa and Lead Sankalp Africa, “The Challenge will help start-ups solve a real-time problem, the underlying impact of which is significant. We are excited to work with IFC and all the start-ups joining us in this journey to help identify innovative ideas that will benefit smallholder farmers across Africa.”

Powered by Sankalp Forum, the Africa AgTech & Inclusive Insurance Challenge aimed to celebrate and support young entrepreneurs who are working at the intersection of agriculture, insurance, climate, and gender to build resilience for rural populations.

The Africa AgTech & Inclusive Insurance Challenge offered an opportunity to the most promising enterprises to win various awards for a total of $50,000 USD across three categories (Data & Analytics, Agricultural Productivity, and Financial Inclusion for Ag). Through participating in the Sankalp Africa Summit 2022, the top innovators are expected to gain exposure on investment readiness, network with potential impact investors and improve their business models. Collectively, this will make their innovations more competitive in future funding rounds.

One of the biggest challenges for smallholder farmers is getting the right inputs and at the right price. Inputs have increasingly become crucial as climate change continues to roil farming in uncertainty.

Elisha Caleb’s start-up Agrotech Plus seeks to ease some of that uncertainty by offering credit through agricultural inputs.

And when they take up their credit, Agrotech Plus links them to crop or index- insurance products to cushion them against climate change, boost their productivity and earnings.

“We are bundling agricultural inputs and insurance to smallholder farmers through credit,” says Caleb, 25-year-old data scientist who started the firm in 2019.

The start-up utilises village agents and agro-dealers to offer the inputs on credit.

At the start of the season and where the farmer needs inputs, they are issued with a scratch card by the dealers with a code that is sent to Agro-tech Plus to activate their accounts.

Upon taking the credit, farmers are asked to pay at least 10 percent of the value of the input and the rest of the payment made in bits before the end of the crop season or after harvest, depending on crop type.

The start-up uses geographic information system (GIS) mapping software and satellite data to map where the farmer is and know whether it’s low agricultural are, medium or high, the firm size and value chain to get an insurance package suitable for the farmer.

“This is how we are able to get a package that works for the farmer. If the farmers agree, they take the input. If there is germination, the crops are insured. If they fail, we give a farm input of equal value to start again,” noted Sharon Chacha, head of operations with Agrotech Plus.

The firm is currently working with 2,000 small-scale farmers across the country.

It’s planning to raise Sh22.8m from investors to scale up.

Sankalp Forum, an initiative of Intellecap, is hosting its 9^th Edition of the Sankalp Africa Summit, one of Africa’s largest inclusive networking platforms focussed on entrepreneurship and the impact investing ecosystem, in a hybrid format, from the 1^st to 4^th March 2021.

This year, the Sankalp Africa Awards 2022 winner is Zuri Health a healthcare startup from Kenya. Zuri Health brings to its customers, an innovative virtual hospital that allows patients to talk to a doctor, purchase medication from a pharmacy, schedule lab and diagnostic testing, and have a doctor come to their home. So far, they have clocked impressive numbers with over 20,000 doctor engagements and 250+ on boarded doctors.

The very idea of using innovation and technology in improving access to healthcare in Africa through mobile phone applications and services, against the backdrop of the pandemic, is yet another testimony to the promising innovators who are solving complex problems.

In Africa 30% of the waste and in Kenya over 38% of the waste remains uncollected due to population growth, costs of waste disposal and lack of necessary infrastructure. This presents a significant opportunity and the First Runner Up is Ecodudu, a Circular Economy startup in Kenya.  This waste-to-value company again brings innovation to the fore, making bio fertilizer and insect feeds for chickens, pigs, and fish using the black soldier fly. The company employs a circular production approach that makes use of small-scale farmers’ capability in the production process.

The Second Runner Up was Mobility for Africa, a Clean Energy startup from Zimbabwe, provides fully serviced three-wheeled electric vehicles (Hamba) that can travel up to 100 kilometers and carry up to 400 kilograms on a single charge. The vehicles are equipped with purpose-built batteries, and MFA provides on-site charging stations for battery swapping, as well as after-care services to ensure that small-holder farmers and other users are always on the move.

Renewable community-based transport solutions for Sub Saharan Africa that are affordable, efficient, and environmentally friendly is an idea which serves a dual purpose on both energy efficiency and the need for transportation services that serves the multitude.

Each year, the Sankalp Summit recognizes and rewards high impact enterprises in the Africa region which are keen to tackle key development challenges. The finalists get the opportunity to pitch their enterprises to a jury panel comprising of eminent business leaders and investors, as well as global investors around the world.

They also instituted a new innovative category, the Sankalp Africa Ecosystem Award. The winner was chosen by voting by stakeholders and ecosystem players, and the winner was Greenpot Enterprises, an environmental startup from Kenya and an integrated bamboo company that operates large-scale nurseries, establishes bamboo plantations, and processes the bamboo into products used in the construction industry.

Speaking about the Sankalp Africa Awards, Arielle Molino, Sankalp Lead and AVP Intellecap Africa, said “Sankalp Forum is one of our largest initiatives that aim to bring the community together to help solve the problems that face us through cutting edge innovation and high potential entrepreneurship. Sankalp Awards and the Africa summit, today, in its 9th year in Africa, continue to showcase some of the most innovative and game changing ideas that have shown immense promise and ability to scale, disrupt and transform their respective sectors.”

Overall, the finalists highlighted some interesting ideas from innovators which include Crop Nutrition Laboratory Services (Cropnuts), an agricultural, food safety, and environmental laboratory and agronomy advisory service company that helps farmers achieve long-term profitability by rebuilding and restoring soil fertility, Vintz Plastics, a waste recycling company that turns plastic trash into Plastic pellets, Steamledge which provides Primary and Secondary School learners early and affordable access to Technology skills that match the needs of the changing workforce, Natal Cares which combines mobile technology, machine learning and low-cost innovation to combat maternal and infant mortality, The Pathology Network (TPN) which has an online platform-based operations enabling on-demand access to standardized specialized lab diagnostic tests for rural and urban hospitals and Swiftlab Limited, a Kenyan manufacturer and operator of drones for medical deliveries to increase access to safe, effective, high quality, and affordable essential medicines and vaccines for all.

The Summit is hosting over 2,000 stakeholders, from 50+ countries around the World, including participants from 30+ African countries.