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Three African startups South Africa’s Esus Farm and Injini and Ghana’s Satelligence have been selected to pitch at World Bank’s Agriculture Innovation Challenge set to take place on the 10th June at 10:00 EST Time.
Esus Farm and Injini and Ghana’s Satelligence are the only companies from Africa taking part in the virtual pitch which will showcase top solutions in agriculture and food security organized by the World Bank together with Draper University.
The pitch is part of AG Innovation Challenges in support of Agriculture & Food Security Risk Financing in Southern Africa. Top 6 selected winners along with the representatives of the World Bank and Government Officials will participate to showcase the top solutions and innovative practices impacting agriculture data, weather variables, pests and plant diseases in the most vulnerable region.
The 3-day ‘shark tank’ event was held at the end of April 2020 and designed to select the top innovators from all over the world. The Grand Jury of Agriculture Innovation Challenge initiative of the World Bank highlighted the winners of each category and awarded honourable mention prizes as raising stars to three more companies. The diversity and relevance of the proposed solutions resulted into a growing interest amongst the public to hear more about the winning teams that have a potential to make a real impact.
Top agriculture and food security risk financing innovators & speakers at the upcoming event:
Arable (USA) – Winner of Alternative Methods for Measuring Weather Variables Challenge
Real-time microclimate and crop health data on two time horizons: driving daily farm operations and providing insight into seasonal yields.
CropIn (India) – Winner of Bring Your Own Agriculture Data Challenge
Building large and smart datasets through innovative ICT-driven data collection techniques, that enables farmers access to risk and financing instruments.
Satelligence (Ghana) – Winner of Predicting or Monitoring Animal and/or Plant Pests Challenge
The system combats the invasion of fall armyworm in sub-Saharan Africa by providing early warning messages based on satellite technology.
Sailog (Israel) – Honorable Mention for Accessibility
EsusFarm (South Africa) – Honorable Mention for Innovative Locally Sustainable Business Model
Injini (South Africa) – Honorable Mention for Harnessing Social Media
To support innovators and empower entrepreneurship innovation, the organizers also launched a special video contest amongst the winners and participants of the event to ask the public to vote on the most creative video. The winning video will be played during the live stream event on the 10th June.
This event is part of the three Agriculture Risk innovation challenges launched by the World Bank’s Agriculture Observatory, in conjunction with the Disaster Risk Financing and the Disaster Risk Management teams, and with the support of Draper University. The challenge aims to harness new technology and data to address the agriculture and food security risks in Southern Africa.
