Ghana's Isaac Sesi and Botswana's Bonolo Monthes Win the GoGettaz Agripreneur Prize

By Melody Chironda

Accra — The two entrepreneurs were awarded for their innovative ventures in the agri-food sector.

Isaac Sesi's project Sesi Technologies is an agri-tech company that tackles poverty and hunger by empowering the African farmer with affordable technology to help them increase productivity and reduce losses.

Bonolo Monthe's Maungo Craft is a gourmet preserve company. The company uses underused indigenous fruits and turn them into low-to-no-sugar preserves.

Each entrepreneur walked away with U.S.$50,000 and they will use the money to kick start their business.

The Generation Africa GoGettaz Agripreneur competition aims to help young African entrepreneurs who want to pursue their career in the field of agri-food.

Giant telecommunications, media and technology firm, Econet and Yara International, a global crop nutrition group launched the Generation Africa initiative with the aim to inspire young African entrepreneurs to join the agri-food sector for its viable business opportunities.

Twelve young entrepreneurs were named as finalists after they stood out with their business ideas. They were from Botswana, Cameroon, Democratic Republic of Congo, Ghana, Kenya, Nigeria, Senegal, South Africa, Uganda, and Zimbabwe.

In the grand finale, the 12 finalists faced a panel of judges and presented their projects at the Africa Green Revolution Forum held in Accra, Ghana.  To determine the winners in the competition, the judges looked for creativity, originality, quality of execution along with environmental sustainability of their business venture.

The campaign has reached at least 46 million young people across the continent since its launch in May, 2019.

Here are the profiles of some of the finalists;

Gourmet Grubb, Leah Bessa, South Africa
Gourmet Grubb is a company that creates dairy alternatives made by blending the larvae of a tropical insect known as the black soldier fly. The company aims to introduce insects as a sustainable, scalable, nutrient-dense food source to the world with the goal of reducing the pressures of traditional farming on the planet.

ColdHubs, Bright Benjamin Igbokwe, Nigeria
ColdHubs is a solar-powered cold storage designed to reduce post-harvest losses for smallholder farmers. ColdHubs is helping farmers and market vendors become more profitable by eliminating food waste via 100% solar-powered walk-in cold rooms. It offers farmers with a flexible pay-as-you-store subscription model.

Ecodudu Limited, Starlin Farah, Kenya
Ecodudu is a waste-to-value company. It uses data driven analytics to recycle organic waste into high-protein animal feed and organic fertilizer using the black soldier fly. The company focuses on the betterment of social, economic and environmental aspects in their business model.

Alley Capital Limited, Piwai Chikasha, Zimbabwe aka Mr Drone
Alley Capital Limited provides high-quality crop spraying services using customized drones through affordable prices and expertise to develop unique in-house systems.

Le Lionceau, Siny Samba, Senegal
Le Lionceau offers organic and nutritious baby food from local products. They work in collaborating with local farmers.

Distribution Express (DITEX), Bertin Fokou, Cameroon
Ditex is launching WhatsNear, a mobile and web application that allows the user to locate the providers closest to them, helping farmers to find a means of transportation cheaply, reliably, fast, and available close to the pick-up place of their production.

ReelFruit Nigeria, Affiong Williams, Nigeria
ReelFruit is a snack company located in Nigeria that processes, packages and distributes a variety of dried fruits and nuts, including mangoes, pineapples, bananas, coconuts and cashew nuts. ReelFruit gets its fruits from Nigerian farmers, which boosts Nigerian agriculture by providing a consistent demand for their produce.

FarmCorps, Job Oyebisi, Nigeria
FarmCorps is a digital platform for rallying worldwide support for the causes of smallholder farmers especially in connecting them to both human and capital resources that empowers them to boost their farm production and income.

Women Smiles Uganda, Lilian Nakigozi, Uganda
Women Smiles Uganda is a women founded, women-led and women-focused social enterprise that was founded in 2016 by a group of like minded young women entrepreneurs with an aim of transforming the lives of women through eradication of hunger and poverty using vertical farming mechanisms. They train women on how to make composite manure from biogradable wastes through use of vermi-composting.

Ngomalands, Steven Betcha, Democratic Republic of Congo
Ngomalands is a technological platform, with a web application and a website, which allows the owners of uncultivated arable lands to list them on our platform, with details on the area, the environment and other information relating to these lands, thus allowing young people and people wanting to embark on agribusiness to find land to cultivate, produce enough food to feed Africa, and become economically independent.

Read Full Story