Rinchi
TechInAfrica – The Nairobian startup, Farm.ink has just won a prize of US Agency for International Development (USAID)’s Fall Armyworm Tech Prize with the amount of US$150,000. The prize-winning was announced at AfricaCom conference in Cape Town over a week ago.
The prize is not only run by the US Agency for International Development (USAID) but also by Land O’Lakes International Development and the Foundation for Food and Agriculture Research. It aims at identifying digital innovations in the farming sphere where the innovators help to manage the spread of the agricultural pest, Fall Armyworm, in Africa.
The winners of the prize were announced last week at the AfricaCom conference with a total prize worth US$450,000 for six organizations.
Farm.ink has integrated a Fall Armyworm Virtual Advisor into its mobile service called Africa Farmers Club that brought the startup to be the overall winner of the prize and received the grand prize of US$150,000.
The Africa Farmers Club is an online group and chatbot that has provided over 150,000 farmers on the continent with information surrounding farming sphere. It has now applied a new feature called Virtual Advisor, providing farmers with specific information about how to identify and treat Fall Armyworm.
Besides Farm.ink, there are three others awardees; Farmerline, Henson Geodata Technologies, and eHealth Africa. Both Farmerline and Henson Geodata Technologies are based in Ghana. They received a US$50,000 prize. The three awardees are also at their early stage of developing mobile applications to provide tailored information to defeat Fall Armyworm.
Overall, the prize had received a total of 228 entries from many different organizations worldwide. 80% of them were based in Africa. The prize brought multi panels of agricultural global experts, tech entrepreneurship, and judges to select the winners.
