For the first edition of the African Drone Business Challenge, 10 African drone startups have been selected for the finals, with 2 Nigerian startups-Global Air Drone Academy and Upshore Robotics participating.
The 10 finalists will compete for a share of £40,000 in prize money sponsored by UKAID/DfID.
The African Drone Business Challenge finalists were shortlisted from a competitive pool of almost 150 submissions from across 31 African countries.
Each finalist will participate in a live pitch and award ceremony on Thursday, Feb 6 at the African Drone Forum (ADF) in Kigali, Rwanda.
They will also participate in a two-day pitch bootcamp facilitated by Carnegie Mellon University Africa (CMU Africa), along with exhibition space and networking opportunities.
The African Drone Business Challenge finalists represent 9 African countries – Benin, Democratic Republic of Congo, Kenya, Malawi, Nigeria, South Africa, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
Meet the 10 finalists are:
1.) Upshore Robotics (Nigeria)
Upshore Robotics is a Drone and Analytics platform enabled by Artificial Intelligence that uses aerial photosynthetic sensors to detect and mitigate crop disease while providing African farmers actionable data to maximise their crop output.
2.) Global Air Drone Academy (Nigeria)
The Global Air Drone Academy is an FAA-licensed drone training, education and consultation organisation committed to building the next generation of professional drone pilots.
3.) Micromek (Malawi)
Micromek is a Malawian based hardware startup that is locally developing
low-cost autonomous fixed-wing drone aircraft made from 3D printed parts and foam board for delivery of medicine, vaccines and HIV test kits for young children and pregnant women in the hard to reach areas of Malawi.
4.) Integrated Aerial Systems (South Africa)
Integrated Aerial Systems provides an end-to-end service from executing flight operations to delivering the advanced analytics and reports from drone data.
5.) Kenya Flying Labs (Kenya)
Kenya Flying Labs Have come up with an idea of using a heavy-lift tethered drone platform to extend wireless communications and be adopted for applications such as firefighting, safe cleaning of skyscrapers and inspection.
6.) Jembe Kilimo (Tanzania)
Jembe Kilimo provides farmers with personal extension officers who give them counsel to improve their quality of life and quality of produce.
7.) Africa Bees (DRC)
Africa Bees is growing drone community of African pilots hosted on an opensource geospatial platform that promotes the safe use of drones for data capture and mapping using low-cost drones but retaining high precision.
8.) JCKEG (Zambia)
JCKEG Solutions is a think tank with a team of young minds that work at finding technology and innovation solutions for social good.
9.) Alley Capital Group Zimbabwe)
Alley Capital Group is a smart agricultural company, specializing in crop spraying services using precision drone systems.
10.) Drone Era (Benin)
Drone Era is a startup specialised in drone building and precision agriculture solutions. They are setting up AgForce, an aerial (drone-based) crop protection services. AgForce will help farmers in crop spraying with low-cost, fast, and precise agrocultural drone solutions.
“The World Bank is proud to support these promising startups as they gain momentum and continue to push their business ideas forward. By participating in the African Drone Forum, entrepreneurs will get exposure to both local and global players within the drone industry,” said Yasser El-Gammal, World Bank Country Manager in Rwanda, the host country for the African Drone Forum.
“The Forum is creating a unique platform for entrepreneurs to accelerate their objective of starting high-tech, high-growth companies, which will ultimately contribute to building a thriving and resilient drone ecosystem across Africa and improve service delivery to its citizens.”
An initiative of the African Drone Forum (ADF), the first African Drone Business Challenge (ADBC) is a business plan competition for African entrepreneurs to uncover new commercial use cases for drone applications that demonstrate a high potential for local impact.
The African Drone Forum will be held in Kigali, Rwanda on February 5-7, 2020.
