Five startups have been selected for the post-acceleration of the Africa4Future Accelerator Program powered by Airbus BizLab and “Make-IT in Africa.
The five startups for the Africa4Future Accelerator Program are Crop2Cash (Nigeria), Rural Farmers Hub (Nigeria), XY Analytics (South Africa), AgriEdge (Morocco), and DmmHehe (Rwanda).
The startups will now be supported to implement their Proof of Concept (PoC) in the next 9 months.
The Proof of Concept of each selected startup
After 2 months of rigorous one-on-one interactions with Airbus experts and in-depth reviews by the CcHUB Design Lab and preparation for the virtual showcase as well, the 10 selected startups in the third month of the program got the opportunity to present their proposed Proof of Concept (PoC) to Airbus and GIZ leadership on July 6th in a virtual or online pitch.
The jury present for the PoC presentation includes Grazia Vittadini — Chief Technology Officer, Airbus, Dirk Hoke — CEO, Airbus Defence and Space, Christian Lindener — Global Head of Airbus BizLab, Airbus, Francois Lombard — Head of Intelligence, Airbus Defence & Space, Jan Schwaab — Head Digital Transformation in Africa, GIZ and Bosun Tijani — Founder & CEO, CcHUB.
1. Crop2Cash (Nigeria): Develop a credit scoring model based on historical time-series data of farm performance that will make it easier for financial institutions to provide finance to smallholder farmers. The product will be tested with 1,000 farmers and involve multiple stakeholders.
2. XY Analytics (South Africa): Deploy and test their pasture management solution with 100 farmers in Namibia and covering 160, 000 hectares.
3. AgriEdge (Morocco): Improve and deploy their Optimized Fertilization Monitoring product for fertilizer recommendations and yield prediction for smallholder farmers, using high-resolution images from UP42.
4. DmmHehe(Rwanda): Develop a national postharvest supply chain solution with the government of Rwanda using geospatial data to forecast supply and match it with demand and logistics services.
5. Rural Farmers Hub (Nigeria): Develop Village Chief™️, a big data analytics dashboard, that helps farm organisations, industries, corporates, and the government make key agribusiness decisions.
Commenting, Dirk Hoke — CEO, Airbus Defence & Space said: “I was impressed to see how the startups are deploying Airbus technology to tackle problems in agriculture in Africa from different angles. Supporting the entrepreneurial ecosystem in Africa will be of the utmost importance as the economies will continue to grow significantly in the coming years.”
