Africa4Future held its annual call for projects, which welcomed 212 applications from start-ups in 28 countries across Africa.
This year’s cohort includes 10 start-ups originating from Ghana, Morocco, Nigeria, Kenya, Rwanda, South Africa, and Tanzania, all of which will have the opportunity to further develop their ideas in preparation for a virtual showcase in June.
This year’s focus is on remote sensing for precision agriculture and infrastructure development.
How can remote sensing for precision agriculture help respond to food shortages? How can satellite technology ensure the sustainable development of infrastructure across Africa?
These are the key questions—in line with SDG 2 and SDG 9 of the UN Sustainable Development Goals—that start-ups in Africa were challenged to address in their #Africa4Future application. The selected applicants now form this year’s latest cohort.
“Our virtual showcase in June will be the perfect moment for start-ups to show what Africa can achieve with satellite technology and support.”
François Lombard, Director of Intelligence, Airbus Defence & Space.
Over the next two months, the start-ups will have access to technical and commercial workshops—as well as mentorship opportunities with Airbus, Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit German (GIZ), and CCHub experts and coaches—to push their ideas to the next level. In June, the cohort will present their work to the #Africa4Future executive committee during a virtual showcase.
“Our virtual showcase in June will be the perfect moment for start-ups to show what Africa can achieve with satellite technology and support,” says François Lombard, Director of Intelligence, Airbus Defence & Space.
Sean Wiid, UP42 Chief Product Officer, adds: “UP42 is proud to be supporting this initiative to boost innovation in Africa by providing the start-ups’ easy access to a wide range of Earth-observation data, analytics and infrastructure at scale.”
#Africa4Future is a joint-accelerator programme launched by Airbus BizLab and “Make-IT in Africa,” an initiative developed by GIZ, the German agency for international cooperation. It is implemented with the help of CCHub, a Nigerian start-up consultancy.
In addition, UP42, a developer platform and marketplace for geospatial data and analytics, recently signed on as the programme’s technology sponsor. Since 2017, #Africa4Future has accelerated 14 start-ups in Africa.
Introducing the 2020 #Africa4Future cohort
- AgriEdge: This start-up from Morocco is developing a precision agriculture services platform to improve the profitability of small-holder farmers.
- Agrorite: This start-up from Nigeria is creating a funding and advisory services platform designed specifically for farmers.
- Crop2Cash: This start-up from Nigeria is working on a platform to connect smallholder farmers to banks, giving access to credit products and ensuring oversight for banks.
- DMM.HeHe: This start-up from Rwanda is developing an end-to-end logistics solution to connect farmers to customers.
- Epinec: This IT services start-up from Nigeria is working on a project management tool to give farmers real-time visibility.
- Fastagger: This start-up from Kenya is developing an AI-as-a-service platform to provide image annotation services to AI-driven businesses.
- Flamingoo Foods: This rice trading start-up from Kenya is creating a tool to predict food shortages and food surplus in the East Africa region.
- GrowForMe: This start-up from Ghana is working on a platform to connect smallholder farmers to investors and individuals to grow a specific crop.
- RuralFarmers Hub: This start-up from Nigeria is developing a tool to provide farmers with agricultural best practices and tailored advice via SMS, voice calling, or in person.
- XY Analytics: This start-up from South Africa is working on a herd management tool to enable the monitoring of health, movement, reproductive status, and location of livestock.
