Two startups win $100,000 Kosmos AgriTech Competition
Two agribusiness startups – QualiTrace and Agro Innova, were Thursday awarded $50,000 each, having been adjudged winners of oil producer, Kosmos Energy’s 2017 AgriTech Competition.
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Partners in the two brilliant enterprises will undergo a year-long entrepreneurship incubation at the Meltwater Entrepreneurial School of Technology (MEST) in Accra, and would be expected to come out ready to grow their businesses, according to Mr. Joe Mensah, Vice President and Country Manager of Kosmos Energy, who also announced the opening of the third season of the competition.
Two other business CompleteFarmer proposals who also made it to the finals of the competition, and Unlimited, will enjoy similar support from Premium Bank and MEST respectively, while two remaining finalists have already built partnerships and are into operations.
The outcomes were announced at a public event Thursday, at which Minister for Agriculture, Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto congratulated Kosmos for the innovative approach to growing the capacity of Ghanaian youth in agriculture under its Kosmos Innovation Centre (KIC) programme.
He said the oil and gas industry, even though a great revenue source, does not hold much promise for employment given its heavy dependence on technology. Rather, he said agriculture holds the future for the development of the country and was proper that Kosmos was channeling support into the agric sector.
Dr. Owusu Afriyie Akoto said Ghana’s agricultural production trends over the past decade point to a downward growth and thereby increasing rural poverty, while the workforce on the agriculture front increasingly tilt towards an ageing population.
He said reversing the trend requires enticing the youth into agriculture and providing them support in knowhow, technology and improved seeds and fertilizer, and it was therefore praise-worthy that Kosmos was providing the critically needed support for the youth and country.
Winning start-ups
Agro Innova is a mobile and web-based management system that enables poultry farmers to record, monitor and keep track of their operations in real time while QualiTrace uses track and trace technology to authenticate product inputs and outputs.
Agro Innova is promoted by Amos Narh Doku, an MBA in Accounting and Finance holder from the University of Professional Studies, Accra; Kelvin Kotey Ashie, a Bachelor of Science in Construction Technology and Management scholar from the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology; Moses G. Mallaghan, holder of Bachelor of Science degree in Physics and Mathematics from the University of Ghana; and Patrick Ofosu-Agyemang, a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science from KNUST.
QualiTrace is also promoted by Jennifer-Jayne Asante, a media practitioner; Ebenezer Emmanuel Owusu, an information technologist; Kenneth A. Nelson, agribusiness manager; and Padiki Bukari, a nutritionist.
The 2017 edition is the second consecutive competition by Kosmos which challenges young graduates to proffer innovative solutions using ICT to address challenges in the agricultural sector.
