16 Business teams advance in Kosmos AgriTech Challenge

Kosmos Energy says 16 business teams have successfully advanced to the second stage of the Kosmos Innovation Centre (KIC) 2019 AgriTech Challenge after weeks of fine-tuning their business proposals.

The 16 businesses were selected from an initial 21 business teams which participated in the first-round of pitches in May 2019.

The KIC AgriTech Challenge is a business competition launched to encourage young entrepreneurs to use innovation and information and communication technology (ICT) to develop commercial solutions to challenges in Ghana’s agriculture sector.

The Vice-President and Country Manager of Kosmos Energy, Mr Joe Mensah, said: “We are seeing a new trend emerge among the businesses in this year’s competition.”

He said for the first time a number of the businesses were combining mechanical and technological solutions to help improve farming practices and mitigate post-harvest losses.

“These are critical areas to ensure sustainability in food production and storage for the long term. We are delighted to be seeing more impressive and ambitious business solutions as the programme progresses each year,” he said.

Initiated and funded by Kosmos Energy, the KIC continues to grow in strength and scale each year, offering robust, tailor-made capacity building programmes and mentorship opportunities to young entrepreneurs.

“To date, the young entrepreneurs have received over 16 capacity building and business development courses, including financial management principles for entrepreneurs, minimum viable product marketing workshop as well as ‘Team Effectiveness: Leadership and Alternative Dispute Resolution (ADR) Training,” Mr Mensah said.

How far

Following the first-round pitch, the 16 shortlisted businesses were given six weeks to embark on further market research.

“During the time, the business teams worked to validate their minimum viable product (MVP) development and execution plan, conduct competitor analysis and test their proposed revenue model and product-market fit,” a statement from Kosmos said

It said the panel of judges would critically assess each of the aspects during the second-round pitch event.

The teams

The 16 successful businesses include Farmklass, Athena, FishConnect, Cocoa Aboye, AiScarecrow and UGreen Technologies.

Others are Agroplast, Abnormalities Calidad, TheremoStore, Coologi, ClimaTek, Coconut Connect, Eat Fresh UFeed, Sylkroad and Abapa Express.

From the 16, only the most innovative teams will move on to the third and final pitch event slated for September this year.

Each team will be expected to present its final business plans, focusing on business scalability, marketing and customer acquisition.