On October 11, the eight final teams in the Kosmos Innovation Center 2018 AgriTech Challenge will pitch to judges to be selected as overall winner.

The winning team, selected from over 500 applicants and over 100 initial program participants, will receive $50,000 seed-funding to start their business.

The AgriTech Challenge tasks young entrepreneurs with developing innovative, technology-led business ideas to solve problems in Ghana’s agricultural sector.

The eight business teams currently preparing for the final pitch on October 11 are:

1. Growth Factor, facilitating quick payments to SMEs in the agricultural sector
2. Tech Shelta, providing farm management services
3. ProFish (Lojaanor), helping connect small agricultural businesses with potential buyers
4. Soil Solution, helping farmers improve their soil quality and increase production
5. Farm Cure, helping farmers resolve challenges with pest control
6. Alpha (Rotate), providing farmers with access to skilled labour
7. AgroSol, providing processing services within the agricultural sector
8. Kwidex, providing farmers access to financial information about their business.   

Over the past nine months, participants have benefited from training including 20 workshops, two group market research tours, and an individual team led market research activity to help them refine their minimum viable product    

For the past two months, the teams have been working on their minimum viable product and proof of concept; required as part of the final pitch to demonstrate their product can be built and works for potential end-users.

Kosmos Energy VP and Country Manager for Ghana, Joe Mensah said: “The KIC business teams have come far with working on Their minimum viable product and building prototypes.  By making this requirement of the final teams, we ensure that the businesses are more robust and attractive to potential investors.”

Background

The Kosmos Innovation Center (KIC) is Kosmos Energy’s flagship social investment program in Ghana. It uses innovation to create and apply commercial solutions to development challenges, starting with agriculture and so far, six agribusiness startups have been supported over the past three years.

The KIC facilitates the ability of young entrepreneurs, mostly start-ups created out of the challenge, to create and apply commercial solutions to development challenges in the country, starting with agriculture.

Kosmos is an independent oil and gas exploration and production company focused on frontier and emerging markets along the Atlantic Margin.

It has production and development projects offshore Ghana and Equatorial Guinea and large discoveries offshore Mauritania and Senegal. It also has exploration licences with significant hydrocarbon potential offshore Suriname, Sao Tome and Principe, Equatorial Guinea, Morocco and Western Sahara.

The company’s business principles articulate its commitment to transparency, ethics, human rights, safety and the environment.