Uganda team wins ICT4Ag hackathon

Last week, Ensibuuko, a team incubated at Outbox was the overall winner at the ICT4AG hackathon. The ICT4Ag conference took place in Rwanda at the Kigali Serena hotel. Parallel to the conference, a hackathon on Agriculture brought together nine (9) teams from nine hubs to participate in the challenge.  The teams included the following: 

• Hive Colab (Uganda)- The Agripreneur – Digital Platform to connect and harmonize key Youth stakeholders along the agricultural value chain. By Byamugisha Donald and Denis Izakare
• OutBox (Uganda)- ENSIBUUKO: a mobile and web application that enables SACCOS of small holder rural farmers to mobilize savings, acquire and repay loans using SMS and Mobile Money. This is to promote transparency and accountability within SACCOS By David Opio, Gerald Otim and Winnie Mbabazi
• iBiz Africa (Kenya) – Kosmerc Systems: Mobile app providing location based information to farmers on favourable crops, seeds, fertilizer, farm management and soil type. By Jeffrey Cherogony and Clinton Busolo.
• C4DLab(Kenya)-  FARM DRIVE: Digital book keeping app to enhance credit-worthiness for a 21st century farmer by James Macharia Kimani and Caroline Mbithe Muteti.
• Habaka Madagascar Innovation Hub – HighHay: Project Management application for farming by Joelisata RABEHARISOLO and Miradontsoa Asafa ANDRIANARISON.
• Buni Hub(Tanzania) – AgrInfo: Farm Plots GIS by Rose Peter Funja and Grace  Slyvester Makanyaga.
• Kinu Group Limited (Tanzania) – HabariMazao: SMS, USSD, and Web based platform for collection and sharing of market price data – from markets to the farmers by Elilaki Bariki Guard and Ntomoka Sugwejo Kaboda.
• IceAddis (Ethiopia) – mAgric: by Mr. Nebiyou Yirga Wolde and Dr. Abeselom Samson Joseph

The teams were selected at National Selection events that took place in October 2013. In Uganda, the national selection event had 13 teams participate. Two teams were then selected by the jury to represent Uganda at the ICT4AG hackathon, Ensibuuko (mentored by Outbox) and Agripreneur( mentored by HiveColab).Teams were then given a month to build their solutions which they later on presented at the ICT4AG hackathon. The hackathon took place over 3 days at the Klab, with further support offered by a team of mentors selected by the mlab, the facilitators of the hackathon.Other winners at the hackathon included Agrinfo (supported by BuniHub) from Tanzania who were 2nd runners-up and mAgric from Ethiopia who were 1st runners up.Ensibuuko won 5,000 Euros to support it to move it’s product further. More to that, it will receive six month incubation from Outbox.