Southern Africa Innovation Highlights: The World Bank’s Live Stream Event Showcasing Top Solutions In Agriculture & Food Security Risk Financing

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The World Bank together with Draper University launches an open live stream event on the 10th June at 10:00 EST as a part of AG Innovation Challenges in support of Agriculture & Food Security Risk Financing in Southern Africa. Top 6 selected winners along with the representatives of the World Bank and Government Officials will participate to showcase the top solutions and innovative practices impacting agriculture data, weather variables, pests and plant diseases in the most vulnerable region. 

The 3-day ‘shark tank’ event was held at the end of April 2020 and designed to select the top innovators from all over the world. The Grand Jury of Agriculture Innovation Challenge initiative of the World Bank highlighted the winners of each category and awarded honorable mention prizes as raising stars to three more companies. The diversity and relevance of the proposed solutions resulted into a growing interest amongst the public to hear more about the winning teams that have a potential to make a real impact.

Top agriculture and food security risk financing innovators & speakers at the upcoming event:

Arable (USA) – Winner of Alternative Methods for Measuring Weather Variables Challenge

Real-time microclimate and crop health data on two time horizons: driving daily farm operations and providing insight into seasonal yields.

CropIn (India) – Winner of Bring Your Own Agriculture Data Challenge

Building large and smart datasets through innovative ICT-driven data collection techniques, that enables farmers access to risk and financing instruments.

Satelligence (Ghana) – Winner of Predicting or Monitoring Animal and/or Plant Pests Challenge

The system combats the invasion of fall armyworm in sub-Saharan Africa by providing early warning messages based on satellite technology.

Sailog (Israel) – Honorable Mention for Accessibility

EsusFarm (South Africa) – Honorable Mention for Innovative Locally Sustainable Business Model

Injini (South Africa) – Honorable Mention for Harnessing Social Media

The virtual event will take place on the 10th June at 10:00 EST Time and start with the welcoming speech from Shobha Shetty, Practice Manager for Agriculture at The World Bank. For anyone willing to follow the event and participate in the discussions by asking questions, join the live stream here. 

To support innovators and empower entrepreneurship innovation, the organizers also launched a special video contest amongst the winners and participants of the event to ask the public to vote on the most creative video. The winning video will be played during the live stream event on the 10th June. Click here to watch the 1-minute videos of the winners and vote for the best one.