Pitch AgriHack!

Pitch AgriHack! is a new component of the AgriHack Talent program of the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ACP-EU (CTA). It involves:

• training sessions that will strengthen capacity of the young entrepreneurs
• a pitching competition for participating start-ups and entrepreneurs
• opportunities to consolidate, pilot or upscale their platforms and services through grants or additional incubation or acceleration

The ultimate objectives are to help develop business services offered by youth-led e-agriculture start-ups and contribute to accelerating the adoption of innovations for stronger productivity by the agrifood sector in African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries.

It will complement CTA’s activities supporting entrepreneurship in the e-agriculture sector, notably the hackathons of AgriHack Talent program, the Apps4Ag learning opportunities, Plug and Play events, and the various support to ICT for agriculture projects.

Pitch AgriHack will thus provide support to young ICT4Ag teams and start-ups which are struggling to implement successful and effective business models. It will provide follow-up opportunities to the increasing numbers of innovators involved in hackathons or coding competitions organised throughout the ACP regions, but who do not have the opportunity to progress on their prototypes at the end of these events. It also responds to the need of existing start-ups which have already benefited from incubation, but still need acceleration support to achieve success in service implementation and generate profit. These teams and start-ups will gain stronger capacity and increased opportunities to improve the technical quality of their product, to accelerate customer validation and development, business model replicability and scalability which will help them consolidate or gain market traction and attract new funding. They will also benefit from key partners’ institutional ecosystems and opportunities.

For products which are not designed to be commercialised, the activity will offer support for technical fine-tuning and consolidating the effectiveness of its model of adoption and delivery.

To take part, read carefully the information about the activity and the rules, and go to the Venture for Africa platform to register https://vc4a.com/cta/pitch-agrihack-2016/ ; click on “Apply“. Make sure to prepare your inputs before starting. You can also save and continue later. Apply by 25 September 2016!

To nominate a start-up or a team, or for more information send a mail toagrihack2016@mlab.co.ke

NB: Pour remplir le formulaire en français, allez plutôt à ce lien https://vc4a.com/cta/pitch-agrihack-2016-francais/ ; cliquez ensuite sur “Apply“. Préparez votre texte avant de commencer. Vous pouvez aussi sauvegarder, puis reprendre plus tard; soumettez votre dossier au plus tard le 25 septembre 2016!