The African Development Bank (AfDB) and its partners invite applicants to submit their proposals for the 2018 AgriPitch Challenge. The purpose of the Challenge is to identify innovative solutions and ideas that will enhance productivity in the Agriculture and Agribusiness sector.
The first Edition of AgriPitch was held in 2017 culminating in the training and pitching completion in Ibadan, Nigeria. The event took place on the side of the African Young Agripreneurs Forum (AYAF) 2017. The AgriPitch Challenge is in line with the ENABLE Youth Initiative, which is one of the key initiatives established to promote innovation and entrepreneurship in agriculture among the youth to provide the required technical and financial capacity to establish new ventures.
It holds a number of important opportunities for how the Bank can further instill a culture of innovation, and how it can nurture technology-led innovations in Agribusiness in Africa that ultimately the Bank can fund, while fulfilling its strategic mission to boost jobs and improve livelihoods among the youth.
The expected outcome of the challenge is to select winning ideas that can lead to new products, programs, projects and processes; and to engage technologists and entrepreneurs, young men and women eager to tackle the challenges they face everyday, through finding ”technology-based solutions to improve agricultural productivity and consumption.
15 March 2018 Deadline for submission of proposals
25 March 2018 Acceptance notification to successful candidates
1 April 2018 Submission of revised proposals
9-11 April 2018 AgriPitch Competition
Categories and Areas of Focus There are two categories of proposals.
1. Start-ups Category
a. Individuals who are at the very early stage of developing ideas/concepts for AgriPreneurship.
b. Must have a clearly defined prototype or proof of concept
c. Must not have had any products introduced to the market
d. May or may not have a registered corporate entity
2. Established and Growing companies category
a. Individuals and firms that already have existing technologies/products/services on the market.
b. Applicants must be owners of the start-ups.
c. Must include information about the start-up – size, owners, partners and funding history
This call for proposals is open to individual or teams who wish to submit innovative ideas in any of the following 6 areas of Agribusiness:
- Technological innovations that support different stages of the agricultural value chain;
- Agricultural production and harvesting practices and tools;
- Agricultural value chain financing; Processing, Packaging and Marketing;
- Agro inputs and pest and disease management;
- The enabling environment;
- The AgriPitch Challenge is open to all Agripreneurs between the ages of 18 – 35 and resident in Africa.
Visit official website https://www.afdb.org/en/
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