Meet the 4 Startups that emerged Winners of the African Space Tech Challenge
Four startups recently bagged prizes and access to incubation after emerging winners of the first edition of the African Space Tech Challenge. Organized by the South African National Space Agency (SANSA) and ZA SPACE in collaboration with other agencies, the innovation challenge aims at developing African tech startups at their early stages in deploying downstream […]
admin
Four startups recently bagged prizes and access to incubation after emerging winners of the first edition of the African Space Tech Challenge.
Organized by the South African National Space Agency (SANSA) and ZA SPACE in collaboration with other agencies, the innovation challenge aims at developing African tech startups at their early stages in deploying downstream applications of space technology to fields like agriculture, retail e.t.c
Launched in September 2020, the challenge finally saw four startups emerge as winners.
- Winner – Hydro Blu
- First Runner up – Smart AgrIoT
However, the other two startups were joint third:
- Second Runner up – FieldDev
- Second Runner up – Dmm HeHe
Hydro Blu
This South African startup specializes in the application of Geo-Spatial Data Science methods to solve practical world socio-economic issues.
The startup operates within the space innovation and gets funded via the Technology Innovation Agency.
The company has participated as a finalist in the Innovation Summit’s Africa Cup 2020, AI Africa Expo 2020
Founded by Joash Kisten who is a Geo-Spatial Data Scientist, Hydro Blu helps to increase the precision of borehole drilling.
Smart AgrIoT
This is another South African startup, which employs Farming-As-A-Service (FAAS) in agriculture, making it convenient for small-scale farmers to effectively utilize arable lands for farming.
The startup is digitizing farms as the first step to enable easy access by preparing farms’ readiness for the 4th industrial Revolution and Artificial Intelligence controlled technologies.
According to the startup, agriculture can be a series of complex individuals, however, it acts in an interdependent process.
Agricultural work needs to be organized into efficient stages to ensure a good yield.
Smart AgrIoT’s success for its “FAAS” is based on a triangle around the farmer, technology, and the Farming As A Service.
FieldDev
The Nigerian-based Agritech startup is an agribusiness-focused geographic information system (GIS) software development company.
FieldDev’s flagship product is a web-based GIS tool that offers a precise and cost-efficient way for small-scale farmers practicing farming inclusively in geo-cooperatives to spilt up a large expanse of shared land into smaller plots.
The startup’s tool reports high-resolution coordinates of the farmer’s plot within minutes, thereby removing the requirements of carrying out a physical examination on the plots with the use of expensive GPS devices.
Basically, this process helps to eliminate human error during computation and removes unnecessary conflicts over land boundaries.
Dmm HeHe
Based in Rwanda, this startup employs remote sensing technology to forecast post-harvest demand for crops.
By leveraging technology, the startup creates an efficient logistics service to match demand and supply, enabling producers and retailers to reach the end consumer conveniently while unlocking access to a variety of goods and services on-demand.
