Bonus: Building global products with African design, a discussion

CreditsWest Africana by Hicham Chahidi – http://www.musicscreen.org/SFX from http://www.freesoundslibrary.com FULL TRANSCRIPT (Female robotic voice): New SMS. Reading… Voice actor: [In mystic tone and voice]: The full moon has scared the monkeys… Narrator: Without the proper context, that message makes no sense. But if you are a small-scale farmer living in Mbeere, Embu county, Kenya, it means only one thing… On this episode of Built in Africa, we will be looking at how South African agritech startup, ITIKI uses artificial intelligence to simplify rainfall forecasts for small-scale farmers around Africa. Most African economies rely on the activities of small-scale farmers who, according to the United Nations, produce about 80% of the continent’s food. With nearly 95% of their planting activities dependent on rainfall, accurately predicting weather conditions is crucial for small-scale farmers who can lose everything to wrong cropping decisions. This is where ITIKI comes in. Professor Muthoni Masinde: “The idea behind ITIKI is to produce relevant drought forecasts for small-scale farmers” Narrator: That’s Professor Muthoni Masinde, Kenyan computer scientist and founder and CEO of South Africa based ITIKI. Prof. Muthoni: “The reason why we use the keyword ‘relevant’ is because there’s so much information out there. If you look at your phone, there’s a forecast. If you turn on the TV, there’s a forecast. If you open a page in a newspaper, there’s a forecast. But for us, we realised that none of that is useful to the small-scale farmers, so we went about creating a solution that works for them.” Narrator: What is novel about ITIKI’s model is that it combines indigenous knowledge with technology to guarantee accurate predictions, and deliver them in a relevant, yet inexpensive way.  Prof. Muthoni: “We relay that information to ...

FULL TRANSCRIPT Narrator: Around the world, most farmers have suffered different sets of challenges in scaling and growing their farms. Although lending and crowdfunding platforms have popped up over the past years, it’s still very difficult for smallholder farmers to access financing. Some banks and other financial entities have employed unsavoury and predatory tactics that affect these agricultural businesses in the long term. In this episode of Built In Africa, we’ll be taking a look at how Kenyan startup, Apollo Agriculture, is solving the credit problem small-scale farmers face with technology. In 2015, Geneva-based policy advisory firm, Dalberg Global Development Advisors conducted some research about small-scale farming. From its findings, $450b was required to meet the needs of smallholder farmers around the world. But these farmers only got $31b, which was less than one-tenth of the supposed financing. Coming closer to home, The World Bank reported that while agriculture made up 18% of sub-Saharan Africa’s GDP, lending to the stakeholders in the agricultural sector represented only 1%. If there’s anyone who understands the struggles of smallholder farmers in Africa, it is Kenyan entrepreneur, Benjamin Njenga. Benjamin Njenga: “I grew up on a farm and my mother, a smallholder farmer, used to plant with low quality seeds, no fertiliser, harvested only 5 bags per acre each year” Narrator: That was Benjamin Njenga recalling his mother’s experience running her farm Benjamin Njenga:  “We knew if she would have been able to access fertiliser and hybrid seeds, her production would double but she couldn’t access the credit to buy these tools.” Narrator: The experience motivated Benjamin’s desire to solve the problem he faced with his mother. He would go on to study agribusiness and management at the university. He also ...

On this episode of Built in Africa, we take a look at how Y Combinator-backed Eze Wholesale is altering the global landscape of the used smartphone market. Image credit: Techjaja.com. FULL TRANSCRIPT  Narrator: In 2017, two friends, one a software engineer, and the other, a petroleum engineer, saw an opportunity. They became wholesalers in the used smartphone market currently valued at a whopping $46 billion.  They operated this business for over two years before they eventually realised that the used smartphone market had more issues than they thought. This problem gave birth to an entirely new business. [Theme song] On this episode of Built in Africa, we explore how Y Combinator-backed Eze Wholesale is altering the global landscape of the used smartphone market. David Iya and Joshua Nzewi are childhood friends, and they ran a couple of businesses together up until they got into the university. By 2016, Joshua had become a petroleum engineer at Shell while David had worked as a software engineer with two US-based Internet companies. One day, David called Joshua telling him about a business opportunity he had in mind: Joshua Nzewi: So one day he called me the scan the arbitrage opportunity between buying phones locally and selling them online. And that’s what brought us into that. Narrator: Having run businesses before, it didn’t take long for the two friends to kick this off. They did this for two and a half years but soon began to notice a trend. Joshua Nzewi: For about two and half years where we were just trading devices, buying them from individuals and selling them overseas. Until we went to trading conferences where we realised that there are inefficiencies in the market at ...