Hacking Agriculture

The Agri-hack competition, on the 30^th of September, 2013; saw the introduction of four vibrant teams who made it to the final pitching stage of the Agri-hack competition, where they were opportune to present their working ideas to the panel of Judges. However; only one team could win and get the opportunity to represent their start-up and Ethiopia in this year’s ICT4Ag Competition on the 4^th – 8^th of November in Kigali, Rwanda.
The local competition is organized by iceaddis together with CTA & m:lab East Africa.
Teams represented included;

1. AGRI INFO SYSTEM– a start-up firm that believes in the bidirectional information exchange between farmers and extensions workers to create a difference in the Agricultural sector.
2. AGRI SOLUTION– a start-up firm that provides farmers with reachable access to information like price, emerging markets, available products and so on.
3.   mAGRIC– a start-up that believesinformation is power and a viable resource for farmers via transiting these information by in-cooperating the local community & extension workers to the local farmers through various means.
4.   DIBSR– a start-up that deals with thepreparation and sales / marketing support for farmers.

As it was publicly announced the criteria for winning the competition was clear “problem identification; feasibility / viability of concept; potential development impact; marketing strategy; sustainability plan, user experience; Q/A’s amongst others…”
After hours of critical assessment by the Judges, team mAgric (which was represented by Mr Nebiyou and Dr. Abeselom) were pronounced winners.

In second place came DIBSR with a narrow gap away from Agri Vas; Agri Solution and Agri Info Systemcame in third and fourth position respectively.
The mAgric will therefore represent their firm and Ethiopia at large agri- hack championship in Kigali come on 4^th of November.