Rwanda
Information Communication Technology (ICT) students and technology
entrepreneurs assembled at KLab, the Rwanda's technical hub for a 36-hour
programming competition to come up with ICT solutions for the agriculture
sector.
The
competition organised by the Ministry of Agriculture, the Technical Centre for
Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) and the Rwandan Information
Communication Technology (ICT) chamber saw
the participants tasked with challenges to come up with ICT solutions that
would either help with information sharing/communication between farmers and
extension workers or make it possible for farmers to access financial services
with ease.
Founder
and Managing Director of Axis Ltd, Clement Uwajeneza, said the panel of judges
was made up of managing directors of tech companies, a professor from Carnegie
Mellon University Rwanda Campus and a representative of the ministry of education
who looked out for the feasibility, originality and practicality of the
innovations presented to see how they would solve the challenges farmers face.
NaijaAgroNet learnt
from Uwajeneza that the competition also served to select the country's
representatives to an oncoming regional solutions competition that will take
place during the ICT4Ag conference due in Kigali from November 4 to 7.
The
winning group made up of students from Kigali Institute of Science and
Technology (Kist) presented a hardware and software solution, and fertiliser
logic that determine the quantity of Nitrogen Phosphorus and potassium in the
soil. They were awarded with a laptop, a chance to participate in the upcoming
regional competition and incubation facilities to polish their projects, while
the other four runners-up were also awarded with laptops.
Hillary
Muramira, a member of winning group, said that being in touch with the end user
of their innovation enabled them to come up with a winning project.
AN/GEE
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