The National Industrial Research and Development Agency (NIRDA) on Friday awarded young innovators who participated in Innovate for Smart Agro-Processing hackathon; a competition that brought together innovators who came up with innovative ideas around Modern Agro Processing.
The event took place in Kigali at NIRDA STEM for Industry laboratory. The selected projects were incubated through NIRDA STEM for Industry Lab and NIRDA life Sciences laboratory and were turned into tangible projects for three months.
During the event to award the best projects in Innovate for Smart Agro Processing hackathon, innovators exhibited their projects ranging from locally made solar powered smart storage to Smart Poultry Farming and master crop to Smart Cooling and storage and to Bees Development.
The best team received Rwf 7 millions, the second got Rwf6 millions while the third got Rwf 5 Millions. Two others received Rwf1million each.
Speaking during the event, the Director General Dr. Christian Sekomo Birame thanked all participants, especially the awarded teams for their courage and commitment to leverage technology and innovate around Smart Agro Processing. “We have seen tangible projects with smart technology that can address challenges facing our Agro Processing sector, those projects are worth celebrating and we are proud to support these young innovators,” said Dr. Sekomo.
“We urge the private sector to partner with us to support the young innovators whose innovations can help our industries to flourish if improved and adapted in different industries,” headded. Dr. Sekomo urged the awarded innovators to use the acquired skills during the incubation and the cash prizes to improve their respective projects and put them to another level.
“As NIRDA, we will keep working hard to support such innovations, we will also keep following up to ensure that the awarded projects grow and don’t stop here,” he added Prince Chris Mazimpaka one of the young innovators from DODI group whose Smart Poultry Farming System project lauded NIRDA’s initiative to incubate young innovators and help them turn their ideas into tangible projects.
“I extend our heartfelt appreciation. Hadn’t it been NIRDA to help us turn our ideas into prototypes and projects, we would not have managed to come up with such technology by leveraging Artificial Intelligence (AI), big data and machine learning. We now have projects that we can now improve and take them to the market,” he said.
“By shaping young innovators, we are ready to expander business and help create jobs for the youth, thanks to NIRDA, we also acquired business advisory services, marketing and intellectual property training among others, this package will serve us shield, insuring that our hard work and creativity are duly recognized and rewarded, even beyond incubation,” he added.
The innovation for Smart Agro Processing hackathon is not the first one to be organized by NIRDA. In fact, it is the third organized over the past four years. Others were Innovate for Industry hackathon and Innovate for Cow Bio hackathon.
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