It was a week long adventure consisting of a boot camp, an investor forum and an international conference that concludes with a crowned winner after a pitching session among startups to key entrepreneurs, investors and corporate.

Our vision is to see smallholder farmers in Sub Saharan Africa be able to access affordable modern farming technologies so as to improve their productivity and incomes. This is the sole reason why we went to represent Kenya at the Seedstars World Summit 2016 because we were able to share our vision with Seedstars who believed in us and were able to award us with the amazing opportunity.

We got to attend mentorship sessions where knowledge was shared among the mentees and entrepreneurs and ways of gearing up the start ups while dealing with emerging issues as they grew. Impressively we interacted with investors across Europe with a huge interest to invest in Africa and these are the discussions we will be taking forward to ensure we access and close as much capital as we may need before our round deadline in August 2016.

We would also like to pass our congratulatory message to Giraffe, a South African startup that emerged this year’s winner of Seedstars World. Giraffe is a mobile application that on one hand enables businesses to hire medium skilled staff faster and cheaper than any other recruitment network and that on the other hand connects job seekers to these opportunities through their cell phone. There couldn’t be any other moment than now to indeed prove that African startups are truly on the rise. All the best Giraffe.

Now it’s upon us, as Illuminum Greenhouses Kenya to implement and share the knowledge as we reach out to our people and work towards our mission to impact many small holder farmers positively. Our vision has never been more clear than it is now.

This year’s theme for the African Business Conference is “Unite.  Innovate.  Disrupt:  Homegrown models for Africa’s prosperity“. Despite the media’s focus on the challenges in Africa, we are proud of the progress Africa has made over the years and we see Africa not as a land plagued with challenges but one also filled with opportunities and remarkable success stories. We also believe that significant and sustainable progress can be achieved not only from the top but also from us, the African people.

During this year’s conference, we aim to celebrate and promote awareness of our innovative solar powered farm automation system that we hope to deploy across Africa. To quote a popular African proverb ‐ “If you want to go fast, go alone. If you want to go far, go together.” This suggests that we as a people can progress further, faster and better if we work together and so this year,  the conference will be focused on igniting action and channeling our collective efforts towards creating solutions that will contribute to Africa’s prosperity in the long‐term.

As in previous years,  the conference will bring together ~1,500 people,  from both the diaspora and the continent,  who are passionate about business opportunities in Africa.  The conference will feature highly inspirational content sessions, a new venture competition, and professional networking opportunities with current and future Africa business leaders.  This year,  in line with the theme,  the conference will also be introducing interactive workshop sessions,  TED‐style keynote sessions,  industry networking sessions,  personal story sessions with panelists, and more. We hope this forum shall enable more opportunities for Illuminum Greenhouses to meaningfully engage with other entrepreneurs and the conference speakers in order to foster partnerships that will lead to the deployment of more innovative solutions in Africa.

We look forward to meeting you at the Africa Business Conference 2016 to be held at the Harvard Business School.

Some of the prizes we won include 3 years of free software support and visibility for start-ups though BizSpark from Microsoft, Lingohub continuous translation made simple, CRM tools from Google Apps and other exciting tools to power start-ups to the next level.

We are excited to represent Kenya at the event and look forward to win the award and be crowned Seedstars World winner 2016.