The Goalkeepers initiative brings together a diverse and influential community of leaders and innovators committed to achieving the UN’s SDGs. We got nominated to attend Goalkeepers 2019 by someone who thinks we are doing amazing work to push for a better world. To this day, to be honest, we are not quite sure who did nominate our organisation to this event. (If you are reading this, Thank You! )

If there is one thing that came out clearly, is the fact that we have a long way in empowering our women and girls in order to address gender equality.

If you think about life as a journey, every single disadvantage makes the journey harder. Our path forward has been relatively clear of obstacles. For a girl born in the Sahel, one of the poorest regions in the world, getting to a healthy, productive life requires overcoming hurdle after hurdle after hurdle.

https://www.gatesfoundation.org/goalkeepers/report/2019-report/#ExaminingInequality

We talked about our own experiences here in Kenya, providing affordable greenhouses to farmers and connecting them to markets through our Greenhouse+ service that seeks to address SDG 1: No Poverty and SDG 2: End Hunger. By connecting farmers to stable and reliable markets, we have been able to create consistent income for them paid out through MPESA or Banks every 30 days and now reduced this to 7 Days in 2020. The results have been clear to us, our farmers use this income to invest in education for their children as well as be able to afford universal healthcare at their local clinics. In other cases, especially for our middle-income farmers that build large greenhouses, they create employment to the local village workers who work as farm labourers every single day and on harvesting days, women are hired to harvest, clean, grade and pack for our team to collect and deliver to urban markets. This way, we provide clean and traceable produce to markets in Nairobi all year round. If we can move farmers to be less dependent on rainfall, farm quality inputs, access knowledge and information easily and access markets, then there will be no poverty in rural homes and hunger shall end.

This year, we are excited to take Greenhouse+ to a new high powered by data. By combining irrigation data and yield data, we believe we can create valuable information to farmers and lending institutions to use to credit score and finance farmers. Stay subscribed for our next blog on the new farm automation system we are developing here in Nairobi.

Aside from light, air, warmth and carbon dioxide, plants need water and nutrients for growth. Hydroponic systems deliver just that. It is an old practice that dates back to the Aztecs and Babylonians. The Aztecs referred to them as “floating” gardens. The term “hydroponics” was coined in the 1930’s by Dr. William F. Gericke of the University of California.

Hydroponics is a method of growing plants in a soil-less medium or an aquatic based environment. The medium can be a solution filled with nutrients or an inert growing medium such as sand or perlite. A hydroponic system is a structure such as a tray, A-frame or a tower that holds an inert medium or water and provides a place to grow plants. There are very many types of hydroponic systems but all of them have to ensure that the plants have access to oxygen, water and nutrients.

With hydroponics, farmers don’t have to stress over weeding, soil borne diseases, fertilizers and pesticides. This is because hydroponics creates a sterile environment for the crops. Pumping nutrients directly into the roots results in bigger and better results over short period of time. Hydroponics can be done both indoors and outdoors therefore you don’t have to worry about space. Hydroponic systems are good for the environment because they use less water than soil based farming. Hydroponic systems recycle water, hence, you don’t have to worry about environmental degradation caused by high concentration of nutrients (calcium, phosphorous and potassium) in the run off experienced in traditional farming.

The most obvious reason to have a hydroponic system is that they aren’t affected by changing seasons, therefore, you can farm all year round.However, the initial set up cost of a hydroponic system is high. In order to operate it, you need technical knowledge and constant supervision is required to ensure they are growing in the exact conditions they need.

Hydroponic systems are susceptible to power outage which results to plants drying out. In case of this scenario, you have to manually water your garden. However, there have been new technologies with solar which ensures the process isn’t interrupted by a power failure. Water-based microorganisms can also be easily introduced into the system. Hydroponic plants have much smaller root systems, hence, they can’t always support themselves very well. Heavy fruiting plants may need quite elaborate forms of support. I’d like to think that the advantages outweigh the disadvantages because they are things that can be easily manageable. If you think the price is too high, start small, and then build from there.

Urban farming is slowly catching up and hydroponic systems present a way in which you can earn money and eat fresh food from that small space in your house or on your piece of land.

Who knows, we might start selling these units soon.

Happy Planting!

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.

Agrivi will see farmers;

• Take control of all farming activities.
• Get Knowledge about the best practice farming process.
• Reduce risk of lower yield caused by pest & diseases.
• Make data driven decisions for improving productivity.
• Save time, reduce costs and ensure profitability.

Agrivi, simply gives you a clear picture of how your farm operates while providing efficiency and sustainability elements accessible from the comfort of your mobile phone, tablet or laptop. Agrivi comes with a free app downloaded at the Google App Store or the iPhone App Store enabling you to enter your farm records on any device you may have with you.

Agrivi is segmented in crop management, finances and resources.

• Crop management, lets you register crop production, mark fields; that is, track the field of crop production using Google maps.This technology, further links with Google forecasts, and gives you forecasts for the farm, to as far as 3 years ago and further years to come. This ultimately sensitizes the farmer and updates the farmer on risks expected, thus, reducing negative growth of crops. Crop management further allows a farmer, to record tasks partaking the crop and farm. Acts like, planting, harvesting among others can be recorded under tasks. This are then synchronized with alarms, which always remind the farmer of impending tasks.

• Finance segment, gives a picture of how the farmers run their; sales, expenses and investments. Farmers also get to record their statistics of the farm produce which they can custom as sales. The farmers gets to record how his sales go. Expenses like, electricity, labor and fuel can also be recorded. These give an insight on how the expenses are used and how much is spent on them. Investments too are given a recorded and easily monitored template. Agrivi further provides a graph representation of this data, which helps the farmers to easily keep track their farm records.

• Resources refer to what is contained in the farm.Elements of People, field, mechanization, items and inventory are recorded here. This segment contains the ‘heart’ of the farm. Each farmer should keenly fill this section since all other segments are linked to this segment for synchronization.

Agrivi is meant for the farmers who want to improve output and synergy of resources in their farm all from the comfort of their mobile phones, tablets or laptops.

To experience this new innovative technology, visit our website and simply click on AGRIVI at the top menu.

THE NEW YORK FORUM AFRICA WAS THE ONLY PAN-AFRICAN BUSINESS SUMMIT TO BE HELD IN AFRICA IN 2015.

The African Start-Up Award was developed by the New York Forum Institute in partnership with France 24 and Le Point to support talent and the most creative initiatives, particularly those with a social impact component. A total grant of € 100,000 Euros was awarded to the top four African Start-Ups by The New York Forum Institute and split between four laureates.

We are excited to have been named in this forum as one of Africa’s Most Innovative Start-ups that are using innovation and entrepreneurial skills to solve societal problems and challenges. This goes a long way to reinforce our mission and vision for African farmers. This recognition continues to encourage us to forge forward and impact the lives of the African farmer.

We are very much excited to be part of this historic event that is coming to Sub Saharan Africa for the first time since its inception in 2010. We were selected from an initial application of 792 innovations from 134 countries globally. A shortlisting of 76 innovations from 34  countries followed from which the final 15 start ups and 15 ideas were obtained after a 1 Month voting period. We are among 15 startup finalists that will be pitching our innovations before H.E President Uhuru Kenyatta CGH and H.E President Barack Obama, all invited investors, venture capitalists and dignitaries.

It goes without saying that we are beyond privileged and honoured to be representing Kenya in this competition. We would like to thank all our friends and esteemed clients that voted for us as the best greenhouse construction company to get to the finals. This achievement would not have been possible without your support.

As we head to the Global Entrepreneurship Summit as the only agriculture start up finalist in Africa, we would like to assure you of our continued devotion and passion in innovating and solving challenges facing  our agricultural sector not only in Kenya but also Africa at large. We cannot stress enough the importance of this sector to this continent.

Thank you once again for helping us move a step further in making digital farming a reality for African farmers.