The Nepal Innovation Challenge - AgriTECH has reached the half-time mark. During the past 3 months, our top 10 finalists have been through a series of training, workshops and field visits to better understand the agricultural sector in Nepal, the beneficiary needs and 101 on business development. The two bootcamps of the AgriTECH Challenge were designed to help the participants work on their business plan by focusing on their target segment and putting it at the heart of their thinking. The objective of the first bootcamp was to help the teams finalize their business model canvas. The sessions were moderated by agri-entrepreneurs, tech giants and industry experts of Nepal. This provided our participants an opportunity to hear about the success and more importantly failure stories of the people working in this sector. This exchange program helped the participants understand the existing challenges in the sector and ways in which they can navigate around it.

A finalists presenting his idea for the first time in front of an audience.

The culture of teamwork was established not just within the individual teams but among the top ten teams during the first bootcamp held between 30 May to 3 June in Kathmandu. For most of them, it was the first time they were presenting their ideas in front of an audience, this exercise helped secure constructive feedback from the group and helped them de-sensitize to public speaking. Towards the end of the first bootcamp, all ten competing teams had a comprehensive business plan to guide them through the next phase.Our finalists participating in a team building exercise

The second bootcamp session held from 28 June to 1 July, took the participants to the field to meet with their target segment. They were oriented to conduct Human Centric Design (HCD) enabled field research and provided with the necessary tools to conduct the same. The field visit exercise helped them put a face on their target segment. By knowing the everyday pain points and coping mechanisms of the farmers, the participants were able to connect the dots between the problems on the ground and the solutions they designed. By the end of the second bootcamp the participants were able to develop various personas of their target segment(s) and customize their solutions to meet the needs. They were also able to get a quick head-start on developing various marketing and communications plans that would appeal to the farmers. A finalist developing his customer persona during the HCD orientation

The HCD training during the second bootcamp provided an insight to the ground reality of working on the agricultural sector of Nepal. The problems that the farmers faced were not unique or complicated, they were simple logistics and knowledge gap issues that can be solved by digital intervention. The solutions that our teams offered could make a positive impact in the lives of the farmers by improving their everyday business. One of the farmers said, “If we did not face competition from our neighboring countries in terms of market share for agricultural products, then we could be millionaires by 2 years.’’ Despite employing more than 60% of the population, the agricultural sector employs less than 25% of the total population. Thus, the premise of the AgriTECH Challenge is to find locally sourced solutions that can solve the everyday problems of the smallholder farmers in Nepal.

Our finalists meeting with smallholder farmers in Tamaghat, Kavre

The demo day (finale) of the challenge will take place in September 2019 where the 2 winners will receive a grant up to USD30,000 and 1 year of technical assistance from UNCDF to pilot their idea. Stay tuned for more stories and updates from the Nepal Innovation Challenge-AgriTECH.