HACK4FARMING 2017 This year, Next Einstein Forum Africa will team up with EldoHub and KVDA to launch hack4farming, hackathon to yield ideas on how to use technology to provide solutions to challenges faced by farmers. The main aim is to bring this ideas to life. Background Uasin Gishu is known as the Home of Champions, as it is home to the largest number of athletics champions, the pride of Kenya. Apart from that, it is also a very agricultural county with most of the farmers being large scale farmers of grain products, dairy and horticulture. It is home to some of the largest industries in the agricultural sector such as Kenya Cooperative Creameries, Rupa Textile among other wheat and pyrethrum factories. The county also has major investments in the fields of Education, Health and Sports. The entrepreneurship spirit in this town is continually growing. However, most of the entrepreneurs are struggling to get their businesses in the limelight because they are not aware of the technological tools that exist. They are also not aware that the use of technology to promote their business is beneficial to their business. Project Objective 1. To help create a spirit of continuous growth and improvement among farmers through the use of technology tools. 2. To enable farming to increase job opportunities among the youth. 3. To bring together Students, farmers, businessmen and women from Uasin Gishu and its environs. 4. To create a networking environment where business men and women can exchange dbusiness ideas and possibly work together. 5. To bring the power of innovation to Uasin Gishu County and make farming attractive.
Project Description Hackathon: - This is an event to be hosted annually to bring together Technologists and other stakeholders to brainstorm and offer collaborative solutions to challenges affecting our society at large. They come to learn, create a good contact network, collaborate and share ideas. On the 30 th June 2017, during the Next Einstein Forum Africa EldoHub in collaboration with the Next Einstein Forum will bring together farmers, Technologists, Universities and other institutions to brainstorm and come up with solutions to solve challenges in Agriculture through Hack4Farmers hack-a-thon. This will be happening during the Next Einstein Forum Africa Science Week. Uasin Gishu County prides itself not only as a city of champions but also as an agricultural hub, the bread basket of the nation. Most of the farmers being large scale of grain products, dairy and horticultural farming. It is the source for many largest agricultural industries. Despite the county being an agricultural Hub, many farmers still lack enough information to enhance them do good farming practices. Furthermore, they lack access to financial support, access to market and insurance of their farming activities in case of external factors and uncertainties. It has therefore let farmers produce poor quality products and there is optimally low production. Our farmers still go to the market for an unknown customer to show up and buy their products, yet technology has provided us with access to data which we can use to reach target markets. Through the Hack4Farmers Hack-a-thon, we envision solutions that are technically feasible, socially responsible and entrepreneurially sustainable will be developed. The venue for this event will be Kenmosa Resort,Off Kaptagat Road, Eldoret Town.The aim of choosing this venue is to create a comfortable environment for networking, collaboration, learning and forums. We aim to partner with interested organizations with the same vision of increasing and promoting the use of technology to promote innovation in farming activities. Organizations may partner through handling some of the costs that will be associated with conducting the event.
OUR JUDGES Kevin Barasa Innovation & Training at Swahili pot Hub (Confirmed) Software engineer interested in lean project management, product development and user experience. Assists teams, startups and accelerator hubs of all sizes to build, launch and scale their ICT projects by providing technical, product & strategic advice, focusing on capacity management and performance analysis. He loves entrepreneurship and passionate about social innovation Misoi Jonathan- Web Information Systems, Web 2.0 specialist and web security (Confirmed) Misoi Jonathan is a lead Consultant in the ICT field with Digitalk Technologies Ltd, a company he founded in 2013. Coming from a Computer Science Background, he has interests in technology fields and also teaches at JKUAT and Catholic University departments of Computer Science. He obtained his Master from Vrije Universitet Belgium (VUB) with MSc in Computer Science in 2012. He has spoken in many technology forums and currently involved with the Government Digital Literacy Programme (DLP) in Kenya. He does other charity works and currently the President Nominee of the Rotary Club of Eldoret Uasin Gishu. He is passionate about using technology to shift Personality-Based politics in Kenya to Issuebased politics; the reason he is currently involved in championing the use of Mheshimiwa App (on Google Store), as a platform for rating political Aspirants and Incumbents in Kenya. Rodgers Kirwa- CEO iagribizafrica (Confirmed) Rodgers is an Agribusiness enthusiast whose life s work is to improve the livelihoods of farmers in Africa as well as make more youths and women into Agribusiness. As a co-founder of iagribizafrica, he has helped share much relevant information with the public on Agribusiness. Rodgers has received numerous awards and recognition for his contributions as far as Agribusiness is concerned. He is the OLX SOMA 2016 finalist (Agriculture category) -1st runners up. He is a holder of Bachelor s degree in Agribusiness Management from Egerton University. He is a passionate agribusiness manager with expertise in value addition.
Cleophas Solomon- Product Development Consultant (Confirmed) Product Research and development consultant and IT specialist who loves growing people especially young entrepreneurs, helping them transform their ideas to products that sell. Elizabeth Mwashuma- Research Scientist,Philips Judging Process Following are the guidelines to follow during the judging process: Each team will have maximum 5 minutes for the presentation. After each presentation judges will have maximum of 2 minutes with each team for Q & A. Judges will have one minute after Q & A with each team to mark their scores. After all teams have presented, the judges will gather in a quiet room for discussion. Judges will have maximum of half an hour for the discussion. Judges will discuss about the different teams and their products. Judges can change their scores after discussion with other judges. Judges will calculate the scores and based on the scores, they will rank the teams. The team which get the highest score will get the first rank and so on. Judges will collectively decide on the final result based on the scores and rankings. After the discussion, Judges will hand over the final result and individual evaluation sheet s to the organizer. Only the final result will be disclosed in public but the detail scores will be kept confidential with the organizer. Finally, awards will be announced during the award ceremony.
Hackathon Judging Criteria There are four criteria for judging an app in the Hackathon, these are: 1. Innovation / Ambition 2. User Interface / User Experience 3. Overall Quality 4. Quality of Pitch / Impact Each judge will assign an app a score between 1 and 10 inclusively for each of the four criteria, with 1 being unexceptional and 10 being exceptional. Innovation / Ambition Was the idea unique, or a different take on an existing/similar app? What was added to the app that made it special or more useful? Was the idea behind the app ambitious? Creative? How well did the app execute upon the theme/category chosen? User Interface / User Experience Does the UI of the app look professional/fun, or is it sloppy? Is the app easy to use? Does the workflow of the app make sense, is it intuitive? Overall Quality Does the app work completely from start to finish? How many and how severe were any bugs encountered? Was anything in the app that wasn t fully implemented, like a useless button that was supposed to do something? Did the team scope their app s features well given the time frame of the Hackathon? Quality of Pitch / App Impact Does the app seem like something people would want to buy and use outside of the Hackathon? Was the team able to explain their idea and what the app actually did? MENTORS Mentors set the tone for the hackathon. The role of the Mentor is to be a resource for the teams during the duration of the hackathon. Help teams define workflow, generate relevant ideas, problem-solve, understand open datasets and develop final pitches. Mentors are expected to be available to their assigned team for the duration of the hackathon to ensure consistency and provide students the best possible opportunity for learning and growth. The most important role of any mentor is to be helpful and encouraging.
We shall have: Development Mentors Development Mentors, or Developers, are software engineers and developers who will work with our participants to write code. Developers must be available to answer questions or make suggestions on technical approaches to solving problems. Design Mentors Will assist in user experience, user centric design, paper mockups, wireframes, rapid prototyping, PowerPoint presentations, graphics and other areas of design. Business Model Mentors Will help the hackers define their target audience, form a customer hypothesis, and relate and present their ideas in their final pitch. Mentors 1. Karemi Micheal- Founder Eldoret Leo 2. Chepkemoi Magdaline- Tech Entrepreneurship and Director EldoHub 3. Davis Nyakundi- Entrepreneur 4. KDFF (Yet to confirm) 5. TechnoServe (Yet to confirm) HACKERS REGISTRATION All participants will register online to qualify for participations https://docs.google.com/forms/d/1lynb_vimugy-6pfbccwrwtwhozwtsujd6nxsv- PiXK0/edit?ts=592fd87b
PROGRAM OF ACTIVITIES Date: 30 June 2017 HACKATHON DURING THE NEF SCIENCE WEEK Time Topic/Activity Speaker 7.00 am- 8.00 am Arrival and Registration of participants 8.00 am- 9.00 am Welcoming Keynote Address- A HighlightKVDA, NEF and on the objective of the summit EldoHub 9.00am-9.15am First Speaker 10 minutes Speech and Rodgers Kirwa Demonstration of his innovation 9.10am - 9.40am 2 nd Speaker and 3 rd speaker ICT, Science and Agriculture 9.40am - 10.10am Business Models and Technology TechnoServe 10.10am-10.20am Trainings Break/Snacks 10.20am-10.30am Hackathon and Mentorship Sessions 10.30am - 10.50am Agriculture and technology- Agribusiness TechnoServe technologies 10.50am-11.30am Financial planning for your business TechnoServe 11.30am- 12.00am Hackathon materials and guide 12.00am- 12.30am Mentors moving around (Pitch preparation/ TechnoServe, 12.30am- 1.00pm Demo) Pitch Presentations KDFF Judges 1.00am- 1.20pm Judges verdict Judge 1.20am- 1.40pm Award Ceremony KVDA/NEF 1.40am- 2.00pm Closing remarks NEF LUNCH/SNACKS