Two Ghanaian Agritech startups, Sesi Technologies have been adjudged winners in the just ended ASME iSHOW Kenya Competition. Sesi Technologies and SAYeTECH were two of three winners of the competition; the third being Savanna Circuit Tech from Kenya.
The three startups will share a cash prize of $30,000 and receive in-kind technical support, and tickets to the ISHOW Bootcamp in New York in October.
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Sesi Technologies presented their GrainMate Grain Moisture Meter, a low cost moisture meter helps farmers reduce post-harvest losses in grains by making it easy for them to accurately measure moisture content in their grains before storage to reduce post-harvest losses.
SAYeTECH presented their Multicrop Thresher, a locally manufactured thresher suitable for the threshing of a variety of crops namely; soybean, maize, rice, sorghum, and millets.
The six other teams which took part in the competition alongside Sesi Technologies and SAYeTECH were BreastIT (Kampala, Uganda), E Tuk Tuk “Solar E Cycle” (Nairobi, Kenya), hearX Group “hearScope” (Pretoria, South Africa), Safi Organics (Naivasha, Kenya), Savanna Circuit Tech “MaziwaPlus Pre-Chiller” (Kapenguria, Kenya) and Solar Freeze (Machakos, Kenya).
This year, ASME received 160 applications for ISHOW. Each finalist presented the engineering design attributes of their prototypes and outlined their plans for manufacturing, marketing, and financing.
Sesi Technologies also won the Fan Favourite prize, a USD1,000 prize for the project with the most votes during a social voting round.
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This year’s panel of judges includes a group of successful entrepreneurs, academics, and founders of venture-funded startup companies. The panel included the Executive Director, Gearbox, Dr. Kamau Gachigi, Dr. Robert Karanja, Co-founder and CEO, Villgro Kenya, Dr. June Madete, Professor, Kenyatta University, Tom Odoyo, Product Development Engineer, Toyota Kenya Ltd., Hino Division and Sylvia Mukasa, Founder & CEO, GlobalX Investments Ltd/GlobalX Innovation Labs. They were most impressed by the winners’ design innovations and their abilities to scale their products to market.
The ASME Innovation Showcase (ISHOW) is a global competition for hardware-led ventures. Since 2015 when the competition began, ASME ISHOW has attracted over 500 applications from around the world.
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In summary, ASME helps the global engineering community develop solutions to real world challenges. Founded in 1880 as the American Society of Mechanical Engineers, ASME is a not-for-profit professional organization that enables collaboration, knowledge sharing and skill development across all engineering disciplines, while promoting the vital role of the engineer in society.
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