Blockchain for entrepreneurs in the agricultural sector: challenges and opportunities
Are you an entrepreneur in African, the Caribbean and Pacific countries and interested in blockchain technology? Would you like to know if and in which conditions you can leverage on blockchain to offer meaningful services to potential clients in the agricultural sector and beyond?
These issues will be discussed in a webinar organized by the Technical Centre for Agriculture and Rural Cooperation (CTA) in partnership with Blockchain Workspace in the Netherlands.
Apart from insights from three invited experts, experiences of an ACP entrepreneur investing in Blockchain will be shared. Other entrepreneurs from the audience may have the opportunity to briefly share their experiences as well. The session will be held in English only.
Find here more information about CTA and blockchain.
Blockchain technology – a digital ledger providing data storage and exchange through a secure, decentralized platform – has the potential to bring a host of benefits to the agrifood sector, but it must be researched comprehensively and implemented strategically if those benefits are to be realized.
CTA engages in blockchain technology through its AgriHack and Blockchain projects funded by the European Union.
George Maina
George Maina is founder of Shamba Records, a Kenya-based agritech startup that uses Blockchain and artificial intelligence to collect small scale farmers production data, link them to the market, process their payments and connect them to credit alternatives. So far Shamba records has digitized more than 6,000 small scale farmers and their respective unions/cooperatives. Shamba records solves the challenges of records manipulation, delayed payments, credit score and inadequate farming information.
Mr. Maina is also a cofounder of Once sync limited, an emerging tech startup that develops and creates products using machine learning and blockchain. He serves in the management and board of Ecodudu limited, a waste to value startup that rears insects for farm feed protein. George holds a degree in BA majoring in finance and a diploma in business management from the Kenya Methodist University.
Henk van Cann
Henk van Cann is co-founder of Blockchain Workspace, an organisation based in Amsterdam, the Netherlands that provides training on the blockchain to make the technology understandable to a broad audience.
Ken Lohento
Senior Programme Coordinator, ICT4AG, Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ACP-EU (CTA)
Ken Lohento has been managing numerous initiatives related to ICT policy and use for development since 1998 in various countries. At CTA, Ken focuses on projects related to ICT innovations and entrepreneurship in agriculture, as well as e-agriculture strategies.