Demo Day:Powering Food System Innovation Challenge

 

Jacob's Ladder Africa's greenlabs Program Showcases Innovative Climate Solutions at Demo Day

NAIROBI, KENYA – Jacob's Ladder Africa’s greenlabs initiative proudly hosted its highly anticipated Demo Day on January 24, 2025. This event spotlighted groundbreaking climate solutions from emerging green entrepreneurs participating in an intensive incubation program dedicated to addressing pressing environmental challenges across East Africa.

The Demo Day marked the culmination of the Powering Food Systems Innovation Challenge, a dynamic hackathon-style competition designed to inspire and engage young aspiring entrepreneurs. Participants explored how renewable energy can transform food systems from production to consumption. Solutions ranged from energy-efficient farming techniques and renewable-powered food processing to sustainable transport and waste reduction through smart energy systems.

The broader mission of Jacob's Ladder Africa broader mission to address environmental challenges includes:

Youth Empowerment: Equipping young Africans with the knowledge, skills, and resources needed to lead environmental conservation efforts and innovate sustainable solutions.

Education and Advocacy: Raising awareness about environmental challenges and advocating for policies and practices that prioritize the health of the planet and future generations.

Partnership Building: Working with governments, NGOs, and private sector stakeholders to scale impactful environmental projects and foster a collaborative approach to sustainability.

Jacob's Ladder Africa Africa seeks to address by creating opportunities for and by the youth, through the incubation programme,” said Karen Chelang’at, Chief Innovation Officer at Jacob's Ladder Africa. “Many start-ups fail within their first two years due to weak foundations and a lack of essential skills and resources. We aim to curb start-up mortality by addressing these exact challenges” she added.

The event also featured an expert judging panel comprising industry leaders. Apart from being industry leaders, they were also friendly so that the participants didn't feel intimidated. Young people got an amazing platform to showcase their creative abilities in an amazing and rewarding way. They were advised to think big, don't think small, look yourself as serving the entire continent and not just your locality. 

Participants had the chance to win monetary prizes in the form of pre-seed capital, ranging from Ksh 10,000 to Ksh 100,000. In third place was Bettinah Maruti from iLoop KE and Logistics, an innovative solution addressing food spoilage and storage issues for vendors in low-income areas. Second place went to Alfred Mutethia, Steven Mwaura, and Victor Gituma from Solar Nest, a poultry farming solution leveraging advanced solar tracking technology, ESP32 microcontrollers, and cameras. The grand prize of Ksh 200,000 was awarded to Urbanus Lubano from Empire Innovations, a company creating renewable energy-powered machinery for sustainable agriculture. This win is a big joy beyond Makueni County, it is a big win to the rest of Kenya. The winner is looking forward to expand his operations beyond Makueni County. 

In addition to these cash prizes, all finalists earned full sponsorship to join the nine-month greenlabs incubation program. This program provides green entrepreneurship training, tailored mentorship, networking opportunities, and exposure to industry leaders, empowering participants to transform their concepts into viable startups. Considering the country's unemployment rate, this is an amazing platform for young people to grow big in their careers. Business expansion and upscaling is their new language of operations.