Winners of the Asia Agri-Tech Challenge 2020 ready to reform agri-chains

The Grand Final of the “Asia Agri-Tech Challenge 2020” took place successfully on 19^th March 2021. After a thrilling final, including a Dragon’s Den during which reputed jurors questioned the contesters, the Grand Winner Awards were finally handed out to the winners: Beehive Data Technology -Taiwan in the category IT solutions for marketing, Village Link – Myanmar for IT solutions for Advisory Services and Aeloi Nepal in the category IT solutions supporting access to finance.

Following are the list of the prize winners:

Category I: IT innovation in support of VC supply-demand arrangements / marketing. 

• Grand Winner: Beehive Date Technology, Taiwan
• Winner: Farm ERP, India
• Runner-up: Agro-DigitalPH, Philippines

Category II: IT innovation in support of rural advisory services.

• Grand Winner: Village Link, Myanmar
• Winner: Vriddhi, India
• Runner-up: Nile Point Senz Agro, Sri Lanka

Category III: IT innovation in support of access to finance.

• Grand Winner: Aeloi, Nepal
• Winner: Credible, India (use of Satellite Images for impact assessments)
• Runner-up: Credible, India (price risk management)

The jury boards unanimously underlined that the level of the 15 entries to the final was extremely high, putting an almost impossible task upon the jurors to rank Runners-up, Winners and Grand Winners. It’s to emphasize that all the submissions are very practical, farmer / user-friendly and addressing and tackling major shortcomings in the functioning of agricultural value chains

In a post-Challenge trajectory, the VCB-N will aim to facilitate linkages between the shown excellence in IT innovations with professional support to further develop and grow these innovations, through accelerator / incubator schemes and other support services.

The event was organized by the VCB-N – the largest Asian network of professional training and advisory services on agricultural value chain and markets. This was the first challenge organized, yet the great success of the first edition, surely asks for a follow-up.

The VCB-N thanks all competitors for their excellent contribution and the jurors, TATA Trust, Rabobank Foundation, Helvatas Swiss Intercooperation, FICCI, Department of Science and Technology-India, Dominic Smith, Tiffany Shui and Despande Foundation for their professional views and opinions. A special word of appreciation goes to IFAD as main sponsor of the event.

The Asia Agri-Tech Challenge presents the most effective IT solutions to support the functioning of agricultural value chain operations, making them more transparent, fair, resilient, and future-proof.

Please watch the exciting and inspiring pitches of the finalists below.