Three youth were on Friday announced as winners of the National Youth Council’s Fursa Vs Economic Recovery Challenge for their innovative ideas.
The three winners are Ronald Yegon with his online marketplace to sell seedlings and trees, Victor Nzau with a business that recycles discarded leather and upcycles it into products to sell, and James Mbogo who addresses problems of low quality seeds by growing and certifying high quality seeds and seedlings for farmers along with training.
From an initial group of over 1,000 youth innovators who were provided with training supported by the UK-Kenya Tech Hub, the winning three were announced by Principal Secretary for Youth Affairs.
“Our youth have tremendous potential, great ideas, passion, and willingness to apply themselves to improving not only their own lives, but those of others and of the whole country. At the Ministry of ICT, Innovation and Youth Affairs, we are very committed to helping youth. We were able to reach youth at grassroots level all over the country, provide them with training, local champions to provide support, mentoring, and technology to help them turn their ideas into concepts, ready to then turn into actual products,” said Principal Secretary for Youth Affairs, Charles Sunkuli.
President Uhuru Kenyatta, appreciated the partners who made this possible including Huawei who have shown their commitment by supporting the competition for a second year running and the UK government through UK Kenya Tech Hub along with Kenya Airways, Telkom, Post Bank and ILT Academy.
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“Thank you once again for being part of the change by empowering our Kenyan youth and the development of the country, ” said the President.
The Director of the UK-Kenya Tech Hub, Sheena Raikundalia, CEO of National Youth Council, Roy Sasaka Telewa, and Deputy CEO for Public Affairs at Huawei, Fiona Pan, presented the prizes to the winners whilst discussing the importance of youth taking advantage of technology to solve issues in their communities.
The prizes were take home MatePad Pro devices courtesy of Huawei.
The Fursathon Vs. Economic Recovery Challenge was a six-week program calling for Youth Innovators from across all 47 Counties in Kenya to submit innovative ideas on post-COVID-19 Economic Recovery.
It was spearheaded by National Youth Council with support by the UK government through UK-Kenya Tech Hub and Huawei, along with PostBank, Kenya Airways (KQ) and Telkom Kenya.
Implemented by The Kijiji, 1,318 youth innovators from 47 Counties signed up to participate in the Fursa Vs. Economic Recovery Challenge.
Each youth innovator went through a program of seven e-learning modules hosted on the Whitebox platform, as well as attending three online learning and networking events and a pitch competition.
Ultimately 3 national winners were selected after a public voting and panel judging of 50 shortlisted pitches.
41 Youth Ambassadors were trained, engaged with the youth innovators across the country and have set-up local innovation communities which will continue to thrive even after the end of the Fursathon.
“Youth are our brightest hope. Through this competition, we have seen them championing for Economic Recovery bringing their ideas, innovations and actions, as well as their passion and commitment. Let us come together and work with the Youth. We will continue opening opportunities for Youth and work closely with partners to harness this demographic dividend. Congratulations to the winners,” said CEO of National Youth Council Roy Sasaka Telewa.
As she handed over the prizes to the winners, Huawei Deputy CEO, Fiona Pan, commended them by saying “let me congratulate the winners who are here today, and all of those who submitted entries to the competition. 50 of you will get technology from us which we hope can be used to help you develop your innovation and make it into reality. Many of the ideas were very good and I can see a lot of potential for technology to make Kenya a better place.”
Sheena Raikundalia, Director of UK-Kenya Tech Hub explained how they hope to continue supporting the winners: “We are extremely excited to support this challenge; seeing the innovative ideas and energy from the youth across Kenya has been extremely inspiring and at UK-Kenya tech hub we are keen to keep working together”
