A celebration of learnings comes to an end with the second cohort of the FAC Impact Makers Program ending on May 17th. A 12-week journey with a group of ecosystem-building organizations from both the MENA and Sub-Sahara Africa joined us with diverse challenges in the agrifood innovation scheme.
The journey brought forward experts from different themes that shared insights and case studies on how to build resilient ecosystems, connect marginal communities to market, create sustainable ventures, and tell impactful stories.
As part of the program we awarded the organizations that best supported an agrifood startup and the impact it made. With such great case studies came the difficulty to choose resulting to three winners! Each with a unique approach and impact!
Jason Runo from Kenya received FIRST place. Jason exemplified a true case study reflecting on his initial idea to create a beekeeping startup, which after his 12-week journey decided to restructure his business model as an impact maker to empower the beekeeping ecosystem. His reflections of all modalities discussed throughout the program and personal evaluations, allowed him to implement a new and impactful strategy focusing on bees and providing real life traction and success to a start at his current status. Jason has already empowered honey startups to connect with chefs and markets, while his journey just begins!
Esteeri Kabonero from United Social Ventures in Uganda, landed SECOND place. Esteeri offered a best practice model through a quantitative approach. She showcased how their organisation turned a seedling business and packaged the ability to offer digital transformation as well as global scalability, with a pathway for future growth.
Farah Abi Mosleh from Farah Social Foundation in Lebanon, came in THIRD place. Farah was able to truly narrate and inspire through their story of how they supported a village lady that took a traditional product “manoushe”, which became a startup that could now scale its demand. Connecting culture, food, and market demand. This story is an example of how an impact maker can inspire more individuals in the community to think bigger, hence creating more agrifood startups.
At the end, each Impact Maker still remains a winner as such a difficult profession must always be rewarded.
At FAC we continue to focus on impact through an inclusive model which celebrates the diversity of stakeholders to make a successful agrifood innovation ecosystem. Each of our efforts combined can accelerate to be able to achieve a common vision we all share but know it is to big to handle alone: enhancing the agrifood supply chain to achieve SDG 2 Zero Hunger. Please reach out if you want to join our next cohort!