Africa Prize in Ghana
The Africa Prize has supported 15 entrepreneurs across Ghana since the programme launched in 2014. Our Ghanaian alumni have provided innovative engineering solutions solving local challenges in Ghana and beyond. These innovations include a logistics app which significantly reduces emergency response times, bicycles made from bamboo and other sustainable parts, a mobile- solar-hybrid cart with gadgets and e-learning resources.
Agri-Tech / Agriculture
Lawrencia Kwansah developed the Aquaponics Hub for users to set up their own aquaponics system at home, to give families options for urban farming during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Aquaponics Hub
Lawrencia Kwansah
Lawrencia Kwansah, an aquaculturist, developed the Aquaponics Hub, a starter kit for users to set up their own aquaponics system at home, complete with fish, crops, smart sensors, an app to monitor the system, and an online marketplace to sell produce. Lawrencia developed the system with her co-founder in order to give families options for urban farming during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Aquaponics is a closed farming system in which water is pumped from fish tanks to plants. Nutrient-rich fish manure feeds plants, which in turn filter water that is pumped back to the fish tanks. Crops grown by aquaponics don’t require soil, and the system is particularly useful in urban settings where arable land is limited. The Aquaponics Hub is solar-powered so that it can be used in off-grid areas, or where power outages are common. The kit also comes in various sizes to adapt to the user’s space and needs, and doesn’t require much technical expertise to be used.
Mechanical Cassava Harvester
Professor Emmanuel Bobobee
Professor Emmanuel Bobobee developed the Mechanical Cassava Harvester, an affordable tractor-mounted mechanical tool that turns up the soil to expose the root vegetable without damaging it. The labour intensity of cassava harvesting is the biggest constraint to its commercial production. It takes five to ten minutes to harvest one cassava plant by hand, depending on the softness of the soil. The mechanical harvester can uproot one plant every second.
Cassava is an enormously versatile crop used not only in meals or as a snack, but can also be milled into flour, replacing wheat flour. It is grown all across Africa, mostly by subsistence farmers who harvest manually, and has enormous potential to improve food security if mechanised so that it can be farmed at scale.
The Mechanical Cassava Harvester is an affordable tractor-mounted mechanical tool that turns up the soil to expose the root vegetable without damaging it.
GrainMate allows farmers to monitor moisture levels more accurately, so they can store grain until later in the season when demand is higher, increasing their income
GrainMate
Isaac Sesi
GrainMate is a simple, handheld meter that accurately measures the moisture content of grains to help reduce post-harvest losses. The aluminium probe is inserted into a bag of grain, and sensors in the tip of the probe help to determine the whole bag’s moisture content. The reading is then displayed on a detachable handheld unit.
Many farmers sell their grain straight after harvest because they worry that it will spoil if they store it. GrainMate allows farmers to monitor moisture levels more accurately, so they can store grain until later in the season when demand is higher, increasing their income.
GrainMate is part of Sesi Technologies’ suite of post-harvest solutions, which include the GrainMate Warehouse Monitor, the ZeroFly Hermetic Storage Bag as well as services such as grain threshing, drying, warehousing and market access. Together, they offer a holistic solution to post-harvest losses.
HWESOMAME
Daniel Taylor
HWESOMAME is a low-cost smart sensor that farmers can use to accurately measure soil conditions.
HWESOMAME, which means ‘look after it for me’ in local language Twi, consists of a sensor that is stuck into the ground. The sensor measures the soil moisture, temperature, salinity, and levels of organic matter. The data is converted into an easy-to-understand format and sent to the farmer via text or a voice-automated phone call in a local language.
The data helps farmers make decisions on what fertiliser to use, how frequently to water their crops, and minimises labour costs and farm visits. Farmers will be able to increase crop productivity by as much as 50% when they use HWESOMAME. Crop quality and profits will also increase.
HWESOMAME is sold to farmers, agricultural businesses, NGOs, and government institutions, who all receive training to use it.
HWESOMAME, which means ‘look after it for me’ in local language Twi, allows farmers to measure soil moisture, temperature, salinity, and levels of organic matter.
Transport
EcoRide bicycles, which sell for $200 to $400, are currently sold in Ghana and internationally, with some bulk purchases made by non-profit organisations for Ghanaian school children.
EcoRide
Bernice Dapaah
EcoRide are bicycles made from naturally occurring bamboo, sisal fibre and other sustainable parts.
Marketing specialist Bernice Dapaah recalls how she often had to stop to fix her bicycle on the way to school from her grandfather’s house, on the outskirts of Kumasi in Ghana. Dapaah wanted to help her community and was inspired to make the bicycles after seeing bamboo products online.
Bamboo is harvested, treated to remove its sugar content and air dried before the best pieces are selected and cut to size. These are glued and wrapped with epoxy and sisal fibres before the frame is sanded down, sprayed and fully assembled. Wheels, gears, brakes and handlebars are mostly second hand parts, refurbished by the EcoRide team. EcoRide plants ten bamboo trees for each one they harvest.
EcoRide bicycles, which sell for $200 to $400, are currently sold in Ghana and internationally, with some bulk purchases made by non-profit organisations for Ghanaian school children.
Education
Currently, 20,000 students in 1,000 schools use the Science Set and 2,000 science teachers have been trained to use it.
Science Set
Michael Asante-Afrifa and team
The Science Set is a portable, affordable textbook-sized toolbox that contains materials needed for basic science experiments across different science curricula in Africa. The Science Set enables teachers and students to perform laboratory-grade experiments without the need for a physical laboratory. Containing over 200 components, it covers experiments in physics chemistry, biology, and robotics.
According to the UNESCO Institute of Statistics, Africa needs another million new science PhDs to achieve the world average for the number of scientists per capita. Africa needs more scientists to help understand and create solutions to the continent’s problems.
Currently, 20,000 students in 1,000 schools use the Science Set and 2,000 science teachers have been trained to use it. Dext has a factory in Ghana where it currently employs 42 young people.
Ananse Cart
Martin Bruce
Ananse Cart (formerly Lab and Library on Wheels) is a portable, hybrid-powered lab and library on wheels that addresses the requisite infrastructure and logistical gap in educational technology. The cart comes with cost-efficient digital gadgets, preinstalled with interactive educational software, science kits and learning modules to promote the effective teaching of science, technology, engineering, art and mathematics (STEAM). This alternative approach transforms any environment into a computer and STEAM lab, compared to the traditional approach of building labs with high costs.
Interviews with teachers and students showed that the Ananse Cart helped them find studying STEAM in an engaging, fun and practical way. In a three-month period, 500 students were reached with 18 STEAM lessons and there was a 21% increase in students’ average test scores.
Ananse Cart transforms any environment into a computer and STEAM lab, compared to the traditional approach of building labs with high costs.
SuaCode.ai enables young Africans to learn to code online. It includes course materials in English and French, and an AI teaching assistant called Kwame, after Ghana’s first president, Dr Kwame Nkrumah.
SuaCode.ai
George Boateng
SuaCode.ai is a smartphone app powered by artificial intelligence (AI) that enables young Africans to learn to code in online. The software includes course materials in English and French, quizzes, coding assignments, automated grading, and an AI teaching assistant called Kwame, after Ghana’s first president, Dr Kwame Nkrumah. Since the app’s launch in 2022, there has been 12 cohorts of over 2,500 learners across 43 African countries and 117 countries globally. Alumni have secured coding internships and jobs with Microsoft and Google, and others are studying computer science and engineering at top universities such as Yale, Dartmouth, MIT, and Columbia.
In 2017, after four years of running a non-profit organisation that offered a three-week innovation bootcamp, George realised that only 25% of his students had access to laptops. However, all of them owned smartphones, which led the team to modify their coding course and deliver it using smartphones, a first of its kind in Ghana.
Electronics and software
SnooCODE is currently Liberia’s National Digital and Postal Addressing System, providing accurate digital addresses for every location in the country, which benefits approximately five million people.
SnooCODE RED
Sesinam Dagadu
In many low- and middle-income countries, patients can find it difficult to share their location with emergency services. Additionally, emergency services have no way to easily assess the capability of medical facilities before transporting patients. Both of these factors hamper timely access to emergency response services.
SnooCODE RED is an emergency care system for low- and middle-income countries. It enables easy patient location sharing, even without a smartphone. It allows emergency responders to locate patients when they share details on devices such as smart watches. A pilot with the Ghana Ambulance Service demonstrated an over 50% reduction in response rate. SnooCODE is partnering with Lay First Responders International for a pilot programme in Sierra Leone and plans to incorporate a hospital ranking and patient triaging into the system.
SnooCODE is currently Liberia’s National Digital and Postal Addressing System, providing accurate digital addresses for every location in the country, which benefits approximately five million people. SnooCODE welcomes partnerships from emergency medicine organisations, ambulance services and all health organisations.
BACE API
Charlette N’Guessan
Charlette and her team won the Africa Prize in 2020 with BACE API, a digital verification system that uses AI and facial recognition to verify identities remotely. Charlette, originally from Ivory Coast, was the first ever woman to win the Africa Prize, and the first winner based in Ghana.
BACE API’s verification process consists of three steps. Firstly, it employs liveness verification to ensure the individual is human, preventing fraudulent attempts. Then, it performs face matching by comparing a photo with an official ID document. Finally, data validation is conducted for authentication. This process is quick, secure and efficient.
By providing reliable and streamlined identity verification services, BACE API enhances security measures, reduces fraud, and enables financial institutions to extend their services to underserved populations. BACE Technologies Group provides AI services tailored for the African market by helping businesses build responsible data and AI products.
By providing reliable and streamlined identity verification services, BACE API enhances security measures, reduces fraud, and enables financial institutions to extend their services to underserved populations.
With alarming waste generation statistics in Ghana, JUMENI recognised the urgent need for a sustainable approach to waste management. It has built a robust mobile application that allows households and businesses to access responsible waste collection services easily.
JUMENI
Eyram Amedzor
JUMENI is a pioneering tech-enabled solid waste collection and recycling startup based in Ghana. It leverages technology to provide efficient waste management while promoting a circular economy and creating job opportunities for marginalised individuals.
With alarming waste generation statistics in Ghana, JUMENI recognised the urgent need for a sustainable approach to waste management. Through its research and development efforts, it has built a robust mobile application that allows households and businesses to access responsible waste collection services easily. The technology facilitates waste segregation at the source, with a specific focus on plastic, paper and metal waste, which can be recycled.
JUMENI has improved the lives of informal waste collectors by providing them with employment opportunities and improving their livelihoods. It aims to serve 50,000 households by 2025, scaling up operations and establishing strategic partnerships.