Access Agriculture - "Young Entrepreneur Challenge Fund"

Background

Women and young people are the future and backbone of agricultural development. Promoting agriculture as a business has gained currency in recent times to create more economic value and to encourage youth into agriculture.

Agriculture has been supported by rapid developments in information and communication technologies (ICT). Across developing countries mobile financial services are booming. Likewise, social media and apps help farmers forecast the weather or know about market prices. These days farmers need information they can trust to improve their livelihoods and protect their families.

Access Agriculture is a non-profit organisation that supports the distribution of quality training videos to share practical knowledge on farming and food processing across the global South. Farmers in Latin America, Africa and Asia can learn from their peers on other continents. Access Agriculture has developed the concept of Entrepreneurs for Rural Access, who are either individuals or small teams that use a ‘smart projector’ to develop or expand their businesses. Through this scheme, Access Agriculture requests young people to propose innovative ideas to make a business, or expand their existing services, around the dissemination of agricultural videos.

Through a competitive grant, the most inspiring and promising young entrepreneurs will receive a Digisoft smart projector (see below).

By building on the ICT skills and networks of young men and women, we believe we can better support farmers and make agroecology and organic agriculture more attractive to youth and reach more women.

BPOE Guinea-Bissau ERA callAbout the Bright Professional Opportunities and Empowerment of Youth and Women program for community-led sustainable development in Guinea-Bissau (BPOE)

About the project funded by GIZ and KFW in Guinea-Bissau and Fund for Stabilization and Regional Development in Fragile Regions of ECOWAS Member States (FRSD)

The FRSD is a program that seeks to strengthen Economic Community of West Africa States (ECOWAS) member states to react pre-emptively to crises, implement sustainability measures and improve people's resilience. This project is commissioned and financed by the German Federal Ministry for Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and implemented by GIZ and KFW.

This call for ERAs is part of the Bright Professional Opportunities and Empowerment of Youth and Women program for community-led sustainable development in Guinea-Bissau (BPOE). The partnership is implemented as part of the Fund for Regional Stabilization and Development in Fragile Regions in ECOWAS Member States (FRSD) led by ECOWAS with support from GIZ. Tostan as one of the national implementing partners of the consortium in collaboration with SWISSAID, ADPP, COPE and Access Agriculture.

We invite young Guinean women and men to propose innovative ideas for starting a business, or expanding their existing services, around the dissemination of agricultural training videos using a Digisoft smart projector. Click here for information on the smart projector.

Members of Self-help groups (SHGs) and Farmer Producer Organisations (FPOs) are preferable.

Location: 3 Regions in Guinea Bissau: Bafata, Gabu & Quinara.

Steps to follow for submitting an application:

1. Register/create an account or login on the website of Access Agriculture here: https://www.accessagriculture.org/user/register
2. Account verification: Check your inbox/junk/spam folder for a message from info@accessagriculture.org for the email address you used to create the account. Click on the link (URL) in the message to activate your account.
3. Existence of an account:  If you already have an account on the Access Agriculture website, there is no need to create another one.
4. Read the application guidelines: Once the account is verified, return to the Access Agriculture website and carefully read the application instructions and FAQ’s. Click here for the Frequently Asked Questions.
5. Complete the application form: To open the application form click on “Apply Online”. Fill out the required information on each page. You can “save” the form and edit or fill it out later. All questions must be answered before submitting the application.
6. Preview the form: Go to the last page and click on “preview”. All the completed information will be displayed and you can read it before submitting. If you want to make changes you can click on “previous page” and go back to the form.
7. Submit the form:  Once you have finished filling out the information, go to the last page, click “preview” and then click “submit”. The form will be sent and can no longer be edited.

Please note: Incomplete forms will not be considered - and remember to submit your application before the deadline.

8. Email confirmation: After submitting the form, check for the application receipt confirmation message in your inbox/junk/spam folder of the email address used to create your account on Access Agriculture.

The following questions need to be answered in the application

1. What motivated you to apply for this challenge fund? (100 words maximum)
2. What problem/s in your community do you think you would be able to solve using a smart projector and showing videos? (100 words maximum)
3. When using the smart projector, how do you plan to make money in rural communities? (in other words, how you plan to make money with the smart projector) (250 words maximum)
4. Who is your target audience/expected customers (projects, farmer groups, organizations, individuals)? (100 words maximum)
5. How many farmers in the surrounding rural communities do you expect to reach per month for video viewing? (100 words maximum)
6. What strategy will you use to reach the number of farmers mentioned? How will you mobilize these farmers to view videos? (250 words maximum)
7. How will you reach young people and women in your target communities? (100 words maximum)
8. How can you provide video services to different NGOs and government organisations to reach more farmers? (100 words maximum)
9. If you already have a business, how will the projector add value to your current business? If it is a new business, what other associated services can you offer to the targeted audience along with the video views? (250 words maximum)
10. How will you share your experiences of using the smart projector with Access Agriculture?

Proposal Guidelines

• Teams of up to three young people can submit an application. At least one team member must be a woman.
• Each person can only be part of one proposal
• The application can only be submitted in Portuguese via the Access Agriculture website https://www.accessagriculture.org/
• A draft proposal can be made and saved as you progress. You can edit your application as many times as you want until it is ready to submit.
• The key ideas of your commercial proposal must be presented in the submission form.