Kenyan enterprises win big at the 11th Sankalp Africa Awards 2024

 

Two outstanding Kenyan enterprises claimed the top two spots at the recently held Sankalp Africa Awards 2024 at the 11th Sankalp Africa Summit 2024, a summit focused around Entrepreneurship and the Sustainable Development Goals.

This points to the growing interest in impact entrepreneurship by small and medium sized businesses in Kenya, which paves the way for more inclusive economic growth.

The Winner of the11th Sankalp Africa Awards went to Toothpick Company, an Agri enterprise from Kenya who are focused reducing chemical pesticide use and improving safety, affordability and effectiveness. The story of Toothpick Company is inspiring to say the least. Led by Claire Sands-Baker, the genesis of the idea was around an innovation her father had dabbled in for over 40 years. Today they are not only improving food security for farmers but also becoming a player of repute in a34 Billion USD billion global synthetic chemical weed management industry.

“Winning this award is an opportunity for us to showcase an innovation which opens the eyes of the world to new styles of weed management. We are proud of our strong ability to work with farmers on the ground, enabling us to move from a super high-tech innovation to actually delivering for Kenyan farmers, and African farmers as a whole,” said Sands-Baker.

The 1st Runner Up was Keep IT Cool, an Agri enterprise from Kenya which provides proximate refrigerated cooling boxes and transport to underserved smallholder fishermen and fish farmers in East Africa. What makes their idea compelling is the end-to-end cold chain logistics solution they are leveraging while using technology to scale their business.

“We are thrilled to receive the 1strunner-up prize at the Sankalp Africa Awards and it is satisfying to have our efforts be acknowledged by experts in the industry,” said Nderitu.

“The win encourages us to continue with our impactful work in the food and nutrition industry,” he added.

The 2nd Runner Up went to MedTrack, a healthcare enterprise from Ghana who are centralizing access to patient information by linking it to national biometric IDs, easing the process of transfer of health data across multiple care points by patients and health providers, thereby proving yet again that health and tech when blended makes for a great impact story.

The Ecosystem Award Winner, which is uniquely chosen by a democratic voting system, went to Agrosahas International Private Ltd., an Agri enterprise from Uganda that aids 10,000Ugandan farmers through their proprietary tech-driven platform, proving beyond doubt that tech-driven ideas make for a transformative impact.

Every year, SankalpAfrica showcases outstanding enterprises and this year there were 11 promising finalist startups at the Sankalp Africa Awards 2024, with 7 hailing from Kenya.

One of Africa’s largest convenings on impact entrepreneurship and sustainable development, the 11thSankalp Africa Summit 2024, hosted by Aavishkaar Group and Intellecap took place between the 28th and 29th of February at the Kenya School of Monetary Studies (KSMS) in Nairobi.

This year the Summit has positively engaged over 1,500 different stakeholders from across 60+ countries in over 35+ Sessions featuring 200+ Speakers with 20+ Hours of Learning, covering the development ecosystem,  to discuss, define, and drive forward the critical levers of catalysing impact and igniting Africa’s potential for a just potential.

The journey of Sankalp Africa has been one of milestones and impact. The premier convening started11 years ago as we took our pioneering entrepreneurship-led development model and blended it with our popular flagship convening with a focus on building the entrepreneurial ecosystem, to help the development ecosystem gather and work towards achieving the SDGs.

Now with chapters in East Africa and West Africa, Sankalp truly highlights how complex social challenges can be addressed with decisive action by a gathering of Change makers through conversations, discussions and collaboration to drive innovation, ideas, investments and impact.

By Claire Wanja