TruTrade, our partner organization working on agricultural enterprise and trade development, was recently honoured with an award from MIT Solve, a US-based initiative that champions solutions to the world’s most pressing problems through innovation and partnerships.<\/p>\n
The Solve award recognizes the potential that TruTrade has for increasing incomes among smallholder farmers in Africa, particularly women, using its unique mobile-enabled trading and payments platform.<\/p>\n
The Solve Challenge, which attracted almost 960 entries from across 103 countries, culminated in a finals event in New York City in mid-September. TruTrade was chosen as one of seven companies in the Women & Technology category, and will now be supported by the MIT Solve Network to further develop and scale its core activities. <\/p>\n
“This is a really exciting development for TruTrade,” said CEO Jenny Rafanomezana, “as it recognizes the clear potential we have to make a truly significant impact on rural poverty. The process of building TruTrade to where it is today has been challenging but we’re now really beginning to see success, as we build a trading record and continue to develop the mobile platform. <\/p>\n
“In the last few months, 93% of all payments to farmers for their crops have been made through mobile money, and in some value chains we’re seeing over 100% premiums being paid for these crops. The MIT award opens up the potential to scale this really promising model to new value chains and new countries throughout Sub-Saharan Africa.”<\/p>\n
Photo: TruTrade director Will Galvin (third from left) with MIT Solve judging co-chair, PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi (center) and other Solve award winners.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"