Four Ingenious Innovators Feted In The Fursa vs Virus Awards

The National Youth Council, Huawei Kenya and Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC) have announced the winners of the Fursa vs Virus competition.

The overall winner of the Fursa vs Virus challenge was Plant Signal, a free offline interactive, smartphone app to give farmers real time diagnosis of the pest or disease that affect their crop.

Others who made to the top four slots include Expan USSD, Ntaka Charcoal and Njiraini Food. The UNFPA Kenya will give training and mentorship to the winners.

The competition seeks to empower youth to develop solutions to the COVID-19 Pandemic in six categories including food security, education, business and economy, environment and energy, government support, and social welfare.

Read: Uhuru Orders That Three Local Youth Innovations Get Full Government Funding, Support

Speaking at the celebrations held on August 12, President Uhuru Kenyatta  thanked the sponsors of the awards, who include both local and international partners.

“Today we will celebrate the winners of the Fursa versus Virus Challenge. I want to thank the Kenya Pipeline Corporation, Royal Media Services and Huawei Technologies Kenya Limited for partnering with us to ensure that the Fursa versus Virus Challenge was a success. We are particularly grateful to Huawei Technologies Kenya for covering internet costs for the entire Fursa versus Virus Challenge period as well as for providing 47 tablets and three laptops for the winners,” said President Kenyatta

Other partners in the competition include the UN and the Kenya Commercial Bank (KCB).

PS State Department for Youth Affairs, Mr Julius Korir stated that his Department is very focused on measures to unlock youth economic empowerment, harnessing and development of youth talent for national development.

The competition enables youth to utilize the internet to submit their solutions and to receive training, mentoring, financial support and other in-kind support.

Read: Huawei Overtakes Samsung To Become Top Global Smartphone Vendor

“We believe these devices we are providing today will go a long way to fulfilling young people’s dreams,” said Huawei Kenya CEO Will Meng.

During the competition, Huawei Kenya has been supporting outreach through the DigiTruck mobile training classroom reaching rural youth by giving them access to the internet and training on essential skills on demand in the remotest places in the country. Huawei has also provided online training, data bundles and various prizes and technical support for the winners.

KPC managing director Dr Irungu Macharia urged more public and private sector players to support this initiative.

“We are delighted to support youth in this competition by providing prize money of Ksh400,000. The government commits itself to support the youth technically and with opportunities to access the supply chain in various infrastructure projects through the AGPO program where we allocate 30 percent of our budget to youth, gender and persons with disabilities,” said Dr Macharia.

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