The first scholarship has been awarded to Aisha Raheem, founder of Farmz2U. The company’s goal is to empower the next generation of farmers in sub-Saharan Africa, where the population is set to double over the next 30 years, with a corresponding increase in food demand.

Aisha will work with Cambridge Consultants to further develop her company’s Farming Management Platform, which aims to streamline connectivity between farmers and stakeholders across the agricultural value chain. The platform, already in beta testing, will increase profitability for farmers in Nigeria, connecting them to potential buyers and helping them to source quality assured inputs that result in increased crop yields. Better connections between supply and demand will drive a reduction in post-harvest waste, which is estimated at 37% in the sub-Saharan Africa region.

The second scholarship has been awarded to Nick Hitchins, Technical Manager at mOm Incubators. The company’s incubator has been designed to reduce infant mortality rates in challenging environments, whilst being a breakthrough in portability and cost. Nick will work within Cambridge Consultants’ world-class technology development environment in order to further refine the company’s inexpensive, electronically controlled and inflatable infant incubator.

As well as participating in the One Young World Summit 2019, taking place in London from October 22nd 2019, the scholarship recipients are receiving remote mentoring, an intensive residency at the company’s Cambridge (UK) headquarters, and support in developing their innovations, working alongside expert teams with experience in solving complex problems at scale.

Aisha Raheem is currently at Cambridge Consultants’ UK offices, working with a team of engineers and designers to further develop the Farmz2U offering. Commenting on her experience so far, Aisha said: “Working with the teams at Cambridge Consultants has been a fantastic opportunity to tap into such a breadth of experience and explore the possible technical and commercial options for our platform. I’m now looking forward to moving from initial launch to full release and building links with other companies involved in the supply chain, which is an exciting new phase.”

Matt Lacey, Cambridge Consultants’ program coordinator for the Code for Good scholarships, said: “It’s been an inspiring experience working with these young entrepreneurs. They have seen a problem and have had the vision to address it through cleverly applied technology. Our winning Scholars, at both mOm and Farmz2U, are poised to hugely improve people’s quality of life with their innovations. We were fortunate to have had many potential scholars to choose from, and it was a challenging selection process, but I’m delighted we’re now able to help Nick and Aisha to innovate in ways that so clearly address the UN Sustainable Development Goals.

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