Nairobi, 20th November, 2023
Nairobi County Chief Officer for Digital Economy and Startups, Victor Otieno attended the French Tech Week award ceremony at the Alliance Francaise organized by the French Chamber of Commerce.
The week long French tech week who’s theme this year was “Digital Agriculture” brought together over 30 expert speakers, hosting events and discussions on innovation, promoting sustainable development, and strengthening partnerships between Kenya and France.
The events focused on five key themes: Urban and electric Mobility, Agriculture and food, Tech, and Startups, Investment, and Impact serve as a great opportunity for public and private sector players, innovators, leaders, and investors to connect, create long-lasting partnerships, and expand their activities.
Speaking during the award ceremony County Chief Officer for Digital Economy and Startups Sub Sector, Victor Otieno said ” For us to grow the ecosystem, we need a critical mass of startups at the grassroots and for it to happen, we have to diversify geographically by creating spaces in the 85 wards in Nairobi. We want to position Nairobi as the silicon savannah for Africa, and that’s why we have partnered with corporates and also French Tech Nairobi to help us achieve that. From the county’s perspective, we want to be able to improve the livelihoods of people, enable them to generate income, and reduce poverty. Our thinking is that if we can be able to support all the vertices, we would have significant socio-economic development improvement. ”
He further shared that Nairobi City County Government under the leadership of H.E the Governor, measures have been put in place to help businesses in the County through establishment of outcome based programs focused on addressing bottlenecks facing SMEs and Startups underpinned in County Integrated Development Plan (CIDP) 2023-2027.
The HackTonFutur innovation competition on Agriculture and Technology, designed for high school students, saw The French School (Lycée français Denis Diderot school receive an award as the winners of the competition for their project, AgriNeighbour.
The Innovation competition challenged students to leverage technology to solve sector-specific problems. The students had to consider the significance of digital agriculture, how technology can be integrated to support farmer, use of digital tools, services or platforms that could aid in crop monitoring, weather prediction and market connectivity.
Present was, President of French Tech Nairobi and Chief Operating Officer, Optimetriks, Loïc Ballester, Head of the Economic Department at the French Embassy, Jerome Baconin, Director of Alliance Francaise de Nairobi, Charles Courdent, Regional Manager for Monitoring Evaluation and Learning, TechnoServe / Africa Coffee Practice, Eugenie Tenezakis, Product Development Manager, Kenya Biologics / Elephant vert, James Otieno, Senior Manager, Digital Strategy, One Acre Fund,
Makandi Laiboni, Marketing Director, Savana Seeds, Moses Ochieng, Managing Partner, E3 Capital, Paras Patel, Associate Professional Officer, FAO East Africa, Moses Beyene
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