(Belga) A project offering digital solutions to increase yields in the agricultural sector in Mali won the Digitalization for Development (D4D) prize on Thursday evening. This award is an initiative of the Royal Museum for Central Africa in Tervuren, in collaboration with the Directorate General for Development Cooperation and Humanitarian Aid (DGD). Other projects were awarded in two other categories.
The Malian project was crowned in the iStandOut category, which rewards the best initiative in terms of digitization and development. The project was supported by several Malian startups, which offer digital solutions and applications to improve the flow of agricultural products on promising markets. The solutions also make it possible to increase the yield of agricultural production. The iStartup prize, which recognizes the most promising innovation, has been awarded to a project in Uganda and the Democratic Republic of Congo, which uses technology to fight against schistosomiasis, an acute and chronic disease caused by worms parasites. The application presented could thus replace the tedious validation by experts of the data collected on the snails which spread the parasites. Finally, the iChoose People’s Choice Award went to a project proposing a new fundraising protocol to reduce response time during emergencies in developing countries. The D4D Prize is awarded every two years. The winner in the iStandOut category receives a line of credit of 10,000 euros to be used to develop his project while the winner in the iStartUp category has the opportunity to complete an internship within a Belgian or international business incubator for an amount of 25,000 euros. The winner of the public prize receives the sum of 5,000 euros. (Belga)