It’s tough being a start-up at the best of times. At the beginning of March 2020, in their first lockdown videoconference, the agriBORA team was unanimous. It was going to be difficult to survive.
The team from agriBORA Germany, including CEO Kizito Odhiambo, visit their Kenyan Operations Team in January 2020
AgriBORA is a start-up in the ESA Business Incubation Centre (BIC) in Darmstadt, Germany, focusing on using space technology to support the agriculture in East Africa.
The company has developed a platform which brings together partners from different parts of the agriculture value chain: input companies, farm machinery companies, agro-dealers, aggregators, off-takers, extension officers and farmers. The platform offers location-based insights and tailored-informational, capacity building, financial, market-linkage, market intelligence and consultancy on products and services.
The business was developing well. But with COVID-19 causing worldwide disruption, who was going to worry about the millions of smallholder farmers in Kenya?
However, according to CEO Kizito Odhiambo, things have gone much better than he had expected. “It seems as if people are realising that, when movement of people is restricted, the role of Earth observation (EO) data becomes even more important. The problems have not disappeared, so more intelligent solutions need to be put in place.” 
The future of agriculture in Africa depends on young technology-aware people, a fact agriBORA is taking seriously in their endeavours
You want to know more about agriBORA's latest achievements, how these help smallholder farmers in Africa and what is their next big challenge? Go to ESA Space Solutions and read more!
About ESA Space Solutions
ESA Space Solutions is the go-to-place for great business ideas involving space in all areas of society and economy. The mission is to support entrepreneurs in Europe in the development of business using satellite applications and space technology to improve everyday life. The programme is designed to provide multiple entry points such as ESA Business Incubation Centres (ESA BICs), ESA Technology Transfer Brokers, and the ESA Business Applications programme. Funding typically ranges from 50KEuro to 2MEuro and supports everything from space technology transfer, early stage incubation programs, feasibility studies to large-scale demonstration projects.
About ESA BIC Hessen & Baden-Württemberg
The ESA BIC Hessen & Baden-Württemberg runs under the umbrella of ESA Space Solutions. It is part of the Europe-wide Business Incubator network set up by the European Space Agency (ESA). Their purpose is to help entrepreneurs (incubatees) setting up their business by providing them with commercial and technical assistance. Business can work in two directions: either by using space technology for general non-space industrial, scientific and commercial uses or the other way round, by transferring non-space technologies to space industry. cesah, the centre for satellite navigation Hesse in Darmstadt, is entrusted by the Agency with the management of the ESA BIC Hessen & Baden-Württemberg. In addition to Darmstadt, cesah manages two more incubation centres in Baden-Württemberg in close cooperation with our partners IHK Reutlingen and Airbus DS in Friedrichshafen