Investor sees opportunity in using technology to empower rural farmers

For Rev Dr Lucas Njenga, technology has opened an investment opportunity in Kenya.

The UK-based investor is seeking to incorporate technology into promising sectors like agriculture and financials.

Through his software company, Ushindi Mobile Money, Dr Njenga is striving to cash in on demand for money transfer services and growth of e-commerce by offering a platform that will allow users to transact online.

“Ushindi Mobile Money is not a money transfer service or a financial institution. It is a platform that enables users to perform transactions just like Yahoo and eBay. These two services do not handle your money. They allow people to make transactions through them and this is what the platform does,” said Dr. Njenga.

Users can make transactions to and from their bank accounts after signing up and downloading the software on their phones or laptops.

“Once you sign up and download the software on your device, you receive a code that you can take to your bank that will enable you to make transactions to and from your account like buying air tickets. Users do not pay or receive money from us. We just enable these transactions to happen,” he said.

Users in the diaspora can also be able to use the platform that runs on the web and WAP to transfer money from a Kenyan bank account using the Ushindi Mobile Money code (mobile phone or laptop) that has to enabled using the UMM software.

“If you are in UK and you want to send money to Kenya, you will need to have an account in the country and with the identifier code you can make transactions on your account,” he said.

He said that the platform is accessible from many banks abroad including Bank of America and Wells Fargo, but he is still in talks with Kenyan banks.

Dr Njenga has also seen an entrepreneurial path in agriculture. He has come up with an innovation dubbed Uza Mazao that was also launched this week.

Teaching farmers

This platform has been developed in partnership with companies such as Amera Voice, Global Collaborators and World Capital Finance in USA, Guardian Fund in India and Modular in Malaysia.

When we caught up with him at his offices on State House Road, Nairobi, the area was abuzz with activity as training for farmers who will be using the Uza Mazao platform was going on.

“The Uza Mazao has been used in successfully in India to link farmers with buyers and provide information on prices of farm products,” he said.“You can send a message that says that you have planted beans on a 200 acre land and this will sit in a virtual market.

The platform gives detailed information such as the closest market to buyer and costs so if a buyer has a plant in Maseno, the platform can provide information on the where the products can be bought and at what price.

This is one way to ensure food reach the market while fresh especially if they are perishable,” he said

Dr Njenga says the Uza Mazao platform servers and research has so far cost the company Sh120 million.

About Sh300 million has been earmarked for the phase one of the project and Sh700 million will be used in the second phase.

“We are actually addressing need of linking farmers and buyers. In India, the project has been on going successfully for about eight years. After the training of farmers we will distribute digital units and our intention is to do 5,200-enabled handsets so that people can know how to use the phone on how to use this platform,” he said.

Dr Njenga is also the founding director and CEO of Heart for the City in Glasgow in the United Kingdom, an organisation that is involved in community transformation.

Dr Njenga is happy with they achievements made so far but says that people do not see opportunities come and go.

“The Obama factor has been a big opportunity for this country but people have not taken advantage of it”

“People also lack innovation. “The cost of funds in this country is also so high that it prohibits businesses from succeeding.”