He is planning on making farming and others aspect of agriculture attractive for farmers and investors.
Bankole Emmanuel is one of the 12 Kwese Inc. Go Gettaz finalists aiming to to capture Mr Strive Masiyiwa’s interest. And his idea is to make 25,000 African youths a millionaire by 2023.
Africa is an agricultural dependent region but not so many have made fortune from the sector. As a result, Bankole Emmanuel has set out to use Agribusiness and technology to solving hunger, youth unemployment and poverty menace in Africa.
In an interview with Business Insider Sub-Saharan Africa, Bankole explained that the under-utilisation of agricultural sector to drive employment and economic growth informed his decision to take this path.
“One of the things that make me have sleepless nights is the joblessness crisis in Africa. And I have tried to look at the sector that is big enough that can create employment for millions of youths that are unemployed. I feel like the missed economy in Africa is Agriculture,” Bankole said.
“I studied Agriculture from my First Degree to PhD now and I feel Agriculture is the solution. But what can we do to make Agriculture so enticing to our youth? I integrate technology into this sector so that many people can come in to be industrial players.”
“We also want to help as many as 25,000 youths become millionaires in Africa through Agribusiness by 2023. This is my passion as an entrepreneur. The value chain is so large… so we want to help as many as possible in the continent to become financially independent by leveraging on the Agriculture and Technology”
Bankole Emmanuel is the founder of Agromarketplace and a PhD student of Agricultural Extension and Communication Technology. Despite the huge challenges in the sector, Bankole believes the idea is noble.
“It is a business which is going to scale very quickly, already we are present in four cities in Nigeria, in Abuja, Lagos, Port Harcourt and Warri. And a lot of people are even calling us from outside the continent from as far as the United Kingdom because Nigeria is a country that has a lot of agricultural products ranging from sesame seeds to Soya beans.
“You know all these none perishable agricultural products but we have a lot of fresh fruits and vegetables which are perishing on the farms.”
On how his company will utilize the prize if Agromarketplace is declared the winner, Bankole hinted that the money will be used to expand the company’s operation to 8 more states in Nigeria.
“By God’s grace, we trust and hope we get the $100,000 cash so that we can quickly scale from four cities to twelve additional cities by December 2018. We also want to get some cooling vans and you know there are some cooling vans today that you can maintain the freshness and the quality of the vegetables and fruits for two months.”
“It would be as if you just harvested it from the farm so we want to get these two trucks.”