HiPipo Money

Agriculture remains the backbone of Uganda’s economy, but its full potential is still hindered by various challenges. These include underfunding, inaccessible inputs, climate change, limited market information, and failure to modernize.

Even with all this happening, there is renewed hope as technology continues to aid the conceptualization, development, and roll-out of platforms to address these ills.

One such platform that is enabling thousands of farmers to get better yields from their gardens and ultimately earn more from agriculture is ETG Inputs.

According to Ponsiano Byansi, an agronomist at ETG, ETG Input is part of the wider Export Trading Group (ETG) that has been in operation since 1967. He says ETG Inputs specifically deals with the importation and distribution of fertilizers, crop protection products, and extension services.

“We are also in the digital space to ensure that farmers are not left behind in the digital era. We address this through our ETG one-stop solution APP that ensures that farmers have access to finance services, market information, and crop protection information. Not every farmer knows what chemical is used to kill what pest. So, through the ETG One-Sop Solutions APP, we ensure that this information is readily available to farmers. So, a farmer can make a diagnosis of their crop using the ETG one-stop solution APP. S/he can be able to know what disease they have in the garden and through the APP, they can contact an agronomist who is ready to provide real-time advice on what product the farmer should use,” Mr Byansi said.

He added: “The APP also provides the farmer with a financial management and expenses tracking platform that enables them to track down their expenses for a particular season. In addition, the APP allows us to collect Know your customer (KYC) information for customers and thus enables us to extend credit to big commercial farmers and Agro-dealers.”

Byansi noted that the ETG APP is available on Google Play store, readily accessible and usable by all farmers.

“Our vision is to offer 360 happiness and create a sustainable impact in the lives of farmers. We have about 500 Agro-dealers spread across Uganda. We have so far reached over 100,000 farmers from across Uganda.”

ETG Inputs has featured on Day 19 of 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative Season 5.

Run under HiPipo’s Include Everyone program that also encompasses other initiatives such as FinTech Landscape Exhibition, Women in FinTech Hackathon, Summit & Incubator, and the Digital and Financial Inclusion Summit and Digital Impact Awards Africa; the #40Days40FinTechs platform aptly provides a setting for the various players and stakeholders involved in digital and financial technology to exhibit their products and services. It also gives players a platform to share their ideas on how the unserved and underserved by the present financial systems can be brought into the fold.

With over 150 participants in the last four years, #40Days40FinTechs continues to be the world’s premier showcase event for innovations that are enabling underserved populations to join the digital economy space. We know that this can only get better owing to the inspiration and collaboration of our partners; Level One Project, Mojaloop Foundation, INFITX, Cyberplc Academy, Ideation Corner, and Crosslake Technologies. Most importantly, the initiative owes its continued success to the generous support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Gone are the days when the only way one would access health services was through physically visiting a healthcare facility, seeing a physician, and getting treated. Lately, you can complete the entire hospital process without visiting a healthcare facility thanks to telemedicine.

Although Telemedicine has multiple definitions, it can be easily explained as a term used to describe the remote delivery of healthcare services using telecommunications technology. Among the players offering all-around Telemedicine services in Uganda is Venro Healthcare – a medical company specializing in home-based care and e-health services.

“At Venro Healthcare, we offer telemedicine services. Our main aim is to make healthcare available, affordable, and accessible to everyone. We have an online platform that enables our patients to schedule appointments after which a doctor moves to the patient’s home or office and conducts consultation and physical examination, and also takes samples in case tests are needed. We also offer bedside nursing dedicated to patients that don’t have caretakers. The other service we offer is online medicine delivery through our online pharmacy. For controlled medicines, you must present a prescription,” Kenneth Ssonko, the Venro Healthcare Co-Founder explained.

He added: “We started Venro Healthcare in 2020 in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic. We realized that patients couldn’t access hospitals yet healthcare providers were allowed to move. We have since served more than 1,000 patients and have gone on to establish a physical facility that supports our telemedicine services.”

Ssonko highlighted that their services are accessible via a website platform and on a mobile APP.

“When one logs onto the website or opens the APP, he/she chooses the service they want and also selects the physician they want to see or medicine they want to buy. When we receive this order, we go through it and automatically assign the right professional to attend to it. We show the customer the total bill which they can pay digitally via mobile money, merchant codes, bank deposits, or online banking. All customers sign consent forms to confirm that they have allowed us to serve them and commit to paying the arising bill.”

Venro Health has featured on Day 18 of 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative Season 5.

Run under HiPipo’s Include Everyone program that also encompasses other initiatives such as FinTech Landscape Exhibition, Women in FinTech Hackathon, Summit & Incubator, and the Digital and Financial Inclusion Summit and Digital Impact Awards Africa; the #40Days40FinTechs platform aptly provides a setting for the various players and stakeholders involved in digital and financial technology to exhibit their products and services. It also gives players a platform to share their ideas on how the unserved and underserved by the present financial systems can be brought into the fold.

With over 150 participants in the last four years, #40Days40FinTechs continues to be the world’s premier showcase event for innovations that are enabling underserved populations to join the digital economy space. We know that this can only get better owing to the inspiration and collaboration of our partners; Level One Project, Mojaloop Foundation, INFITX, Cyberplc Academy, Ideation Corner, and Crosslake Technologies. Most importantly, the initiative owes its continued success to the generous support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Advancement in Technology has come with several innovations. Today, you can almost do everything with the help of technology. Among the new things that people are doing digitally is investment. Instead of investing in tangible things (buying land, home assets, or domestic animals), technology enables one to invest in intangible yet profitable ventures. Even though this comes with its unique challenges, when done right and with the right people, it yields results.

In Uganda, among the players that are offering digital investment opportunities is Cyanase, a platform founded by students of Makerere University.

According to Mark Obini, the Cyanase Chief Marketing Officer, the platform’s ultimate goal is to use financial technology to make investment accessible to everyone including the underdeveloped markets.

“At Cyanase, we have three major products. We have the web platform, API, and fund managers’ portal. Each of these platforms serves a different customer. The web platform is for daily users. It enables them to understand how the different investments work before they start investing in them. The API is a technology that a FinTech or Bank can integrate into its platform and use it to serve its customers. The fund managers’ portal is for the managers who manage the investment. We offer our customers different investment products such as unit trust, treasury bills and bonds, and real estate, among others,” Mark Obini said.

He added: “We are regulated by the Uganda sandbox that is operated by the Bank of Uganda. This regulation makes us authentic as it allows us to operate. So far, we have close to 3,000 subscribers and about 1,000 active investors.”

Obini noted that their biggest challenges so far are funding, market awareness and reach. He nonetheless noted that thanks to their participation in the 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative last year, they have been able to onboard a fund manager and are also in progressive discussions with potential investors.

“Before we featured on 40 Days 40 FinTechs, the market didn’t know us that much. But after this, our awareness and interest from potential customers grew. We now seek more collaborations with like-minded people to further scale this platform and serve more people.”

Cyanase has featured on Day 17 of 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative Season 5.

Run under HiPipo’s Include Everyone program that also encompasses other initiatives such as FinTech Landscape Exhibition, Women in FinTech Hackathon, Summit & Incubator, and the Digital and Financial Inclusion Summit and Digital Impact Awards Africa; the #40Days40FinTechs platform aptly provides a setting for the various players and stakeholders involved in digital and financial technology to exhibit their products and services. It also gives players a platform to share their ideas on how the unserved and underserved by the present financial systems can be brought into the fold.

With over 150 participants in the last four years, #40Days40FinTechs continues to be the world’s premier showcase event for innovations that are enabling underserved populations to join the digital economy space. We know that this can only get better owing to the inspiration and collaboration of our partners; Level One Project, Mojaloop Foundation, INFITX, Cyberplc Academy, Ideation Corner, and Crosslake Technologies. Most importantly, the initiative owes its continued success to the generous support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Savings and Credit Cooperative Organisations (SACCOs) and Microfinance Institutions are at the heart of last-mile financial institutions as these serve the unserved and underserved. However, many of these continue to depend on paper and cash-based systems that are prone to misuse, time-wasting, and thus inconvenience all the parties involved.

But technology is addressing most of these issues with innovators developing solutions that enable such institutions to transition from traditional to digital systems. Among the platforms that are leading the digitization of SACCOs and microfinance institutions is Zimba Technologies.

Zimba Technologies is a platform that builds core banking solutions and systems for financial institutions with a primary focus on SACCOs and microfinance institutions. 

“I can’t explain the origins of Zimba without telling my personal story. I come from Eastern Uganda, just outside Mbale. When I was young, my family had so many struggles. I lost both my parents by the age of seven and my uncle was responsible for providing for my siblings and myself. He was unable to access capital to expand our family farm. Fortunately, things worked out and we were adopted by American missionaries, and that is how I ended up in the USA,” explained Isaac Were, Zimba Technologies Founder and CEO, adding;

“But I never forgot those experiences as a child. So, when I came back to visit for the first time, after twelve years, I hoped to start a business but the same problem – limited access to capital – was still persistent. So, when I decided that I wanted to come back to settle in Uganda, I said I would start a business to address the problem of capital and access to finance. I knew that Saccos and microfinances play an important role for the people at the bottom of the pyramid as they enable them access to capital. But I believe that they can do better with the help of technology. That is how Zimba technologies came about.”

Mr. Were highlighted that before launching Zimba Technologies, they did comprehensive research and found the gaps in the market and thus started to design solutions to address those specific problems.

“We have developed an end-to-end solution that allows institutions to handle all their operations from managing clients and their data, loans, deposits and to keeping track of all their books. We have also developed a mobile APP specifically for the end-users. The APP allows them to have access to their financial information, view their statements, and apply for loans. We also have a blockchain-based wallet that handles all the cashless transactions. It allows both mobile money and bank transactions,” he said.

“We started building the product in 2021 and officially launched in November 2023. We currently have seventeen institutions that are using the platform. These serve over 80,000 end-users.”

Zimba Technologies has featured on Day 16 of 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative Season 5.

Run under HiPipo’s Include Everyone program that also encompasses other initiatives such as FinTech Landscape Exhibition, Women in FinTech Hackathon, Summit & Incubator, and the Digital and Financial Inclusion Summit and Digital Impact Awards Africa; the #40Days40FinTechs platform aptly provides a setting for the various players and stakeholders involved in digital and financial technology to exhibit their products and services. It also gives players a platform to share their ideas on how the unserved and underserved by the present financial systems can be brought into the fold.

With over 150 participants in the last four years, #40Days40FinTechs continues to be the world’s premier showcase event for innovations that are enabling underserved populations to join the digital economy space. We know that this can only get better owing to the inspiration and collaboration of our partners; Level One Project, Mojaloop Foundation, INFITX, Cyberplc Academy, Ideation Corner, and Crosslake Technologies. Most importantly, the initiative owes its continued success to the generous support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

Construction is a time-consuming and expensive venture. A lot happens from purchasing a plot of land to having house plans drawn, approved and construction done. It becomes more stressful when you have to look for all these services, one by one.

However, this hustle and bustle is a thing of the past thanks to innovators thinking out of the box and developing platforms to mitigate this stress.  One such innovation is Kuzimba Services; an online supermarket for all construction products and services.

“We are an end-to-end management digital platform that simplifies your home building process. We provide all construction services as well as different products for building and construction. We started Kuzimba in August 2020, during the COVID-19 pandemic as a digital platform to create opportunities for engineering graduates mainly my students as I was a lecturer at the Engineering department of Kyambogo University at that time,” Ephrance Eunice Namugenyi, the founder and managing director of Kuzimba Services said.

Kuzimba later participated in the 2021 HiPipo Women in FinTech Hackathon which it won. Since then, it has transformed into a one-stop center for all construction needs.

“We attended the 2020 Hackathon and didn’t win. We never gave up and came back for the second Hackathon in 2021. This time, we were able to be victorious. This victory gave us an open platform to launch and operate. The Hackathon not only improved our platform but also continues to give us free marketing,” Namugenyi noted.

She highlighted that Kuzimba has since integrated FinTech enabling customers to be able to place orders and make payments digitally on the Kuzimba platform.

“Kuzimba is a digital payment platform. When a customer logs on to our platform, they then register as clients after which they start choosing the items and services they want. Whatever product or service you pick is added to your cart and totaled up. The payments have been simplified and are now available on the platform thanks to an API we have integrated that supports mobile money and bank card payments. Customers can make a partial or full payment after which their orders are prepared and delivered,” Namugenyi explained, adding;

“We started as a partnership but at the start of this year, we registered a fully-fledged limited company. This is a great milestone for us as it shows that we are progressing and moving in the right direction. We have so far served over 5000 customers.”

Kuzimba Services has featured on Day 15 of 40 Days 40 FinTechs initiative Season 5.

Run under HiPipo’s Include Everyone program that also encompasses other initiatives such as FinTech Landscape Exhibition, Women in FinTech Hackathon, Summit & Incubator, and the Digital and Financial Inclusion Summit and Digital Impact Awards Africa; the #40Days40FinTechs platform aptly provides a setting for the various players and stakeholders involved in digital and financial technology to exhibit their products and services. It also gives players a platform to share their ideas on how the unserved and underserved by the present financial systems can be brought into the fold.

With over 150 participants in the last four years, #40Days40FinTechs continues to be the world’s premier showcase event for innovations that are enabling underserved populations to join the digital economy space. We know that this can only get better owing to the inspiration and collaboration of our partners; Level One Project, Mojaloop Foundation, INFITX, Cyberplc Academy, Ideation Corner, and Crosslake Technologies. Most importantly, the initiative owes its continued success to the generous support of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.