National Youth Council unveils Fursa vs Virus challenge winners

Four groups of youth emerged winners of the Fursa vs Virus challenge; a competition by the National Youth Council (NYC) seeking to empower youth to develop innovative solutions to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The competition was divided into six categories including food security, education, business and economy, environment and energy, government support, and social welfare.

The top innovation was Plant Signal, a free offline interactive, smartphone app to give farmers real time diagnosis of the pest or disease that affect their crop followed by Expan USSD, Ntaka Charcoal and Njiraini Food.

The winners of the challenge partly sponsored by Kenya Pipeline Corporation, Royal Media Services and Huawei Technologies Kenya Limited were unveiled during the International Youth Day presided over by President Uhuru Kenyatta on August 12.

The innovators are set to receive training, mentoring, financial support and other in-kind support.

“May I, at this juncture, take this opportunity to thank the Kenya Pipeline Corporation, Royal Media Services and Huawei Technologies Kenya Limited for partnering with us to ensure that the Fursa versus Virus Challenge was a success. We are particularly grateful to Huawei Technologies Kenya for covering internet costs for the entire Fursa versus Virus Challenge period as well as for providing 47 tablets and three (3) laptops for the winners,” said Kenyatta.

Kenya Pipeline Company (KPC) Dr. Irungu Macharia said government has committed itself to support the youth technically and with opportunities to access supply chain in various infrastructure projects through the Access to Government Procurement Activities programme.

“We are delighted to support youth by providing prize money of Sh400,000, and we also call on more public and private sector players to support this noble initiative,” she said.

During the competition Huawei Kenya supported outreach through the DigiTruck mobile training classroom reaching rural youth by giving them access to the internet and training on essential skills on demand in the remotest places in our country.

“We believe these devices we are providing today will go a long way to fulfilling young people’s dreams,” said Will Meng, CEO Huawei Kenya, Will Meng.

ICT CS Joe Mucheru thanked the partners saying: “Mastercard Foundation is one of the others partners we have been working with very closely. I want to recognize them alongside all the other partners we have: the UN; with the technology partners, Huawei and KCB. This is something we will continue to work together.”