Women are the engine of the agricultural sector

The AgriTradeKenya (ATK) is an innovative project that is utilizing technology as a tool to create agricultural market efficiencies in Eastern Africa. The ATK project aims to network fishing, livestock and crop producing rural communities in the Lake Victoria Basin Region of Kenya with entrepreneurs, processors and agricultural service providers through an online web portal. The portal will provide a showcase of goods, services and best practices and provide an online trade component. This model utilizes the most proven theories of market economy, efficiencies through technology and communication to create a unique plan action for facilitating real change in the community. The Project will be piloted in Mbita, Muhoroni and Migori.

In September 2003, Digital Partners selected the ATK project as one of its 10 award winners out of 130 entrants across the world to participate in its Social Enterprise Laboratory (2004) programme. Digital Partners is a non-profit organization based in the United States of America  that works to alleviate poverty on a global scale through deployment of technology to assist development efforts . This enabled ATK Team Members to participate in a 7 month mentoring program ( November 2003 – May 2004) During the mentoring phase of the project which lasted November 2003 – May 2004, Digital Partners was able to link up the ATK Project with a team of six graduate students from the School of Information at the University of Michigan and an executive advisor from Microsoft Corporation to provide support for the for the development of the ATK Business Plan and addition, create on-line portal specifications, telecentre staff hiring and training materials, and marketing plans as part of their learning process.