Silicon Valley based software development company, HashCash Consultants, is in talks with a new crop of entrepreneurs in Kenya for collaborations on tech-heavy projects. The operations are expected to hit the floor in the first quarter of 2019.
The objective of the project is to strengthen the infrastructure of the agricultural sector with optimized logistics. According to its contribution to the Kenya’s GDP, this sector is the backbone of the economy. It accounts for 25% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP), 65% of total exports, and more than 18% of formal employment. However, this sector has its share of challenges, and the primary cause behind dwindling food reserves has been identified to be post-harvest wastage. The loss is close to a daunting 50% of the produce.
The implementation of blockchain will provide a decentralized distributed ledger to record data that represent the quantity and quality of crops harvested, transported, and sold.
The difference in statistics updated at every stage of the supply chain will facilitate a more accurate calculation of post-harvest loss and narrow down the problem areas in the infrastructure. This record will be a highly reliable one because the encryption with which the data are protected is near impossible to hack. Therefore, the blockchain ledger will cancel out all possibility of manipulated reports and corruption.
The Kenyan private sector is steadily looking to incorporate technological innovations to provide more efficient products that are easy to implement across industries. Blockchain has emerged as a favorite, largely due to the efforts by the Kenyan government to utilize it for transparency in votes during their recent elections. This has clearly fortified trust in the technology.
HashCash Consultants, besides customizing blockchain solutions to meet the specific needs of their clients, also bring an option for better funding for these projects. The process of raising adequate funds to power ideas focused on agriculture is a difficult one, as the industry does not excite traditional venture capitalists.
The route of ICOs provided by the blockchain company is a quick and easy alternative to accrue capital for the entrepreneurs without having to divest any part of the ownership rights of their company.
