ASA/WISHH congratulates Isaac Sesi, a strategic partner for the Assisting the Management of Poultry and Layer Industries with Feed Improvements and Efficiency Strategies (AMPLIFIES) Ghana Project. Isaac is one of 35 people from around the world selected by MIT Technology Review to be included on its prestigious 2019 list of Innovators Under 35.
AMPLIFIES Ghana is a U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Food for Progress Program. Through AMPLIFIES, WISHH has connected Sesi Technologies with Ghanaian crop and poultry farmers who benefit from the use of Sesi’s GrainMate moisture meters. Paul Armstrong, a USDA Ph.D. engineer working as part of the U.S. Agency for International Development’s Feed The Future Innovation Lab for the Reduction of Post-Harvest Losses project, designed the affordable grain moisture meter in partnership with Isaac’s school, the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.
Isaac’s entrepreneurial spirit made him an excellent candidate to produce and commercialize the GrainMate in Ghana. Sesi Technologies is comprised of a team of young people from diverse fields who are passionate about tackling poverty and empowering the African farmer with affordable technology. They streamlined the original device, built an accompanying mobile app, and founded Sesi Technologies to commercialize the moisture meter, which Isaac named GrainMate.
AMPLIFIES demonstrations have shown that GrainMate is a valuable tool for crop farmers to measure and maintain the quality of their grains. Also, AMPLIFIES project poultry farmers benefit because they can use it to monitor and protect the quality of their feed rations.
Isaac and his colleagues are expanding the market for the GrainMate to other African countries. They are also winning even more awards. In April, GrainMate took second place in the IDEA Category during the Global Entrepreneurship Congress in Bahrain and was one of three winners in the American Society of Mechanical Engineers IShow Kenya competition.