Meet Mwotta the app developer, agriculture enthusiast, social entrepreneur and former Makerere guild presidential candidate, who is now determined to change the farmers’ fortunes.
As a child, Bazil Biddemu Mwotta always derived much pleasure from helping his mother Florence Nakisitu Biddemu at her farm in Mpigi. But as time went on, he realised one thing: middlemen cheat farmers in the process of connecting them to buyers of their products.
Mwotta felt bad for his mother, and decided he wanted to bring all this to an end. That is how his story began. Born in 1994, Mwotta was on September 21 awarded a gold medal in California USA for developing an app, AgroDuuka, an online platform that directly connects farmers to buyers in the market through use of SMS and the internet.
The competition
Being an internet enthusiast, Mwotta landed on an advert online by Internet Society seeking youths that have impacted on their surroundings through the use of the internet.
“I submitted my application online to the Internet Society and I competed against youth between the ages of 13 to 25 from around the world. 25 of us were awarded,” said an elated Mwotta, a student of Makere University, awaiting graduation in January next year.
“I would love to play a big part in the transformation of agriculture in Uganda. I would love to champion this struggle by doing all within my means to address the challenges faced by the agricultural sector not only in Uganda but also at a global stage,” he said of his winning innovation.
The app
“A farmer only needs to text that ‘I’m [let’s say] Luswata, I have 2 tonnes of maize and I’m selling each kilogram at say Shs800. We then send him the possible buyers and what prices they offer. He can then connect with them and sell off his farm produce,” he explained.
AgroDuuka was launched this year in March and Mwotta told Matooke Republic they have interacted with farmers from 36 villages in Mpigi district so far, charging a 10 per cent commission on sales, which he says is “very little money”. “It is 95 per cent less than the profits middlemen amass from exploiting these farmers,” he claimed.
Mwotta, who was pursuing a Bachelor’s degree in Education hopes to build a big online community, “an online market place where farmers and buyers can meet”, in the near future. He challenged the youth to follow through their brilliant ideas and devote their all into these ideas to make them bear fruit.
The 23-year-old has also represented Uganda on international fora like the East Africa Post Harvest Technologies Competition that was held in Arusha, Tanzania earlier this year, the Ashoka American Express Innovators BookCamp in Nairobi, Kenya (2016) and at the African Youth Forum in Ibadan, Nigeria (2017), among others.
