Nairobi, Kenya – 4 December 2025
Day 2 of the East African Youth in Agri-Food Systems Expo 2025 (EAYASE-25), led by AGRA in partnership with regional institutions, unfolded as a powerful showcase of youth innovation, technology, and enterprise financing. The day provided a practical, hands-on engagement platform where young agripreneurs explored how digital tools, emerging technologies, and inclusive financial models can unlock productivity and accelerate transformation across the region’s agrifood systems.
Youth innovation emerged as the defining theme of the day, highlighting both the promise and the challenges facing young entrepreneurs. Discussions underscored that youth across East Africa possess a deep reservoir of creativity and problem-solving capacity, yet continue to face systemic barriers that hinder their ability to scale. In a powerful keynote, Dr. Julius Gatune emphasized that young people are not short of ideas but often lack the ecosystems comprising platforms, mentorship, financing, and institutional support required to commercialize their innovations. Innovation, he noted, is no longer aspirational; it is an economic and social necessity for building resilient, competitive agrifood systems.
The day’s sessions highlighted the rapid expansion of digital agriculture solutions. GIZ Tanzania demonstrated how artificial intelligence is reshaping production planning, disease prediction, and monitoring systems, expanding the capacity of farmers and agripreneurs to make data-driven decisions. Kenya Airways added a unique cross-sector dimension by showcasing drone technology that is revolutionizing crop monitoring and precision agriculture, alongside financing programmes designed to help farmers and youth enterprises adopt modern tools. Kilimo DataHouse, Eclectics International and other technology partners offered demonstrations on digital record-keeping, supply-chain platforms, and financial profiling systems, enabling youth to strengthen traceability, build stronger business cases, and enhance their investment readiness.
A highlight of the day was the Youth Innovation Showcase moderated by Sithembile Mwamakamba, Director of Policy and Research at FANRPAN. She anchored the session in the broader need for ecosystems that support and not just celebrate youth-led enterprise. Drawing on FANRPAN’s collaboration with AGRA under the Knowledge Management for Policy Harmonisation and Implementation Programme, she emphasized that youth-led innovations must inform policy reforms and contribute to shaping more enabling environments. The entrepreneurs showcased demonstrated ingenuity across aquaculture, renewable-energy poultry systems, and climate-smart value-chain creation. Their stories reflected the realities of entrepreneurship: the risks taken, the sacrifices made, and the determination required to translate ideas into functioning businesses.
Sithembile urged participants to think beyond applause and focus instead on building ecosystems where youth enterprises can truly grow systems that combine markets, mentorship, enabling policies, and patient capital. The showcase featured three dynamic agripreneurs whose innovations demonstrated the breadth and potential of youth-led solutions. Elizabeth, an aquaculture innovator, presented smart water-monitoring systems that use sensors and digital tools to optimise feed efficiency and reduce fish mortality, strengthening opportunities within the blue economy. Nicky, a renewable-energy champion from Uganda, shared her solar-powered incubators and fireless brooders, technologies that lower production costs and expand clean-energy solutions for rural poultry farmers. Robin, working at the intersection of aquaculture and climate-smart innovation, introduced Africa’s first modular, solar-powered crayfish hatchery a groundbreaking model that opens an entirely new value chain for East Africa. Their journeys highlighted the resilience, ingenuity, and determination of young innovators addressing real challenges across the continent, proving that meaningful transformation is already being shaped by the hands of Africa’s youth.
Financing emerged repeatedly as a central determinant of youth enterprise success. Equity Bank outlined opportunities for young entrepreneurs to access financing through youth-oriented credit products, digital scoring mechanisms, blended finance structures, and enterprise-support programmes such as 2Jiajiri, a program aims to create direct and indirect employment opportunities for young people. Discussions revealed that traditional lending models are still poorly aligned with the realities of early-stage agritech and agripreneurship ventures. Participants explored how financial institutions could redesign products to recognize the iterative nature of innovation, reduce collateral barriers, and create growth pathways for youth enterprises.
The Expo was made possible through the collaboration of the East African Community (EAC), FANRPAN, YOULEAD, Global South, Kenya Airways, FAO, GIZ, Equity Bank, Kilimo DataHouse, Eclectics International, Kenya Airways, and a range of regional youth innovation actors. As a co-organiser, FANRPAN used the engagements to deepen its policy insights and strengthen its role in supporting youth innovation, ensuring that experiences from the Expo inform regional policy harmonisation and implementation through its AGRA-funded knowledge management programme. Together with AGRA’s leadership, these partners are helping create an enabling environment where young Africans can drive meaningful transformation across the agrifood system.