Startup Story
Mary Aboagye is a co-founder of aiScarecrow Technologies (Ghana), an Agritech startup focused on crop protection, helping cereal farmers successfully ward-off pest birds from consuming their crop. With her background as an environmental scientist, she established the environmental change agency, an organisation dedicated to environmental preservation. Her efforts got her enlisted as one of the top 540 women in Africa involved in the Agritech or Agribusiness space. She co-founded aiScarecrow Technologies in 2019 and has since then won several awards including the KIC Agritech challenge 2019, the ingenuity cup 2021, the Israeli green innovation competition 2022.
LoA chatted to the innovation-driven Mary Aboagye about her entrepreneurial journey and her passion for finding solutions to real agribusiness challenges.
What does your company do?
aiScarecrow Technologies is a crop protection startup that helps cereal farmers-specifically rice, sorghum and millet farmers to successfully ward off pest birds from their farms. On average these farmers lose 15-20% of the yield to pest birds, losses are to the tune of over $ 80 million annually. These farmers spend on average 8-10 hours a day trying to ward of these birds from their farms. Our solution helps the farmers cut losses to these pest birds by 90-95% as well as enabling them save on average 8-10 hours of valuable time.
“aiScarecrow Technologies is a crop protection startup that helps cereal farmers-specifically rice, sorghum and millet farmers to successfully ward off pest birds from their farms.”
What inspired you to start your company?
After a visit to large farms, the farm officers shared their sentiment and difficulty in controlling pest birds on their fields. They asked for a solution since all efforts had proven futile and conventional methods of bird scaring which involve making of noise the clanging of metals and use of catapults have been seen to be largely ineffective.
A need was identified and an opportunity was spotted.
Why should anyone use your service or product?
Some farmers have been seen to engage their own children in bird scaring exercises which is detrimental to their education. Our solution helps ensure that these children are taken off the fields and return to the classroom. Our solution helps contribute to the attainment of the sustainable development goals 1,2,4,8 and 13.
Tell us a little about your team
Silas Karikari Boateng is the Agriculturist with 6 years in the Agricultural space, Bright Tetteh Kwao is the technical lead of the team, he has a background in engineering physic and is a technology enthusiast. Isaac Boakye is the Operations lead of the team, he has a background in Computer Science. Boris Boadi is the financial lead of the team with a background in accounting and finance.
Share a little about your entrepreneurial journey. And do you come from an entrepreneurial background?
My entrepreneurial journey began right after university, I founded a multi-national organization called environmental change agents which is made up of young graduates from some select African countries committed to saving the environment. My drive for entrepreneurship got me to seek more training and mentorship hence I enrolled in the 2019 Agritech challenge organised by Kosmos innovation centre, which was a 10 month program where deep insight into entrepreneurship, presentation, accounting, business management, team building and so on were taught. I was also part of the Young African Leaders Initiative in 2018.
“Our solution helps the farmers cut losses to these pest birds by 90-95% as well as enabling them save on average 8-10 hours of valuable time.”
“I derive the most satisfaction when I see how our efforts have been able to enable children of school going age return to the classroom where they ought to be rather than work long hours on the field trying to ward off pest birds.”
What are your future plans and aspirations for your company?
The menace of pest birds consuming the crop of hardworking farmers isn't peculiar to my country, Ghana, alone. It’s a problem of the whole Sub-Saharan region. Hence, our future plans are to scale beyond the shores of Ghana into the rest of Sub-Saharan Africa.
What gives you the most satisfaction being an entrepreneur?
I derive the most satisfaction when I see how our efforts have been able to enable children of school going age return to the classroom where they ought to be rather than work long hours on the field trying to ward off pest birds.
What's the biggest piece of advice you can give to other women looking to start-up?
What I would say to other women is, mentorship is everything! Seek guidance, seek mentorship, it will save you from making mistakes that could have been avoided. Robert Kiyosaki says 9 out of 10 business fail in the first 5 years and 9 out of 10 of the businesses that make it pass the first 5 years ultimately fail. Be that as it may, I believe if the failed businesses were to learn from the few that ultimately succeed, they have a higher chance of making it too.
Contact or follow aiScarecrow Technologies
FACEBOOK | TWITTER | INSTAGRAM | YOUTUBE | EMAIL ppmaryaboagye@gmail.com
Why LoA loves it…
Many women entrepreneurs in Africa are real change-makers, driven to build businesses that can find innovative solutions to real problems on the continent. Environmental scientist and agritech entrepreneur, Mary Aboagye, co-founded her business because she was passionate about helping cereal farmers to successfully ward-off pest birds from consuming their crops. As a result of her agritech innovations, she is saving them precious time, money and resources, enabling them to focus on maximizing their crop yields and contributing to food security on the continent. Now, that’s real change-making! — Melanie Hawken, founder & ceo, Lionesses of Africa