Partners / No matter how innovative the idea, we appreciate no one can act alone to ensure success implementation. Therefore, we actively seek and value partnerships across a range of topics related our social enterprise. Below is a list of key partnerships to date.
For those interested in collaborating with us, please get in touch via our Contact page.
Active Partners/
Intellecap has launched an accelerator program, ‘Business Acceleration through gender mainstreaming’ which aims to support climate smart agricultural enterprises in Kenya, Rwanda, Tanzania and Uganda to scale-up and simultaneously mainstream gender in their operations.
In 2023 we have been selected as part of this 4 month programme which is part of the wider ‘Reorienting the private sector to enable climate-smart agricultural solutions to address gender inequalities’ programme, being supported by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC).
The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) and Impact Hub Kigali (IHK), with the support of USAID Bureau of Humanitarian Affairs (BHA) and the Danish Ministry of Foreign Affairs, are looking for solutions in Rwanda that address food insecurity through strengthening food systems. The IGNITE Food Systems Challenge supports the scaling of innovative Startups, MSMEs, and cooperatives with commercially viable solutions to address gaps in the food system. Each selected venture will receive up to $30,000 in grant funding & 4 months curated technical support to address business gaps.
We are pleased to say we are taking part in the 2023, 4 month programme with objectives to support our mass scale up.
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Rwanda Private Sector-Led Transformation Programme (RPTP) RPTP is a programme designed to drive Rwanda’s economic growth via close collaboration between the public and private sector. In the implementation of this project, the Government will play a more facilitation role, assisting the private sector to realise their investments in Rwanda. NjordFrey were selected from June 2022 to take part as a private sector member.
NjordFrey have partnered with Bridges for Enterprise. Their mission is to empower early-stage social entrepreneurs to scale their ventures and expand their impact. Founded in 2015 at the University of Cambridge, they are a non-profit organisation home to a global community of purpose-driven professionals and students that provide advisory services to social innovators in the developing world.
NjordFrey are excited to take part in their multi-stage, virtual, Incubation Programme, starting November 2021. We have completed Financial, Technical and Legal stages and currently taking part in the Software Development Stage in 2022/23.
NjordFrey have partnered with CAREED (Centre for African Research on Enterprise and Economic Development) at the University of West Scotland (UWS) to develop a Digital Farm Health Monitoring System that will increase the performance and intelligence of our solutions.
As part of this ongoing project we are engaging with smallholder farmers, considering Gender & Social Inclusion, logistics, fish health and working towards proving a data collection prototype solution developed in 2021-22 under the Innovate UK Agri-tech Competition.
Our primary farm output is fresh nutritious fish and vegetable produce. However due to a current lack of cold supply chain infrastructure (temperature controlled transport and storage) to keep produce fresh, NjordFrey are also investigating the option of drying produce to extend its shelf life and to aid transport.
In turn we have partnered with Edinburgh Napier University (ENU) who will help develop a renewable powered food drying solution that can be deployed effectively into the local Rwandan context. In particular, with the support of Universiti Teknologi Malaysia (UTM), they will be focusing on developing a novel solar concentrator to regulate temperature.
Previous Partners/
MassChallenge is a global, zero-equity startup accelerator, founded in Boston, Massachusetts in 2009. As of 2019, MassChallenge has accelerated more than 1,900 startups that have raised more than $4.3 billion in funding and generated $2.5 billion in revenue.
We successfully completed both their 2021 and 2022 cohort programmes. The 2022 programme ran from June 2022 to Feb 2023, where we won 2 separate industry awards with cash prizes.
The Milken-Motsepe Innovation Prize Program is a series of multi-year, multimillion-dollar prize competitions and programs to advance technological solutions that accelerate progress towards the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), with a spotlight on Africa.
As part of the prize program (Feb 22 - Feb 23) we conducted a year long field study to collect real world data and user experience to demonstrate the value addition of our technology.
During which, their due diligence partner WFP also conducted site visits.
Ondernemers voor Ondernemers (OVO) selected NjordFrey to take part in the SusTech4Rwanda accelerator programme. We were partnered with Belgian/Rwandan mentors to strengthen our business material. Unfortunately we were not successful in going through to the finals however we gained valuable input throughout.
Developing talent and interest in the agri-tech sector is important to ensuring we continue to develop innovative solutions and maximise impact.
In the Summer of 2020, NjordFrey partnered with University of Strathclyde Glasgow (UoS) by taking on 5 MBA students as part of their Summer Placement Programme. These 5 students worked on 3 NjordFrey R&D projects for 3 months to tackle real business challenges. Each MBA student produced a final dissertation to consolidate their research, which NjordFrey has incorporated into its business.
NjordFrey are continuing to partner with UoS, taking on a 3 week internship student in January 2021 to look at exporting produce from Rwanda into various European countries.
University of Glasgow (UoG) hold a 10 day Management Consultancy Event each year, where students are organised in groups to tackle a real world business challenge presented to them by the private sector.
In June 2020, students were presented a NjordFrey business challenge related to Export of Produce, and given 10 days to determine the solution. As a result, NjordFrey were presented with information that helped inform which vegetable to target and which countries outside of Rwanda that we should consider expanding into.
In May 2019, NjordFrey was successfully selected as part the EIT Food Seedbed Accelerator Programme as 1 of 18 participants.
The accelerator was aimed at supporting start ups through the customer journey phase and as a result NjordFrey completed multiple bootcamps in Spain and Belgium and conducted over 58 interviews across Rwanda, Kenya, Netherlands, Denmark and the UK.
As a result NjordFrey gained detailed insight into multiple customer segments that strengthened out business solution.