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/
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 are successfully part of the 2022 cohort that runs from June 2022 to Feb 2023.
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 we are conducting 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 have also been working with us. We will present findings in Q1 2023.
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 project we are engaging with smallholder farmers, considering Gender & Social Inclusion, logistics, fish health and working towards testing a data collection prototype solution in 2021.
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 took part in the 4 month 2021 programme to strengthen our solution through connecting with startups, experts, corporations, and communities to grow our businesses.
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.