Fidelity Young Entrepreneurship Initiative Success Stories - SAYETECH Company Limited Name of business SAYETECH COMPANY LIMITED Name of business owner Jeffrey Boakye Appiagyei Tell us who you are My name is Jeffrey Boakye Appiagyei. I am an Agricultural Technology entrepreneur from Ghana with a passion for building sustainable agribusinesses in Africa and with a great positive desire to make a positive impact in our society. What motivated you to start the business? After graduation, I served for a year as an elementary teacher and mentor in a rural community without electricity in Northern Ghana. During that year, I assisted in raising funds for the construction of a solar-powered library that serves over 900 pupils in seven communities. I observed during my year there that parents usually came for their children during class hours to thresh their grain in the harvest season. This was greatly disheartening and I decided that manufacturing machines locally would be extremely beneficial to students in areas like these across Africa. I convinced a friend to join me in this endeavor and we began designing machines that could solve the problem. Our team became bigger with a few more resourceful additions and we set up the company SAYeTECH in 2018. Any success chalked? Since SAYeTECH’s inception in 2018, we have received Inquiries from more than 10 countries. We have a team of committed and happy staff. We produced and distributed units that are serving over 7000 farmers, partnered with 2 USAID Feed the Future Innovation Labs. Also, we have won several awards including Winner of American Society of Mechanical Engineers Innovation Showcase 2019, Impulse Accelerator 2020 backed by Mass Challenge, (Mohammed VI Polytechnic University)UM6P and Office Chérifien des Phosphates (OCP) Group-Gold Prize, AB Afrikpreneur Awards 2019, The OpEx Prize 2021 -Winner, 2nd Prize Enpact Covid Support to Entrepreneurs Global Pitch and Startup of the year by Ghana start-up awards- 2021. We also took part in the Israeli Green Innovation Competition 2020 and won for the Year. Any challenges/lessons learned? We have faced challenges that are not peculiar to us but other businesses such as: Team building Fundraising Employee management Policies that affect business operations Advice to young upcoming entrepreneurs At SAYeTECH we believe in the 'YOU HAVE IT' concept. We believe in the African youth and encourage the African youth to look within themselves commit, to hard work, discipline, excellence, and mentorship, and with gradual progress and work they will succeed because we have what it takes to succeed. How has the funding from the program helped your business? We received funding to manufacture 10 machines which are expected to reach over a thousand farmers in a year liberating over 100 women and children from unnecessary threshing and drudgery in Ghana as well as providing jobs for about thirty young people. You can also click here to start your application process and submit supporting documents.
