A young Rwandan entrepreneur last week walked home with $150,000 (about Rwf105 million), a prize money jointly awarded by the Howard G. Buffett Foundation, the Tony Blair Africa Governance Initiative (AGI), and the World Food Prize Foundation to develop an innovative, market-based approach to addressing food security.

Lillian Uwintwali, the founder and chief executive of MA-HWII, a Kigali-based software development firm received the fellowship and award dubbed "40 Chances” after presenting a proposal addressing issues of hunger, conflict or poverty in Africa.

The award ceremony was held in Des Moines, Iowa, US.

The award is given to African social entrepreneurs who develop and promote solutions that seek to address challenges of hunger, conflict or poverty in their countries and the rest of the continent.

Uwintwali plans to scale up her platform – Agro-FIBA technology – which provides e-extension services, market and financing information to about 3,000 smallholder farmers through the Internet and text messages.

Her firm intends to achieve this through partnerships with more than ten different farming cooperatives and building M-AHWIII’s infrastructure and technology capabilities to enable continued expansion.

The 25-year-old graduate of the former Kigali Institute of Science and Technology (now the University of Rwanda College of Science and Technology), started the communication and information technology firm three years ago with friends.

‘Delivering food-secure future’

She said the ultimate aim of their efforts is to deliver a more food-secure future for Rwanda by bridging the gaps in agriculture and strengthening value chains through information and ommunication technologies.

"We designed the platform after taking into account the different challenges that the agricultural sector is facing,” Uwintwali said.

"We didn’t overlook the problem; we resolved to get involved in solving the problem by tapping into the potential of ICTs to address some of these challenges that threaten food security.”

In a previous interview with this paper, Uwintwali said the firm was growing and was able to make over Rwf12 million in profits last year alone. They have also won ICT awards such as the Broadband Commission Award 2012.

The judging panel for the Rwandan fellowship was composed of former Prime Minister Pierre Damien Habumuremyi, former US Ambassador to Kenya, Zimbabwe and Uganda Johnnie Carson, and Dr Gebisa Ejeta, a World Food Prize Laureate.

Others included Mpule Kwelagobe, an non-governmental organisation leader, former Miss Universe Botswana and Christina PioCosta-Lahue of the Africa Governance Initiative.

Congratulating the winner of the fellowship, Kenneth M. Quinn, President of the World Food Prize that was founded by Dr Norman Borlaug, said among the wishes is the world food prize founder to promote development in Africa and to inspire the next generation.

"We are therefore tremendously excited to be part of this initiative to invest in market-based solutions to overcome the greatest challenges in hunger and poverty,” Quinn said.