Early this year we had a catch up with Joseph, who had taken part in the StartupAfrica Roadtrip program back in 2021 in Kampala.
Joseph was born and raised in Uganda, the country with the youngest population in the world. He describes with passion and optimism a young generation attending the more than 40 universities around the country, getting ready to take up the challenges with their ideas. And knowing Joseph, it is hard to doubt his words!
Joseph attended our program as a Project Manager at Marula Proteen: a startup that converts organic mono-streams into nutrient-dense fertilizer with their one-of-a-kind Supercharged Fertilizer technology. The innovative process starts from the organic waste preparation in a greenhouse to which larvae are added. After 10 days of feeding, the larvae are shredded and the decomposition process starts, followed by a final drying phase. This is how they get to the final product, the “Protilizer”: a completely organic fertilizer, rich of micronutrients, which also regenerates the soils.
“We transform trash into cash” used to be the punchline of Joseph on stage while pitching Marula Proteen! By making farming more productive and more sustainable.
At that time Joseph was fully involved in the certification and validation of the whole process with the Black Soldier Flies and since then, he has also completed his studies of Veterinary Medicine at the Makerere University of Kampala.
In 2024 Joseph launched a startup himself, Anischolar, a platform connecting students to companies (just as happened with him and Marula Proteen).
He recalls (as we listen with a big smile on our faces) that it all started in 2022 when he visited Politecnico di Milano and the Fab Lab during the Startup Africa Roadshow. He was impressed and interested by the projects and connections between researchers, students, institutions and companies, bringing real innovation on the market!
But what’s Anischolar? The startup is filling the gap between students and companies, answering questions such as “What professional would you become?”, “What are the industry needs?”, “How what I’m studying is connected to reality?”.
The first results? 550 students have already joined the platform in less than one year!
In 2024, Anischolar was selected to join the Youth Startup Academy Uganda project, launched by the incubator Hive Colab with the support of the Korea SMEs and Startup Agency. Joseph and his team made it through the 3 phases of the program, ending among the 10 finalists who pitched for success!
What’s next?
Joseph has very clear ideas: seeking investment and entering the pre-seed round, enable scalability by efficient enrollment. The final and long-term vision is to make Anischolar an ecosystem of companies and students to really improve the daily condition, economy, youth condition in general.
Ça va sans dire the scalability of the project in the entire Uganda and potentially the entire Africa could be impacted by Anischolar.
It was good to hear from Joseph again and hopefully his story and insights could be inspiring for others!