Kenya - Business creation project

Describe your project or startup in a few words

Mboga slicer is an electrical machine designed to help you slice your groceries e.g. kales, cabbage, onions etc. inside your kitchen quickly and with a lot of ease.

01.01 Describe your project in more detail

Mboga slicer is composed of two main sections; the housing and collecting vessel. The housing houses the motor which rotates the cutting blade. The motor can be either be driven by AC power (Kenya power electricity) or DC power(solar energy). In the housing there is an opening, where groceries are fed into the machine where the blade slices them and they fall inside the collecting vessels. Upon finishing the user can disconnect the collecting vessel easily from the housing, empty it and clean it for use next time. The size of the slices can be adjusted depending on the cook's preference or depending on dish or salad being prepared to meet the any needs of our customers. Also the cutting blade can be easily removed and cleaned and kept in clean dry place.

01.02 What is the main problem you are trying to solve?

Healthy eating in our homes. Most of our groceries we eat inside our homes especially kales, spinach and cabbage are prepared by a seller in a kiosk around our estates. These groceries are cleaned in same water they clean for several customers ensuring they aren't purely clean. After preparing them, they are packed inside those woven carrier bags which leave some of their fibers in your groceries. Sometimes the sellers occasionally cut themselves while preparing your groceries leaving a few traces of blood in your groceries. Also when you aren't around, they pick for you groceries which aren't fresh so as they can clear their old stock. To conclude, this means that most of what we eat around our homes isn't clean and healthy as it should be.

01.03 Tell us the major benefits and/or advantages of using the product/service that your project intends to provide (at least 3).

Mboga slicer promotes clean and healthy inside our homes. Firstly, it allows you to pick fresh greens from the kiosks within your estate and go home. Inside your home, you clean your groceries thoroughly with clean water by yourself before slicing them in the mboga slicer. Secondly, it saves you time as you don't have to que waiting for your turn your groceries to be prepared by the seller. Even at home, mboga slicer can cut so fast than you can cut by yourself. Also, you can't yourself when using the machine as the cutting blade is enclosed inside when in operation making it safer and easier to use.

01.04 Please describe who exactly your project is aimed at serving. Who are the targeted beneficiaries?

In this 21st century, parents have become quite involved and busy while trying to provide and cater for their families. This in turn means that they have less time to prepare meals for their children and themselves hence, they have no time to start slicing greens e.g. kales like parents of the last century did. Machine like mboga slicer can help them a lot in bringing that culture back into their homes. Since most of our homes in Kenya are connected to the national grid of electric power, and the govt has plans for even more houses to be connected, they can employ the services of mboga slicer to cater for their needs in their kitchens. Mboga slicer can help them slice; kales, cabbage, spinach, tomatoes, onions, parsley, cucumber, carrots, potatoes (for bhajia or crips).

01.05 When did you start working on your project?

2022-12-01

01.06 How many other partners are associated with your business venture?

1

01.07 Among the other partners, how many are female?

0

01.08 Please describe the profile of each of the other partners (skills, experience, etc.)

My partner is a mechanical engineer by profession. He is more well equipped in the field of mechanical engineering. He is more proficient in product design as he is has amassed a lot skills in and knowledge in CAD designs. As he has also worked in manufacturing industries where he has become more prudent in manufacturing sectors, thus he can help us in reducing both development and manufacturing costs and ensure the company become profitable and survive competitive world.

01.09 If you have a website, a social media page (Facebook, Instagram, Linkedin…), or app, please provide the link here:

01.10 Which industry best describes your project?

a) Energy (equipment, services, sustainable energy and fuel)

02.01.01 My project contributes to the No poverty goal

7 - Strongly Agree

02.01.02 No poverty - Justification

Lack of employment elevates poverty to a certain degree. Employment plays a very vital role in any growth of any nation and its inhabitants and increasing the country's GDP. Our product will help mitigate this problem of unemployment in our nation in four main areas mainly; designing, manufacturing, logistics and sales. All these key areas requires qualified personnel to run their tasks and duties in ensuring the success of our product and growth of our company. In doing this, the employees must be compensated financially for their great work on monthly a basis. Since the employees have money, they can also promote other surrounding businesses by goods from them thus ensuring their is circulation of funds among them improving the economy of the community.

02.02.01 My project contributes to the Zero hunger goal

7 - Strongly Agree

02.02.02 Zero hunger - Justification

Our product helps in reduction of hunger in our community by providing job opportunities to many qualified youth, who can support the company with skillsets and drive the organisation forward. These youths can in turn be able to provide for their families with ease and ensure their families are well catered for. The surrounding businesses can also benefit from this since the employees can promote their businesses ensuring them also have enough capital to provide for their families.

02.03.01 My project contributes to the Good health and well-being goal

7 - Strongly Agree

02.03.02 Good health and well-being - Justification

Mboga slicer helps our customers prepare and eat a healthy and fresh food in their houses. Since they can clean their groceries at home themselves before preparing their food, this helps them mitigate almost all issues brought by dirty groceries. Due to this, it can reduce the trips they make to the hospitals to be treated due to stomach problems.

02.04.01 My project contributes to the Quality education goal

6

02.04.02 Quality education - Justification

Quality education plays a key role to growth of any nation in the world. Our product supports this key element of growth by ensuring that all our employees and staff are well paid and paid on time. This will ensure that, the employees and staff will manage to cater for their children education by taking them to better schools of their capabilities. The schools will be able nature their talents whether in the field of science, education and even sports and ensure Kenya has bright future.

02.05.01 My project contributes to the Gender equality goal

7 - Strongly Agree

02.05.02 Gender equality - Justification

The growth of any organisation is attributed by the great skillset and mindset of its employees and staff. For growth of company we have to ensure that, only qualified candidates will be selected according to their skillsets and capabilities to join our organisation. Mboga slicer mostly is in the field of engineering, and in our nation the ratio isn't good between men and women in engineering. We can solve this problem by allowing our company's personnel to travel to girl schools with our female staff to educate them more on the beauty of engineering and that its not only a men field but for everyone who has desire and is capable can pursue this field.

02.06.01 My project contributes to the Clean water and sanitation goal

2

02.06.02 Clean water and sanitation - Justification

02.07.01 My project contributes to the Affordable and clean energy goal

2

02.07.02 Affordable and clean energy - Justification

02.08.01 My project contributes to the Decent work and economic growth

7 - Strongly Agree

02.08.02 Decent work and economic growth - Justification

We believe that our product can provide decent work to our employees, where they can work professionally. The employees will be brought into their attention that they have key role to play in growth of the company and their inputs will be greatly appreciated and considered so as we can stay ahead of our competition. Due to their great work, the employees will receive a monthly stipend so as to cater for needs and those of their families with a lot of ease. The employees will also have an opportunity to support their community in their businesses by buying goods from them thus allowing circulation of money within the community and improving the welfare of everyone.

02.09.01 My project contributes to the Industry innovation and infrastructure

7 - Strongly Agree

02.09.02 Industry innovation and infrastructure - Justification

Mboga slicer is one of its kind on the market as people still use kitchen knives to slice the groceries. There is very little innovations in our community due to fears of "can't be done in Africa" and we think our product can ignite other youths to create similar products or other products of their own since they can see the possibilities and potential of having an innovative product. Better employment allows employees to rent or build their own better homes since they have the money to enable them. Our company will offer better employment hence solving this problem. Better hospitals can be build in side the community since people have money to pay for better treatment in the hospitals. School can be renovated and build better classrooms within the community, where learners can have quality education for a better future.

02.10.01 My project contributes to the Reduced inequalities goal

6

02.10.02 Reduced inequalities - Justification

We are commuted to ensure that our product is solely manufactured in Kenya and only having a few suppliers outside the country. This because, in our nation and our neighbouring nations, we depend mostly on electrical products from southeast Asia and don't export any to them. It brings in trade imbalance between them and us, hence affecting us financially. Mboga slicer can be used for different types of groceries around the world, hence it can be shipped around the world and in turn improve our trade with other nations in the world.

02.11.01 My project contributes to the Sustainable cities and communities goal

6

02.11.02 Sustainable cities and communities - Justification

Sustainable cities can be only developed by ensuring we use sustainable products in our cities in our daily lives. Our product promotes sustainable living by reducing the over-reliance of those woven bags to pack our sliced groceries as they themselves are not sustainable products since they still have bits of plastics in them. Also we will ensure that all parts that make up mboga slicer use materials that are recyclable so as not to pollute our environment.

02.12.01 My project contributes to the Responsible consumption and production goal

6

02.12.02 Responsible consumption and production - Justification

This mostly can attributed by ensuring most of the components that make up the product, their materials are recyclable and be used to produce same or different products. This will prompt us to request our local suppliers to mainly use recycled materials from recycling plants when producing our product. Due to this, it will drive more youths in collecting more recyclable wastes from our streets and from our households and taking them recycling plants thus improving our environment.

02.13.01 My project contributes to the Climate action goal

6

02.13.02 Climate action - Justification

We believe that every organisation, must stipulate policies to curb CO2 emissions to reduce global warming in our planet. Due to this challenge of global warming, we believe we can employ renewable sources of energy to power light devices e.g. lights, laptops in the offices hence reducing the demand from our national grid. This is because some of our electricity in our national grid is generated using crude oil i.e. Kipevu in Mombasa which emits CO2 emissions into the atmosphere. For our logistics purposes we will replace diesel lorries which is common in the manufacturing sector with electric lorries to ferry our raw materials into the factory and finished goods to stores around the country.

02.14.01 My project contributes to the Life below water goal

2

02.14.02 Life below water - Justification

02.15.01 My project contributes to the Life on land goal

2

02.15.02 Life on land - Justification

02.16.01 My project contributes to the Peace justice and strong institutions goal

6

02.16.02 Peace justice and strong institutions - Justification

Peace and tranquility in a community can be mainly achieved by providing employment opportunities to people of that community since idleness brings in theft, burglary, rape etc. Our company will promote peace by providing job opportunities to our jobless qualified fellow youths in our community and ensuring they can cater for their family needs.

02.17.01 My project contributes to the Partnerships for the goal

6

02.17.02 Partnerships for the goal - Justification

My project contributes to this by opening doors to many promising qualified youths. When people get employed they become financially stables and this improves the economy of our nation. These our employees will have an opportunity to provide the three basics of life which are food, shelter and clothing. Due to this poverty, insecurity will reduce in our country and start leave in peace and harmony.

05.01 There are a large number of customers who already use a product/service very similar to the product/service we envision creating.

1 - Strongly Disagree

05.02 The product/service we envision creating represents an entirely new type of product/service.

6

05.03 The product/service we envision creating could be described as a new technology.

7 - Strongly Agree

05.04 The product/service we envision creating is an improvement on an existing product or service.

5

05.05 The product/service we envision creating could be described as an extension of a range of products or services.

5

05.06 The product/service we envision creating responds to a demand or need that has not been satisfied by other products/services.

7 - Strongly Agree

05.07 The product/service we envision creating is a new version of an old product/service.

7 - Strongly Agree

05.08 Justification

The best thing with our product is that, it saves you a lot of time when preparing your meal. It can slice groceries fast than any humanly possible. You can have every ingredient for your meal sliced in mere seconds. Also you don't need to have special skills to operate it. No more time wasted while waiting in que to have your greens sliced by the seller. It provides healthy and clean eating for those who can't slice their own greens by themselves since don't have the skills to slice the greens themselves.

05.09 Who are your main potential competitors and what makes you stand out from them?

Most of the people of the use traditional kitchen knives to slice their groceries. When it comes to preparing greens like kales, spinach and cabbage it can be tedious and quite involving since it's a very slow process. Occasionally, you'll cut self when slicing the them, making it a painful process to undertake. Our product solves this problem by providing you with a very quick process since it's powered by electricity ensuring you prepare meals quickly. Since the machine is closed when in use it's very safe also to use as you can not cut yourself.

10.06 Are you initiating actions within your community to promote the role of female entrepreneurs?

No