Kone Gninlnagnon is a young entrepreneur who dreams of exporting rice from Côte d’Ivoire to the world.
But he knows the quality of the rice must be improved and tested in the domestic market first. Thus, a new business idea was born: helping to make homegrown rice more competitive. “We cannot win the loyalty of consumers with bad quality rice,” he says. His project, “Riz Ivoire,” would promote the rice that comes from the heart of Côte d’Ivoire and help deliver high-quality rice to Ivorian dining tables. He also wants to encourage other Ivorian youth to invest in “rizculture.”
Now Gninlnagnon is one step closer to achieving his dream. His project won third place in the Start-up Competition at ICI 2014, the Fourth Côte d‘Ivoire National Investment Forum that took place in the city of Abidjan in January. While the three-day event focused on investment opportunities in the country’s key sectors like agriculture, industry, and infrastructure, the spotlight of the closing ceremony fell on entrepreneurship and the youth of Côte d’Ivoire, as they are the drivers of future growth and innovation in the post-conflict country. Côte d’Ivoire aims to be an emerging market economy by 2020. In 2013, the country’s growth rate was 8.7%.
