KriShop

By 2050 there will be 10 billion people on earth with a food gap of 56% and a land gap of 593 million hectares due to deforestation and urbanization. Hence, it's time to create a new sustainable agricultural ecosystem. In addition, due to lack of traceability and usage of preservatives, the unregulated agricultural industry has become a nightmare for public health. 

Hence, we initiated KriShop which aims to convert every city into urban farms and create a direct bridge between the consumer and growers with its online platform. By providing modern and vertical farming resources and technologies we are pioneering new urban agro-entrepreneurs and then with KriShop, consumers can buy fresh veggies and fruits directly from them which will ensure traceability and food safety. 

Moreover, if scaled globally, KriShop's urban agricultural ecosystem will be able to solve future food shortage problems, provide extra earning sources, and reduce CO2.

The world would face a global food crisis by 2050 which will affect around 5.6 billion people. In addition to that, CO2 in the atmosphere reached record levels in 2020, hitting 417 ppm that can cause & lead us to a devastating future. 

In the world of uncertainty, the conventional food supply chain can also be disrupted especially during the time of pandemics. Besides, the food that we are consuming is also being contaminated in various ways. So, there is a need of building a community-based safe food supply chain to overcome such disruptions along with reviving the planet. 

Hence, KriShop is addressing the RESILIENT ECOSYSTEMS challenge by pioneering community-based agro-entrepreneurship to manage and restore the local ecosystem by creating scalable economic opportunities for local communities aligned with biodiverse ecosystems in the cities.

Bangladesh stood 84th in GFSI because of its unregulated agriculture industry. Even globally 26.4% of people are struggling with food insecurity & world hunger, which is currently affecting nearly 690 million people and is projected to exceed 840 million by 2030

That is why KriShop focuses on creating a safe agricultural ecosystem that will boost safe food production and turn the urban ecosystem green!

KriShop is the first-ever multi-sided online platform that offers direct access to fresh crops that are grown in your city & the power of traceability in your hand. KriShop is the market maker with which you can buy fresh fruits and vegetables that are grown in your own city or might be harvested right above your head just a couple of minutes before you buy them. KriShop is connecting urban gardeners to enable buy, share and grow fresh vegetables and fruits in cities.

KriShop empowers the urban gardeners based on their necessities so that they achieve higher yields and sell their extra harvested outcomes through KriShop's cloud-based application. Krishop also provides agro-technologies like Hydroponics, Aeroponics, and Aquaponics along with IoT-enabled smart sensors to remind you when and how much to water your plant. 

Since KriShop's core concentration is to establish a community-based food supply ecosystem, it uses its data-driven online platform to find the perfect match for the buyer and seller. Moreover, with its online resources, KriShop is pioneering urban agro-entrepreneurs. That's how KriShop cuts transportation miles and helps reduce greenhouse emissions by transforming the concrete city jungles into a green ecosystem. 

KriShop serves two major customer segments. It will actively be pioneering new urban agro-entrepreneurs and then it will serve health-conscious people in the same community by providing organic fresh fruits and vegetables. Alongside that, KriShop is passively helping the planet to restore its balance by creating oxygen banks (the urban farms!) in the cities. 

KriShop will have a direct impact on both of the customer segments and improve their lives meaningfully.

Urban gardening enthusiasts will get benefitted from our expert assistance on food harvesting at their open space, balcony, or rooftop. hence, KriShop will work alongside urban gardeners to improve their yield at a significant rate by helping them with eco-enzyme and modern growing methods like hydroponic, aquaponic, and aeroponic. KriShop will also adopt a backward linkage strategy to implement urban Barga cultivation to provide a stable supply to health-conscious people of the same community. Thus by doing so KriShop is creating new urban-agro entrepreneurs who are creating an extra earning source for themselves by selling their products through KriShop. 

At KriShop's urban Barga cultivation strategy, it will approach landlords of the community to rent their open space or rooftop for initiating a master farm cared by KriShop. The landlords will either be offered half of the income or harvested outcome from that master farm. 

KriShop will make investments, monitor, and take care of that master farm in exchange landlord must ensure the security, or else the agreement will consider as VOID. So with the kind support from urban gardeners and KriShop's master farm, we will try to provide a stable supply.

In Bangladesh, the trend of rooftop gardening and organic fruits and vegetables is increasing but the existing services are not sufficient to cater to this increasing amount of customer segment. Thus, KriShop is redefining the current food supply chain with its ties with food growers and food buyers in an urban context.

Also, a major problem in Bangladesh and most other countries is food safety. As KriShop is producing fruits and vegetables locally with guaranteed traceability, we will be able to overcome this problem.  

Currently, KriShop is testing the tradeoff mindset among both urban gardeners and health-conscious people with the help of social media. Hence KriShop is running a Facebook group to engage and encourage food growers to share their harvested outcome.  KriShop is prioritizing the supply problem first. Thus, KriShop aims to run a pilot program while working alongside urban gardeners within the 3rd quarter of this year and hopefully KriShop will successfully bring out some traction to fulfill both the customer segment's needs.

Therefore, by aggregating and pioneering new agro-entrepreneurs KriShop is a whole new urban food production industry from which any city dweller can be benefited. Housewives or elderly people will get an extra earning source through KriShop. It can also positively impact less educated people and slum children too. One of the major obstacles for the slum children's education is, they are bound to do other works to provide for their family. But with KriShop's urban cultivation process they can easily produce for their family and carry on with their education too. KriShop's initiative on a global scale will not only help people to survive but also the planet too as we are transforming every rooftop of the cities into gardens.  

KriShop is creating a market for the urban farmers and also by providing recourses and expert assistance we are helping new agro enthusiasts in becoming agro-entrepreneurs and with our platform will be their extra earning source. By doing so we are creating scalable economic opportunities for everyone in the cities. And to ensure fresh fruits and vegetables we make sure our growers follow GAP(Good Agricultural Practice) and use regenerative agriculture. This helps to ensure better yield in the urban areas too.  

Besides by transforming Every rooftop into farms, we are creating a bio-diverse urban ecosystem. 

We cross-checked our idea with other CEOs and Entrepreneurs already so we are now developing our online platform, connecting with urban gardening enthusiasts, talking with our source partners, and finalizing our operation model for piloting the project. Thus, the prototype stage explains our current stage perfectly.   

KriShop is the first-ever platform that is creating a new urban gardening industry in Bangladesh. It is not only providing assistance in becoming an agro-entrepreneur but also creating a market for both the independent buyers and sellers. KriShop is giving consumers a platform to buy fresh fruits and vegetables online to save them their time and health. 

Furthermore, by creating an urban gardening ecosystem we are transforming our cities into oxygen banks for the planet!  

Moreover, KriShop is providing modern agro-technologies and eventually, IoT-enabled sensors to initiate smart and easy gardening practices. KriShop is also creating extra earning sources for the people living in the cities and the combination of all these things together makes KriShop's approach innovative by impacting lives and the planet. 

Currently, we have engaged 6 urban gardeners as our agro entrepreneurs as they are our primary beneficiaries. We have been operating a Facebook group to test the trade-off mindset of foods from urban gardeners with city dwellers.

We are expecting to reach 4000 urban gardeners in our first year to passively serve approximately 100k people with fresh foods.

In five years, our projected KPI is to engage 75000 urban gardeners only in Dhaka city to serve approximately 20 Million city dwellers.

We have projected some KPIs to ensure our growth. Our first year's KPI will be to empower 4000 urban agro entrepreneurs. In the second year, we will be expanding to 9 more communities within Dhaka City to serve 10000 urban agro entrepreneurs. In the third year, the fourth year, and fifth year our KPI will be 16000, 40000, and 75000 urban agro entrepreneurs respectively.

Full-time: 4

Part-time:2

Total: 6

We have  6 members in our team with a diverse set of skills. We are from different domains of academics from Computer Engineering, Software Development, Aeronautical Engineering to Marketing, Botany, and Economics! 

Saleh is passionate about urban gardening and is a grower himself. He is a Senior Undergraduate student in Marketing and with his skills, in both areas he is helping us to boost our initiative to a new level.  

Ikram is an experienced app developer and Junior Computer Science student with a knack for solving problems. He is developing the online platform so that we can form the bridge between the customer and the growers. 

Tithi is a senior in Botany and is into finding out new and better ways to provide organic nutrients to ensure healthy plants. She with her academic skills is working on developing eco enzymes.  

Malay is the most senior member of the team. He is a lecturer, an entrepreneur, and a social activist. 

And I, Srijan am passionate about solving real-life problems with technology and am a junior in my undergraduate studies in CSE. I am skilled in Strategic Development and IoT integration and have initiated various social impact projects to serve my community and with the experiences gathered from the past, I together with my team am moving Krishop forward as a unit.  

We believe this diversity in the team makes us the best combination to solve the moonshot problem that we are working on.   

What I have understood from my journey (although not a very big one yet) that an idea or an initiative can work perfectly only when the people behind it are strong enough as a team. I have a very awesome team and with all my heart I value them and try to help them as much as I can in any sort of development. I follow these 4 'C's in my team: Communication, Coordination,

Compromise, and Customise. Thus this is how we ensure inclusiveness in the team. Moreover, our team has members from many disciplines and this diversity in the team helps us to generate new ways to solve the problems. Our vision is that one day we will be able to say, "One Rooftop, One Farm". But we cannot do that alone and that is why we want to include every agro-entrepreneur out there in KriShop. Because we believe in the power of Global Inclusion and Diversity.

We are applying to solve because to pilot and expand our project we need funding and solve seems to be the best place to pitch our problem. At the same time, we are really very passionate about solving the problems that we are addressing hence we are working tirelessly to operate without any financial dependency. So, we would love to pitch our solutions to the experts to get evaluated and improve more. Solve would give us an international platform to share our vision and turn it into a reality. Moreover, we plan to go international by the 3rd year of our operation, hence this platform would hopefully give us the opportunity to connect with other entrepreneurs. Furthermore, as we are all student entrepreneurs, SOLVE's mentorship and guidance would be very helpful for us to boost our initiative. 

Our solution is creating urban farms in the cities and connecting urban farmers with each other and at the same time connecting the consumers with them si that they can have scalable business opportunities. So, transforming every rooftop into urban gardens we are absorbing the carbon dioxide of the cities to transform every city into green cities with urban farms working as oxygen farms.  So we feel like we qualify for the prize. 

Food safety is one of the utmost necessities for every community out there and we are building a resilient food supply chain within the cities that would be divided into communities to tackle the pressing food-related issues. thus, we believe our solution would be suitable for this prize.

Consequently, it will help our team to expand our operation outside the cities while diversifying our target group to serve underprivileged peoples within the communities.