Entering the Latin American Market with an Eye Towards Social Development

Koeeru is proud to announce that our SHEP marketplace solution “Mi Mercado Verde”, has been selected for the B2B course in the Open Innovation Challenge TSUBASA2023. Developed for the Bolivian market with the goal of transforming agriculture through digitalization, Mi Mercado Verde uses the JICA-promoted SHEP approach to help farmers move from “growing and selling” to “growing to sell”.

TSUBASA2023 is an open innovation challenge organized by JICA and IDB Lab to promote new development cooperation between Japanese startup companies and the Latin American and Caribbean region. Koeeru plans to promote its own expansion into the Latin American region with the aim of commercializing Mi Mercado Verde.

Selection Announcement (in Japanese): https://tsubasa-jica.com/news/531/

Background behind the TSUBASA Selection

As one of our social enterprise initiatives, Koeeru has worked with JICA to develop our SHEP Marketplace, a tool to increase smallholding farmer incomes through digitalization and cultivation based on market needs.

Since last year, we have participated in the Japanese Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry’s DX Subsidy Program for Emerging Countries, developing an industry-academia-government co-creation project in the province of Santa Cruz, Bolivia. As part of this project, we developed “Mi Mercado Verde” to support Bolivian farmers’ SHEP adoption, which is now being used in JICA’s agricultural extension project.

Details of our Bolivian Project: Mission Complete: Developing an Application for Farmers in Bolivia

Aiming to commercialize Mi Mercado Verde, Koeeru applied for and was accepted to TSUBASA’s B2B course in order to build partnerships with local companies and promote a demonstration project.

Going forward, Koeeru will build a monetization model for Mi Mercado Verde, aiming for a sustainable approach that combines business development with solving social issues—improving the incomes and livelihoods of poor farmers remains our foremost goal.

What is TSUBASA 2023?

TSUBASA2023 is an open innovation challenge program organized by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) and IDB Lab, an Inter-American Development Bank group company. The program aims to promote new development cooperation between Japanese startups and the Latin America and Caribbean region, and TSUBASA supports startups with innovative ideas, business models, and technologies to achieve social development goals and provide startups with opportunities to implement their initiatives in Latin America and the and Caribbean region.

TSUBASA2023 offers two courses, B2B and B2G, and selected startups receive the support they need to develop their businesses and partnerships in each region. Through this program, efforts are being promoted to strengthen ties between Japan and the Latin America and Caribbean region and to promote sustainable development.

Details of the Tsubasa Program (in Japanese): https://tsubasa-jica.com

About Mi Mercado Verde

Mi Mercado Verde (Spanish for “My Green Market”) is an application that was co-created with the Departmental Agricultural Service of Santa Cruz (SEDACRUZ) and the Private Technological University of Santa Cruz (UTEPSA) in Bolivia as an industry-academia-government collaboration project, with the objective of digitally transforming the SHEP market-oriented agricultural promotion approach.

SHEP provides a mechanism for farmers to autonomously collect market prices, anticipate demand, and produce in anticipation of it, thereby improving profitability in a sustainable manner by changing their mindset from “grow and sell” to “grow to sell”.

Daily updates of market prices and product demand by the application’s users, including farmers, farmer extension workers, and market participants, enables the timely and comprehensive aggregation of market information. This enables farmers to efficiently collect market needs data that they did not previously have access to, and create new opportunities.

About Koeeru

Since its establishment in 2021, Koeeru has striven to develop innovative solutions in the fields of global research, customer experience, digital marketing, regional tourism, and SHEP with domestic and international companies, local governments, and international organizations.