Uganda’s SANDI AI Takes Home UGX 190M in GoGettaz Agripreneur Prize 2026
KIGALI, Rwanda — September 2026
A Ugandan artificial intelligence company has walked away with the top prize at this year’s GoGettaz Agripreneur competition, collecting US$50,000 — roughly UGX 190 million — for technology that helps smallholder farmers borrow money without putting up collateral.
SANDI AI Technologies, founded by Ugandan entrepreneur Nabakka Sandra, was named Grand Prize Winner during the Africa Food Systems Forum 2026 Summit in Kigali. The summit drew investors, government officials, agricultural bodies and founders from across the continent for talks on rebuilding Africa’s food systems.
The judges singled out SANDI AI for an AI-driven platform that links rural farmers to security-free loans — an attempt to solve what remains one of the most stubborn problems in African agriculture. Farmers who own productive land and know their markets are still routinely turned away by lenders because they cannot produce payslips, title deeds or other conventional collateral.
Sandra said the win confirmed what she had set out to prove.
“Farmers should not be limited by systems that were not designed around their realities,” she said. “Technology gives us an opportunity to understand farmers better, recognise their potential, and create pathways that allow them to access the resources they need to grow.”
The company says the prize money will go toward further product development, entering new markets, and reaching additional farming communities.
SANDI AI beat a field of agrifood startups from across Africa, emerging as the winning female-led venture. The GoGettaz Prize, awarded annually, backs young African entrepreneurs running commercially viable businesses in agriculture, food production, sustainability and rural development.
For Uganda’s startup community, the result is a marker of how far local technology firms have come. A company built in Kampala now holds one of the continent’s most visible agritech awards.
SANDI AI joins a widening group of African ventures pointing artificial intelligence at basic infrastructure gaps rather than at consumer novelty — credit scoring, risk assessment, and financial access for populations that formal banking has largely skipped.
Beyond the cash, the award delivers something arguably more useful to an early-stage company: credibility, visibility, and introductions to the investors and partners who decide which startups scale and which stall.
