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JICA, in collaboration with the U.S. Embassy and iCog Labs, is carrying out the largest start-up innovation competition in Ethiopia called "Solve IT 2019". Regional competitions have been taking place since May and will continue throughout June.

The top 3 winners from Mekelle are as follows:

The first place winner is the company called "Deamat", led by CEO Kisanet Haille. Deamat is an e-commerce start-up company positioning itself to become a market leader by offering online merchants and consumers a uniform and trouble-free way to shop for unique and genuine products online.

The second place winner is Online Psychotherapy. It is estimated that about 25 million Ethiopians suffer from some form of mental disorder, while less than 10% receive any form of treatment, and less than 1% receive specialist care. Rediet Mulat, the team leader, wants to improve the situation through their service.

The third place winner is Line Path Sower Machine invented by Henok Tedros and Kidus Weldehawarya. The machine can sow, plough and spray herbicides at the same time. The machine can sow, plough and spray herbicides at the same time. Moreover, the machine is designed to be user friendly so that anyone can be familiar with it without any formal training.

JICA, US Embassy and iCog Labs would like to deliver a special thanks to Mekelle University for hosting all the training sessions and the regional competition.

#JICAinAfrica #USInvestsinEthiopians #iCogLabs #SolveIT2019.

Second place winners who developed an Online Psychotherapy application.