It's official. We have been selected for the acceleration phase of DigiGreen, a joint initiative from Orange, the German development cooperation GIZ and the European Union, dedicated to the digitalisation of Ivorian agriculture.
For our team, this selection marks an important step. For WOURI, our AI agent on WhatsApp that helps Ivorian farmers cope with climate change, it's a concrete accelerator: mentorship, resources, access to a network of agricultural experts and partners, and access to technical infrastructure via the Orange Digital Center in Abidjan.
DigiGreen & Agri, in a nutshell.
DigiGreen & Agri is a three-year, €7.6 million program co-funded by the European Union and implemented by Orange and GIZ under the develoPPP program of the German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation (BMZ). Its ambition: to support the digital transformation of the Ivorian agricultural sector — especially the cocoa value chain — while supporting the country's low-carbon transition.
The program explicitly targets rural youth, women, girls and people with disabilities. It combines three pillars: training, digital employment in agriculture, and support for startups and SMEs building sustainable digital solutions for farming.
Selected startups benefit from structured support at the Orange Digital Center, technical and entrepreneurial training, and for the most advanced, access to a seed fund dedicated to Ivorian agritech.
Why WOURI fits in.
WOURI is an AI agent accessible from WhatsApp, in the user's own language. A farmer asks a question in French, in Baoulé, in Dioula or in Bété, by text or voice message, and receives advice adapted to their region, crop and current season.
The tool answers an emergency. The Ivorian agricultural calendar, which guided sowing, treatment and harvest decisions for generations, is collapsing under climate change. Rains come later, stop earlier, or fall too hard at once. Pests migrate. Yields drop. Public agricultural services exist, but they don't reach every village. Every farmer, on the other hand, has a phone. And on that phone, WhatsApp.
DigiGreen acceleration lets us go further in our mission: to bring more value to farmers, small, medium and large, and help them better face climate challenges.
What we plan to do.
Three concrete workstreams will occupy our coming weeks with DigiGreen.
- 01
Expand language support
Consolidate languages already supported (Baoulé, Dioula, Bété) and begin fine-tuning work on Attié, Agni and Senufo.
- 02
Refine climate advisory precision
Integrate more granular weather data sources for Côte d'Ivoire and cross-reference them with real cropping calendars by region and crop.
- 03
Expand the beta
Open WOURI to new agricultural cooperative partners, collect field feedback, measure impact on seasonal decisions.
A vision coming into focus.
Every day, we move a little further toward a clear ambition: contributing to Africa's digital sovereignty by building useful technologies rooted in human realities. DigiGreen gives us the means to do so on the agricultural front, a domain that affects millions of people in this country.
Thanks to Orange, GIZ, the European Union and their partners for the trust. We intend to be worthy of it.