Digital Village Connects Everyone in Agriculture Sector with Innovative Approaches

Digital Village is the hybrid of FinTech and AgroTech, which easily connects stakeholders to each other. The platform uses smart contracts to ensure the trusted and transparent connections between the portal and stakeholders. CBW had an interview with Goga Kvaratskhelia, Founder of GMT HOLDING IIC, to learn more about the platform: 

Agriculture has never been one of my strong points. For the past 14 years, I've been involved in project planning, and we've worked on some of the most complex and large-scale projects, both local and international. I've been observing the contrast between the development of agriculture and the construction sector. This could be explained by the fact that the practices already introduced in the field of engineering are used effectively, and innovations need to be well substantiated. In agriculture, it is difficult to equip all parties involved with current approaches, knowledge, finance, and so on to draw results separately. That’s when I saw the ocean that gave rise to value chain automation. It is noteworthy that the platform will not be a competitor of stakeholders involved in agribusiness, on the contrary, it will be one of the tools that will allow them scalability.

What solutions does the platform digitalvilla.ge offer to its customers?

Copyright-protected smart contracts will be available on the platform, and their activation will result in automated actions. As a result, it will sometimes announce an auction or a tender, and occasionally it will involve relevant human resources.

In short, those who will have the finances will be able to, for example, activate a ‘’strawberry smart contract’’ and get the product at a much lower price a few months later, or sell it before then. These transactions provide systematic approaches, quality assurance, traceability, and sustainable development. All of which will be in human language, even though it is a hybrid of Fintech and Agrotech based on blockchain technology.

Congratulations on winning the ENPARD program. What was the key to your success and how did it help you move your project forward?

Thank you, it is a great honor for me to win this program. The jury was quite representative and gave me a lot of motivation to devote years to this work. To be honest I had started working on several platforms before and I didn’t look at it as a startup project at all. After the mentioned program I started to think differently and began working with other responsibilities. I became part of the startup ecosystem. Along with the financial support, the experience and recognition we have gained by participating in this program is invaluable.

What opportunities will participating in the Impact hub Award give your startup?

As you know, the platform was launched on May 15. It’s already possible to add a plot listing, which in the near future will lead to the filling of the content and will become more understandable to the user. But this is just the beginning, with scaling you need the right Product-Market Fit which is what we do at Impact Hub with very competent mentors. At the same time, by participating in the program, we have equipped ourselves with the tools and knowledge for fundraising that we can take to Silicon Valley. By this, I mean that it is a pre-acceleration program of international scale and level.

What is the current stage of development of the platform and what’s ahead?

The platform has been available in test mode since November and was launched at full capacity on May 15 this year. So far we have received several applications which are being processed. 

I am very happy with the fact that the students of Kutaisi International University selected us together with several companies according to pre-defined criteria within the USAID Economic Security Program. In the example of a real case, students of the School of Business and Informatics will go through the training and create one of the platform websites.

I must mention the Imereti agro-zone, where we are members of the A class of the Horticulture Training and Demonstration Center, which gives us the greatest potential for scaling. The platform includes all the stakeholders who will be interested in our offer.

We have a very exciting journey ahead, loaded with more innovations and technologies of the future.