Tech in Africa
OKO is an African startup that provides index insurance and other farming services to smallholder farmers across emerging countries. 8×8 will help improve service delivery while providing enhanced customer experiences through Chat Apps API and 8×8 Communications Platform as a Service (CPaaS). 8×8, Inc. is an integrated cloud communications platform provider, of video, voice, chat, contact center, and enterprise-class services.
OKO provides crop insurance relying on new satellite technology imagery and weather forecasting to simplify and automate management claims. OKO relies on agricultural communities across Africa to relay SMS messages directly when communicating and engage farmers with crop insurance, weather updates, and how to minimize crop damage.
Over 30% of the target population used Whatsapp that offered a cheaper solution to rich media content. Thus the shift to 8×8 relies on a WhatsApp Business Solution Provider that integrates WhatsApp and several other Chat Apps into its crop insurance service offering. The 8×8 Chat Apps API, provides an onboarding and training programme that helps OKO integrate their API while deploying WhatsApp chatbots to automate their customer engagement functions.
