 My name is Robert Ouma. I am a project manager for Pico Eastern Africa, which is an organizational development organization based here in Nairobi. Simply put, an innovation platform is a safe space where actors drone from an industry come together and co-create solutions to a challenge that face that industry. They create innovations. They work together to develop solutions to specific problems. This task required us to look at the entire delivery chain for breeds holistically. This then seemed amenable to an innovation platform approach, which brings all the stakeholders together. The innovation platform allows you to take a systemic approach, a multi-dimensional approach to a specific challenge, and this really really fitted well with the challenge that we had for the DGA project. We faced a lot of constraints as well accessing services and for that particular project we were obviously interested in breeding services. How do farmers access breeding services? What kinds of services do they require and do they need and are they willing to pay for and identifying entry points on where, how and where development partners can intervene to unlock some of the bottlenecks that would then make farmers being more able to access the services. The field activities were linked with the platform activities very very closely in that our key participants and enumerators were participating in the platform. So through that the interaction was neat and clean and in real time busy. Well, they are quite a number. Earlier on when we started the farming system, I think even in East Africa, there were some subsidies in constructing the deep, those tanks for the water, the planting and quite a number of things. Even the drugs there were some, you know, subsidies. Now those were removed. We managed to develop a lot of models for delivery of semen, of hayfas, of bulls in the region. So that was a significant contribution of the innovation platform. I think the platform is a very useful place to grow ideas. I didn't have the, we didn't have the idea of wombs for hire before the platform, but the component of the platform of wombs for hire we were completely aware of, but to put it together as an idea of wombs for hire, that happened at the platform. The idea was to approach a rancher doing Boran and ask to hire wombs to produce crossbred, dairy crossbreds with Boran. And for this, for the very, the idea at the outset was to produce Boran frisian crosses, which in this country I think have a market. Several interesting models were developed for businesses within the context of the platform. A number of this have been developed into business plans and taken up by entrepreneurs. The forum was useful in furthering ideas. So just to sit together, to brainstorm some more was useful, but I would also say the interaction between investors and the members who had ideas, I think could have been more. Interaction with fellow farmers and sharing the experiences, I think that's the way to go. You can't work in an island.