Job Description

Mercy Corps Kenya Consultancy to Develop Rio Fish Farm Management Application 2019 

Organization: Mercy Corps Kenya

Scope of Work / Terms Of Reference

Development of Rio Fish Ltd.’s Fish Farm Management Application

Project / Program: Google Impact Labs

Assignment: Development of Rio Fish Ltd.’s fish farm management application

1. Programme Background

About Youth Impact Labs: Catalyzed by funding from Google.org, Mercy Corps’ Youth Impact Labs (YIL) identifies and tests creative, technology-enabled solutions to tackle global youth unemployment, accelerating job creation so every young person has the opportunity for dignified, purposeful work.

In Kenya, YIL focuses on digital marketplaces and platforms that offer services to micro and small businesses; agricultural supply chain management; and digital work.

The programme supports these enterprises through financial and technical support, issued in the form of milestone-based grants.

Through our post-investment support, on-boarded partners also get access to advisory services to support development of technology solutions and tailored business support service to actualize scale.

About Rio Fish

Rio Fish Ltd. is a social enterprise based in Kisumu that aims to provide sustainable livelihoods and increase food security through strengthening market systems around aquaculture in Lake Victoria.

The company seeks to solve twin problems of fish farmers; inability to provide quality fresh fish for consumers and poor market linkages for farmers, by providing a consistent supply of nutrient-rich fish as well as stable livelihoods for fish farmers.

It does this by targeting to provide solutions that include:

1. Capacity building of farmers to produce high-quality fish;

2. Establishment of fish hubs for fish aggregation, and;

3. Distribution of fish to the wholesalers and consumers through effective technology utilities

2. Purpose of engagement

Youth Impact Labs is looking for a technology consultant that will support Rio Fish Ltd. to develop a fish farm management and distribution Android application, termed Aquarech, that enables fish cage and pond farmers to monitor the growth of their fish stock as well as link them to both ends of the value chain i.e. to feed suppliers and feed traders or consumers (buyers).

This engagement seeks to redesign and launch Rio’s smallholder farmer management application on Android. The company currently has a version of the farm management app which has been implemented but requires further development, including usability among installing additional features such as a market place. The code base will be provided and the successful bidder will jointly decide with Rio Fish whether to completely rewrite or build upon the code base.

The current application can be viewed here: https://xd.adobe.com/view/cb1bddae-9d26-4cb7-6b62-41f9a089a28a-bd2a/

The engagement seeks to achieve the following objectives:

1. Redesign and development of the farm management android application, including UX/UI review, and database and app development

2. Integration of an online marketplace onto the existing application to link fish farmers to (i) feed suppliers and (ii) buyers (fish traders and individual buyers), and facilitate online transactions including ability to set prices on the platform and effect payments via MPESA.

Scope of Work

The application will be based on an android platform and will also include selected web based platform and database(s).

The application will have the following platforms that will target three specific stakeholders:

1. Fish farmers: Fish farmers are independent smallholder farmers that work within the Rio network. Rio Fish works with farmers run their own independent farms to link them to input suppliers and to find markets for their ready fish

2. Fish buyers (traders and individual buyers): These include large fish traders located within market centers in the fish farming regions. Once farmers have ready fish, these traders purchase the fish from the farmers and take them to the large markets in Kisumu and other areas. The app will also target individual buyers who may want to purchase fish directly from the farmers

3. Input suppliers: These include suppliers who sell fingerlings, fish food, drugs among other inputs to the farmers

The Farmer:

a) Landing page: Provides a high level summary of the farmer’s farm activities e.g. farm size, fish stock, and last sale, and any other relevant data

b) Registration/ log in page: That allows farmers to sign up on the platform through a simple form that captures the farmer’s data

c) Unique log in capabilities: Should allow logging in at farmer level using unique log in credentials e.g. email/ ID number/ etc. with a PIN or password option

d) Farmer profile: Captures all the biodata of the farmer including age, location, gender, farm/ pond size – registration details of each pond/ cage per farmer, fish stock, etc.

e) Integrated with digital thermometer that transmits water temperature from the pond/cage to the phone. Through this system, farmers track fish growth, access feeds, fingerlings and fish gears.

f) Generate real time reports and/or dashboards including conversion rations, average daily growth and sales report, etc.

g) Fish sale functionality: e-commerce portal that will enable a farmer to post his ready fish with size, weight and numbers and connects with all the traders available within 25km radius – based on GPS functionality

h) Buy Feeds: Connects with all feed and fingerling suppliers within the system

The Trader or individual buyer:

a) Landing page: Provides a high level summary of the trader’s/buyer’s activities e.g. name, age sex, ID number, telephone number, location, email address, and any other relevant data

b) Registration/ log in page: That allows traders/buyers to sign up on the platform through a simple form that captures the trader’s data

c) Unique log in capabilities: Should allow logging in at trader level using unique log in credentials e.g. email/ ID number/ etc. with a PIN or password option

d) Trader/ buyer profile: Captures all the biodata of the trader including age, location, gender, historical purchase data, etc.

e) Trader: Each trader must register and during this process, the biodata on each trader must be captured. Such data will include

f) E-commerce function that allows the trader to locate the fish available on the system (through GPS capability) showing the numbers and quantities from each farmer.

g) Facilitates online transactions including ability to set prices on the platform and effect payments via MPESA

The Input suppliers:

a) Registration Form: Each input supplier must register on the platform and during this the biodata or the legal data of each input supplier must be captured

b) Log In: Once the supplier logs in the system, he chooses which area he wants to sells feeds and can reach out to all the farmers in that location

c) Facilitates online transactions including ability to set prices on the platform and effect payments via MPESA

d) The input supplier must put his prices on the platform so that all farmers within their geographical area can access the price data. Farmers should be able to see the prices on their end and compare with the various input suppliers

e) The input supplier can list locations/areas where its distributors are located where farmers can pick their feed/fingerlings from.

f) Otherwise, the supplier gets access to all the farmers within 100km radius

g) The platform will be based on a website should have control features for the manager of the database

h) However, the website should also be accessible to the management to enable them run reports and undertake management activities

Key Activities

To achieve the above, the following activities are envisioned:

• A two-day field study to Rio Fish to get an overview of the fish farmer’s farming and trading process and a review of the current development progress of the Aquarech application to identify successes, constraints, and goals that will guide the development of the application


• Design and development of the farm management application links the digital thermometer used to monitor farm water temperature and relay the temperature data to the application


• Development of a feed calculator feature into the application that will calculate the quantity of feeds that the farmer should provide to the fish


• Implementation of an online marketplace to match feed suppliers with fish farmers and fish traders with fish farmers


• Implementation of a payments system into the application that integrates with Rio Fish’s MPESA API, to provide a payment avenue for the farmers and traders


• Handover and documentation of the process, key findings and recommendations, and handover of design assets

3. Deliverables:

The key deliverables from the project are:

1. Wireframes detailing key features of the platform including different app pages, user interface and functionalities

2. A fully developed and tested Android application including e-commerce capabilities housed on Aquarech’s website/ Google play store

3. Online databases to support the development of the platform

4. Documentation of both platforms to aid future development

5. A 2-pager style thought leadership document that provides actionable recommendations on application development practice within the aquaculture sector, that can inform decision making within the broader industry

4. Application

To apply provide a brief proposal of no more than 10 pages/ slides containing the following:

• Summary of approach/ methodology and sample work plan;


• Team structure and brief bios of team members; if applying as a firm, include firm registration documents (certificate of registration)


• References, web links or electronic copies of at least three examples of recently completed projects of a similar nature


• Detailed budget, clearly outlining each cost, the quantity, and the total anticipated project cost

Proposals will be evaluated on the criteria as captured in the annex section

5. Reporting Lines

The consultant shall work under the direct supervision of the CEO of Rio Fish Limited with strong liaison with the post investment and learning advisor, Youth Impact Labs

6. Ownership and control of work/ publication

Ownership and control of all work products related to this scope of work and partner engagement shall belong to Rio Fish Ltd., while learning outputs shall belong to Mercy Corps. Any use of material, learnings or publications derived from the work product will require prior written approval from Rio Fish Ltd. and Mercy Corps

7. Timeframes and Budgets

Youth Impact Labs anticipates that the assignment will take up to 90 working days. The work shall be executed between 15th August 2019 to 15th November 2019. The total costs of the assignment will be negotiated with the service providers.

8. Submission timelines

Deadline for Offer Submission: Applications must be received by 1700HRS on 14th August 2019.

Application offers or any questions shall be sent via email to ke-pr@mercycorps.org

ANNEX: Criteria for Application Review

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