Mobile – Page 5 – Integra LLC

Agriculture, Democracy & Governance, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

7 Apps to Combat Modern-Day Slavery

The United Nations recognizes December 2 as the International Day for the Abolition of Slavery, which marks the date of the adoption of the United Nations Convention for the Suppression of the Traffic in Persons and of the Exploitation of the Prostitution of Others. According to the agency:

“The focus of this day is on eradicating contemporary forms of slavery, such as trafficking in persons, sexual exploitation, the worst forms of child labour, forced marriage, and the forced recruitment of children for use in armed conflict.”

Though the problem of modern-day slavery is vast (with some estimates as high as 27 million people in slavery today), ICTs have a critical role to play in ending slavery practices. They can be used to monitor and report cases, raise awareness, and help grassroots groups implement anti-slavery activities.

Here is a sampling of some cutting edge ways that groups are using ICTs to fight slavery.

Slavery Footprint

How many slaves work for you? Find out by taking this website and app’s lifestyle survey, which averages how many forced laborers have contributed to making the products you consume, from shoes to electronics. The questionnaire asks about what food you eat, clothes you wear, and your hobbies after investigating what goes into producing around 400 everyday items.

Phone Story

This game for smartphone devices attempts to provoke a critical reflection on its own technological platform. It brings to light that behind many consumer electronics hides the product of a troubling supply chain that stretches across the globe. Phone Story represents this process with four educational games that make the player symbolically complicit in mineral extraction in the DRC, outsourced labor in China, e-waste in Pakistan and gadget consumerism in the West. The controversial app was banned from Apple stores in September, but is available on Android.

Slaveryfootprint.org

Knowmore.org

This website empowers consumers to purchase products and support companies that promote fair trade, human rights, and democracy. The site makes it easy to determine which corporations use unethical (or ethical) practices through its Firefox browser extension that alerts consumers on where companies stand on particular issues as they browse the company websites.

Change.org Human Trafficking Campaigns

The site that helps individuals or groups run online social change campaigns has a special section dedicated to anti-human trafficking efforts. There have been hundreds of campaigns started, though the one with the most signatures (103,155 and counting) is the International Labor Rights Forum’s “Tell Walmart: Intervene Before Labor Activists Are Sentenced to Death.”

SMS: SOS Survivor Line

Survivors Connect empowers survivors and grassroots movements against slavery, trafficking and violence by leveraging the power of ICTs. The SMS: SOS system is a basic text-message based crisis and response referral hotline. The system can support any texter to receive immediate emotional support, non-emergency transportation, risk assessment, referrals to community agencies, short-term counseling, self-help information and the like. There are several variations to this model, such child-specific helplines, women’s violence/DV hotlines, trafficking and others. Survivors Connect will help any organization design its own system as needed.

Knowmore.org

Organizations are continuing to develop new ways to leverage ICTs for anti-trafficking and slavery efforts. Below are several apps to look out for.

GBI Stop Human Trafficking App

The winner of GBI’s own Stop Human Trafficking App Challenge is a smartphone app with a device that helps prevent people from becoming victims of human trafficking. It will provide users with a means to verify potential employers that offer them jobs outside of Russia and eastern Europe and help them to mitigate situations where they are subject to being preyed upon. Implementing NGOs on the ground, such as World Vision, are working to make sure the data on the app is valid and up-to-date.

SMS Helpline Network

Enslavement Alliance of West Africa (EPAWA) and Internews began working on a project in August to build an SMS Helpline Network using mobile phones, a laptop and easy‐to‐use desktop software to combat human trafficking. The technology will connect a network of professionals who can respond in a crisis and facilitate timely exchange of information to parents and communities. EPAWA will train community members to report on human trafficking activity in their own communities and EPAWA will investigate the veracity of employment offers.

survivorsconnect.org

Fortunately, this list is just the tip of the iceberg for innovations in anti-slavery initiatives. Has your organization developed or is in the stages of developing an ICT project that fights slavery? Be sure to post a comment here or join the GBI Portal to tell us about it!

December 2, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Agriculture Markets, Extension Service, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

12 Opportunities for Mobile Telecommunications in Agriculture

Photo Credit: Vodafone

In their recent report “Connected Agriculture,” Vodafone and Accenture with support from Oxfam outlined 12 opportunities that mobile telecommunication has for farmers.

The opportunities were identified as ‘the most important’ through stakeholder consultations and are grouped into four categories.

Category I: Improving Access to Financial Services through increasing access and affordability to these services tailored for agricultural purposes. The opportunities under this category include:

1. Mobile Payment Systems which offer people without access to financial services an affordable and secure way to transfer and save money using their mobile phones.

2. Micro-Insurance System that protects farmers against losses when bad weather harms their harvest, encouraging them to buy higher-quality seeds and invest in fertilizer and other inputs.

3. Micro-Lending Platforms that connect smallholders in developing countries with individuals elsewhere willing to provide finance to help the farmers to buy much-needed agricultural inputs.

Category II: Provision of Agricultural Information i.e. delivering information relevant to farmers, such as agricultural techniques, commodity prices and weather forecasts, where traditional methods of communication are limited. The opportunities under this category are:

4. Mobile Information Platforms that link farmers to receive texts with news and information that help to improve the productivity of their land and increase their incomes.

5. Farmer Helplines that connect farmers to agricultural experts who can provide quick and accurate answers to agricultural queries

Category III: Improving Data Visibility for Supply Chain Efficiency. This is done through optimizing supply chain management across the sector, and delivering efficiency improvements for transportation logistics. The opportunities here include:

6. Smart Logistics that use mobile technology to help distribution companies manage their fleets more efficiently – reducing costs for farmers and distributors, cutting fuel use and related carbon emissions and potentially preventing food losses.

7. Traceability and Tracking Systems that are use to track individual food products through the supply chain from grower to retailer.

8. Mobile Management of Supplier Networks that could use mobile phones to manage their networks of small-scale growers and help field agents collect information.

9. Mobile Management of Distribution Networks such as agricultural inputs like seeds, fertilizer and crop protection products could use mobile to gather sales and stock data, improving availability for farmers and increasing sales.

Category IV: Enhancing Access to Markets i.e. by enhancing the link between commodity exchanges, traders, buyers and sellers of agricultural produce. The opportunities for mobile telecommunications are:

10. Agricultural Trading Platforms that use mobile technologies to link smallholder farmers directly with potential buyers thereby helping them to secure the best price for their produce, as well as promoting investment in agriculture and reducing food losses.

11. Agricultural Tendering Platforms that allow mobile technologies for submitting and bidding on tenders for food distribution, processing and exporting could make the agricultural supply chain more competitive and efficient.

12. Agricultural Bartering Platforms could use mobile technologies to help agricultural workers in rural communities exchange goods and services and improve communities’ livelihoods.

Some of the benefits that could be obtained from these opportunities are monitoring resources and tracking products; unlocking productivity potential while helping to manage the impacts of increased production, such as increased water use and greenhouse gas emissions; increasing agricultural income by around US$138 billion across 26 of Vodafone’s markets in 2020; helping to meet the challenge of feeding an estimated 9.2 billion people by 2050; helping to cut carbon dioxide emissions by approximately 5 mega tonnes (Mt) in these markets; and reducing freshwater withdrawals for agricultural irrigation by 6%, with significant savings in water-stressed regions. These benefits assume there will be around 549 million mobile connections to relevant services in 2020.

November 22, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Irrigation and Water, Land Management, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Nano Ganesh: A Mobile App for Remote Irrigation Control

Photo Credit: NanoGanesh

Nano Ganesh is an innovation that is helping smallholder farmers across two Indian states to remotely turn their irrigation pumps ‘on’ and ‘off’ using their mobile phones. In an industry dominated by ringtones and games, this is a welcome move towards technology that serves development, said Vineeta Dixit, a principal consultant at the e-Governance Division of the Department of Information Technology, Ministry of Communications and IT, India.

Nano Ganesh is a GSM Mobile based remote control system exclusively for the use with water pump sets in agricultural areas. A farmer can control the pumps from any distance; check an availability of power supply at the pump end; acknowledge the on/off status of the water pump; and in some models, get alerts through calls if there is a theft attempt of the cable or pump.

The need for Nano Ganesh arose from the routine problems faced by farmers in operating irrigation pumps. In India and other parts of the developing world, a farmer may have to travel miles to turn on a water pump, and stay on the farm until irrigation is complete before returning – at any hour of the day, often late at night or early in the morning. There are, fluctuations in power supply, difficult terrains, fear of wild and dangerous animals on the way to pumps, hazardous locations of the pumps along the river or water storage beds, shock hazards, rains etc.

The clip below summarizes information on the application:

The technology requires a mobile connection and phone, along with a mobile modem that attaches to the starter on the irrigation pump. Using the phone, an assigned code number switches the pump’s starter off and on, and a particular tone signals the off/on status of the pump and the electrical supply at the pump location.

The application which was developed by Ossian Agro Automation, has been selected for recognition as a laureate in the Economic Development category for 2011, by The Tech Awards, The Tech Museum at San Jose, CA, USA. Currently, there are over 10 000 installations across the operational states in India.

November 21, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

The Advent of Mobile Finanical Services in Agriculture

Close up of man in Africa looking at his cell phone As the global population continues to grow – it is expected to reach more than 9 billion by 2050. It will require a 70% increase in food production above current levels. Most of this increased yield will have to be achieved in less developed countries (LDCs), many of whose farmers operate on a small scale and are highly exposed to crop failure and adverse commodity price movements. This month, Vodafone, Accenture and Oxfam released a report on mAgriculture. The report titled “Connected Agriculture” assesses the potential benefits of new mobile data services such as mobile financial services, weather forecasts, and agriculture information and advice for smallholding farmers operating in marginal circumstances.

Additionally, in light of market saturation, MNOs face the task of growing average revenue per user (ARPU) and market share in rural areas. Agricultural Value Added Services (Agri VAS) present a considerable business opportunity due to the enormous potential user base in LDCs. The farming sector in these countries often suffers from chronically low productivity. Lack of information acts upon productivity and income levels like a glass ceiling. However, with increasing teledensity in the developing world – Africa is being tipped to pass one billion mobile subscriptions and become the world’s second largest mobile market by 2016, mobiles are uniquely positioned to address the information and financial needs of farmers – an intervention that can help increase their incomes, yields and economic wellbeing. Vodafone’s research indicates potential $138 billion addition to developing world farmers’ incomes by 2020

The financial and information opportunities at the base of the pyramid (BOP) in themselves hold significant untapped value for the private sector. The BOP has both intricate financial and information needs, which have the potential to be met through mobile money and information-based mobile services. Mobile Money can reduce the financial gap for farmers by giving them access to savings and insurance, which in itself reduces the impact of extreme weather and allows for greater investment in improving production.[1] Meanwhile, m-information services have the potential to open up significant markets opportunities, by relaying sales prices, GIS-based commodity demand information, as well as more basic yet essential information on agricultural best practices and reliable weather forecasts.

While there are existing agricultural information services provided via traditional channels such as radio and television, government extension services as they are usually referred to can be made much more efficient by leveraging the mobile channel. This can help improve their quality and trust amongst user communities increasing their potential for scale. In addition, by linking to them to mobile financial services, farmers will not only improve their productivity but will also be empowered to make better investment and risk management decisions (e.g. request credit for new fertilizers or other inputs they need to grow more and better crops). These benefits are also likely to extend to the wider community as increased agricultural income helps rural families afford education, healthcare and other services.

The GSMA mAgri Programme

The Development Fund’s mAgri Programme was set up in 2009 to accelerate the development, provision and adoption of mobile solutions to benefit the agriculture sector in emerging markets. In June 2011, the programme announced the second phase of their mobile agricultural programme, the introduction of the mFarmer Initiative, a partnership between GSMA, USAID and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. The scope of the mFarmer Initiative is to support mobile phone operators and agricultural partners in launching commercially viable mobile information services that bridge the information gap and increase the productivity and income of rural small-holders. It aims to attract 2 million of the worlds’ poorest farmers to become users of mFarmer Services by 2013. This compliments their previous work on mobile agricultural services in India and Kenya.

The team has recently launched the Agri VAS Market Entry Toolkit which explores the opportunities for Agricultural VAS and covers emerging best practice on marketing, service design and business modelling. It is primarily addressed to Mobile Network Operators (MNOs), other service providers, and agricultural organisations that are looking to partner and launch Agri VAS.

Just as the successful provision of mobile financial services for the BOP requires innovative partnership models; Agri VAS will require similar efforts from the part of its stakeholders. While MNOs have a leading role to play, they will need the collective support and partnerships from key stakeholders in the agricultural supply chain in order to fully unlock the benefits for farmers in LDCs.

November 21, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Climate Change, Extension Service, Farmer to Farmer, Food Security, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Farmer Innovations – The Case of Tanzanian Farmers & Smartphones

Photo Credit: Sauti ya wakulima

Through a collaborative knowledge base, farmers from the Chambezi region of the Bagamoyo District in Tanzania are using smartphones equipped with GPS modules and an application that makes it easy to send pictures and sounds to the Internet. The smartphones are used to document their daily practices, make reports about their observations regarding changes in climate and related issues, and also to interview other farmers, expanding thus their network of social relationships and engaging in a process of mutual learning.

This is just one of the stories of local people innovating through the challenges they face on the field. Over the years, local people are known to innovate due to necessity, changing conditions, and curiosity, doing informal experiments on new ideas either from their own ingenuity or learned from other farmers, researchers, extensionists and other information sources like the mass media. But over and over again, scientists have learnt very little about these innovations in order to take advantage of them to improve their scientific research work.

The farmers at Chambezi not only struggle because of insufficient infrastructure and unreliable markets for their products, but they are also facing the challenges of a changing local climate. Less rains, less underground water and unprecedented threats caused by pests and plant diseases are some of the pressing issues that they have to deal with. However, they know that by sharing their knowledge on how to cope with these problems, they can become stronger and find ways to overcome them. They hope that, by communicating their observations to extension officers and scientific researchers, who can be in remote locations, they can participate in the design of new strategies for adaptation.

In order for their voices to be heard, the farmers gather audiovisual evidence of their practices using smartphones and publish images and voice recordings on the Internet. The project, which started early this year, is currently being sponsored by the North South Center of the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, with the support of the Department of Botany of the University of Dar es Salaam and the Zurich Node of the Planetary Collegium (Z-Node). The participants of Sauti ya wakulima, a group of five men and five women, who gather every Monday at the agricultural station in Chambezi, use a laptop computer and a 3G Internet connection to view the images and hear the voice recordings that they posted during the week. They also pass the two available smartphones on to other participants, turning the phones into shared tools for communication.

For more information about this innovation, visit the Sauti ya wakulima blog and site.

November 8, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Health, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Is mHealth Taking Off in the Middle East?

A recent report compiled at the United Arab Emirates’ Mobile Show illustrates that citizens overwhelmingly believe that the mobile industry in the Middle East can have a positive effect on the health sector, emphasizing the great potential for mHealth in the region.

Mhealth – or mobile health – is a consistently reported topic in the ICT4D field, with projects popping up in developing countries on a daily basis. While many of these projects are being undertaken in sub-Saharan Africa and Southeast Asia, there is less news on mHealth initiatives in the Middle East.

Photo credit: mHealth Insight

Take Health Unbound (HUB), for example, the mHealth Alliance’s open source database of mHealth projects around the world. Of the 217 projects in the database, only about 8 are located in the Middle East, as opposed to 37 in Southeast Asia and a whopping 109 in sub-Saharan Africa.

But recent reports indicate that more attention is being given to mHealth in the Middle East. One article states that the Middle East has been a “hotbed for mHealth development,” reporting on various mHealth initiatives in the region. Qatar’s Supreme Council of Health announced that it will launch an app that locates clinicians, physicians and other health resources in the country, and two mobile companies in Qatar have partnered up to offer health and wellness education using mobile phones. In addition, the first mplushealth conference will take place at the Arab Health Exhibition and Congress in Dubai in January. The conference will bring together healthcare professionals, insurance providers, government regulators and telecommunications decision-makers to explore mHealth opportunities in the Middle East and hopefully pave the way for the sector to thrive.

The UAE Mobile Show report also revealed challenges that need to be overcome before mHealth can take off in the region. 73 percent of respondents indicated that patient-physician confidentiality was a major concern in implementing a mobile health system, as well as privacy, security, high costs, network infrastructure and technology.

Photo credit: AMEinfo.com

These obstacles may be part of the reason that mHealth initiatives in the region have remained primarily in the hands of independent mobile app developers, without much governmental support. But as attention on mobile health in the Middle East continues to grow, the region could be one to watch for future mHealth innovations.

November 1, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Agriculture Markets, Education, Extension Service, Food Security, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Reforming Ag. Extension, One ICT at a Time!

Photo Credit: M-Kilimo Project

Two recent case studies on some ICTs for agricultural development projects supported through the GSMA Development Fund – mAgri Program reveal an emerging trend within the broader Agricultural Extension Services (AES) and specifically in the developing nations, that worth commenting on. The revealing trend I’ve noticed, is that, either drastic policies and actions be taken to restructure the current educational systems of agricultural extension agents/officers or nations be prepared to seed-off their agricultural advisory services to the private sector (full privatization).

The projects are M-Kilimo in Kenya which has been developed as a result of cooperation between Rockefeller Foundation and KenCall the largest BPO Company in East Africa. The second project is IFFCO Kisan Sanchar Limited (IKSL), which is also a tri-lateral venture between Indian Farmers Fertilizer Cooperative Ltd (IFFCO), Airtel, and Star Global Resources Ltd.

The following two stories tell the kind of impact these two ICT4Ag projects are having on the lives of rural farmers in the respective countries.

Sanjay Mondal, a farmer from India had his cucumber farm infested with necrotic leaf lesions. After discussing his problem with IKSL staff remotely, the disease was diagnosed and a topical spray of Sectin fungicide in the ratio of 2mg per litre of water was prescribed. The total cost of the treatment was 500 Indian rupees. The yield increased by 50% as a result, and income also went up by 50% (India – IKSL).

Nahomi, a chicken farmer in Kenya had problem with thin weak egg shells that did not allow her to sell or store the eggs in that quality. She called M-Kilimo and the livestock expert on the other end of the line suggested that she gives the chicken a feed rich in calcium. By using a calcium rich poultry feed or adding fishmeal to the feeds will increase the calcium content of her feed, the expert explained. Now, Nahomi’s chickens are laying good quality eggs and she can sell more eggs as a result of the advice and availability of M-Kilimo experts (Kenya – M-Kilimo).

A closer look at the design and operational models of IKSL and M-Kilimo predicts the future demise of most National Agricultural Extension Services (NAES) if the necessary reforms of the current educational systems delay. I will attempt to explain my argument from two perspectives – the human resources level of extension staffs and the medium of delivery of the information to the end users (which is also a factor of ICT human resource development).

Human Resource – Agricultural Extension and Education

The traditional agricultural extension service as the main platform for delivery of new innovations, technologies and information to farmers, has its strength in the extension staffs. The extension agent/officer/worker is seen as a “Change Agent”. These officers are mostly public servants trained and equipped to be, most of the time, in direct contact with their clients, the farmers. Even though the service has been engulfed with a host of problems, its human interaction capability is still strong which helps not only to deliver new innovations but also train users how to use these technologies through field demonstrations. However, my personal experience tells me of the poor quality of extension staffs currently on the field in most developing countries due to a number of issues.

A recent study I conducted with over 30 agricultural extension officers from three agricultural districts in Ghana shows that only 39% did receive some form of undergraduate degree in agriculture. The remaining 61% is made up of either certificate in agriculture or diploma in agriculture obtained in the late 70s and early 80s.

The IKSL and M-Kilimo projects have tended to improve upon this traditional human resource development in extension. For example the IKSL project acknowledged that the quality of its experts is critical for their success since these experts decide the content of the messages that are being delivered to the users. As a result, they have a minimum qualification of first degree in agriculture for their first line of staffs that are in direct contact with the users; highly experienced academics and specialists in agriculture for second line experts; and the third line of 10 specialists who regularly convene to vet and validate contents being delivered to the users.

M-Kilimo also has similar model with emphasis on trustworthy and effective system to deliver appropriate information to the end user. The project also requires the experts to have a minimum of bachelor’s degree in agriculture and at least 2 years of relevant field experience. This first line of experts is supported by Subject Matter Experts (SME) to help provide quality assurance service for content and delivery. Also the contents are obtained from the Ministry of Food and Agriculture, National Weather Station, and other Research Institutes within and outside the country.

Photo Credit: IKSL

Medium of Delivery – Timely and Remote Access to Information

Even though the traditional medium for agricultural extension has improved over the years including the mass communication technologies such as radios and televisions; and recently with mobile phones, the face-to-face interaction still dominates most NAES. Extension officers are expected to visit individual farmers’ field and other farmers groups to deliver new information. This continues in the wake of high extension officer-farmer ratios (1:3000 and over), one of the primary indicators used to measure the intensity of extension coverage in a country. Ironically, most of the public extension officers who have access to the new ICT facilities through public telecenters, and other community information centers are not well trained and equipped to use them to facilitate their work.

The result is the deplorable condition of information or knowledge gap as seen in the stories of the two farmers above prior to the intervention of M-Kilimo and IKSL in Kenya and India respectively. But how many rural farmers have access to M-Kilimo and IKSL and similar projects across the developing nations?

With the IKSL and M-Kilimo projects, a critical part as seen in the stories above is ‘remote delivery of information to users’ – either through their mobile phones or SMS messages. The use of these tools facilitates timely delivery of information to users. Apart from the information communication systems that are put in place, ICT human resources development of the helpline experts is important. These features of the emerging information communication systems are helping to ensure more accurate, appropriate, timely and remotely accessible information to end users such as rural farmers whose farming success are previously determined by extension agents/officers.

Implications for National Agricultural Extension Services (NAES)

ICTs are not here to replace the rich human interactions between rural agricultural farmers and extension agents. It should be recognized that the social capital created through face-to-face interactions during extension visits are irreplaceable. ICTs are “technologies” that can enable social behaviors. But without some drastic reforms of the existing extension system, especially the educational standard of the extension staffs, I see the gradual downfall of the public agricultural extension system in most developing countries. Could this be a journey towards a kind of partnership/collaboration in the future where research and development will remain in the public domain while extension and advisory services go to the private sector? With the general acceptance of “Agribusiness Models” across the world within smallholder agricultural production, I do expect to see changes within agricultural extension and advisory services in the next few years – I do expect to see more private sector involvement in extension delivery.

November 1, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Agriculture Markets, Extension Service, Food Security, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Africa’s Agribusiness Dream: How can ICTs Help?

Photo Credit: Timbuktu Chronicles

Earlier this month, the Corporate Council on Africa (CCA) held its 8^th Biennial US-Africa Business Summit in Washington DC. One of the key focus areas at the summit was the agribusiness sector in Africa with sessions and workshops covering topics such as “Winning for Farmer Entrepreneurs and Investors”; “Partnering to Build an Integrated Agribusiness Sector”; “Financing a Dynamic African Agribusiness Sector”; “Removing Barriers to Create Opportunities in Regional and Global Trade”; and “Leveraging Development Assistance to Support Private Enterprise”. Stories and experiences from a number of participants who are already in the market in certain parts of Africa clearly show the increasing interest in changing Africa’s agricultural sector from an “AID Recipient” to a “BUSINESS Partner”. This of course, calls for a number of changes including the perception of agriculture by the smallholder farmers that need to be undertaken in Africa’s bid to revamp its agricultural sector.

As an agricultural information specialist, I followed with keen interest the proceedings at the said US-Africa Business Summit with special concern for agricultural development in the continent. What I saw and heard at the summit during the discussions on issues such as farmer entrepreneurship, partnership, financing, removing barriers for regional trade, and leveraging development assistance within the agricultural sector, seemed to be missing a major component – information and communication technologies (ICTs). In fact, one would have expected most of these discussions to have some element of ICTs as enabler or catalyst for the entire agricultural value chain. Especially given the Information Economy Report 2011: ICTs as an Enabler for Private Sector Development (PSD), published by the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) that pointed out clearly that the potential of leveraging ICTs to develop the private sector is far from fully exploited.

Access to information by smallholder farmers is key for producing high quality products to meet market specifications both locally and international. ICTs are key in gathering and delivering timely and accurate agricultural information for farmers to be able to do just that. Smallholder farmers are currently using ICTs in pre-production and production activities across the world that the business sector needs to exploit and leverage upon in Africa. This is being achieved through the reformed and modernized Agricultural Advisory Service (AAS), which connects local farmers to research, market, and policy. Popular applications that should interest companies and institutions interested in Africa’s agribusiness include Grameen AppLab Community Knowledge Workers; Farmer Voice Radio Project; M-Powering Farmers, and other radio services across the developing world.

Farmers also lack access to credit for their production and there are a host of financial services using the new ICTs to facilitate the flow of financial services to smallholder farmers in the developing world. Mobile payments, mobile money, or mobile banking applications are being used to make financial transactions more accessible, faster, and safer for rural farmers. These services also link farmers to financial services and make it easier for them to save money obtained from their farm activities for other social services. These are great opportunities for entrepreneurs and the business community interested in investing in Africa’s agribusiness to explore. Examples include the M-PESA currently operating in countries like Kenya and Tanzania; Mobile Money in Ghana, Uganda, Zambia and others.

Also worth exploring is ICTs for market. When one talks about business, the first thing that comes to mind is “market” and markets affect smallholder agriculture production from inputs supply such as seed, agrochemicals, farm machinery to the outputs or products delivery to the final consumer either in the local, regional or international market. Access to market information helps farmers find out about market prices, make decisions regarding when to harvest, how to negotiate with intermediaries, etc. ICTs models such as esoko in a number of Sub-Saharan Africa countries, e-Choupal and Reuters Market Light in India, Manobi in Senegal, Infotrade in Uganda, and Zambian National Farmers Union MIS are just the tip of the iceberg.

The traditional agricultural extension service, which has been a public platform over the decades, is undergoing a lot of reforms to create an enabling environment for the private sector to heavily invest in the ICTs sector. With the new models of agricultural extension reforms such as decentralization, privatization, commercialization, pluralism, and partnerships, there should not be any barrier for the private sector in using ICTs to enhance their agribusiness in Africa. American and European businessmen and companies interested in Africa’s agriculture should not make mistake by ignoring the importance of “information” in their business – ICTs can help when recognized and incorporated into the agribusiness plan!

October 31, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Humanitarian Assistance, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

Release of Geospatial Study Shows Improved Response to Disasters Using Mobile Phones

A recent study undertaken in Haiti found that mobile phones can deliver critical information on population movement rapidly and accurately following disasters.

Richard Garfield presented the findings from the research he conducted with several other public health specialists and social scientists at a recent mHealth working group meeting using data from mobile phone networks before and after the 2010 earthquake that rocked Haiti. The publication explains how the research team used position data of SIM cards from Haiti’s largest mobile phone company, Digicel, to estimate population movement trends following the earthquake and the subsequent cholera outbreak.

Girls with phone in Haiti after earthquake- from USAID

Photo credit: USAID

The researchers originally set out to find this data in order to respond to the disaster in Haiti. Knowing that 1 in every 3.8 people in Haiti owned a cell phone, they collaborated with Digicel to track the number of calls and the location of those calls over the course of a year, before and after the earthquake. Most mobile users were based in Port-au-Prince where the earthquake was centered. While cell reception was down for a few days immediately following the quake, the network capacity was rapidly re-established, making the phones easy to trace.

A 22 % decline in phone usage in Port-au-Prince after the quake correlated with the massive outflow of population from the capital, which was widely known. In the aftermath of the disaster, the UN and Haitian government had created maps based on eyewitness observation to track population movements. But because these were reliant on eyewitnesses, there was no way to tell how accurate the data was.

In fact, the mobile phone usage analysis showed different results from these official maps, showing movement that was more spontaneous and seemingly more accurate. Many of those who evacuated Port-au-Prince originally returned back within 7 days, and this was something the official numbers did not catch right away. Months after the earthquake when the UNFPA carried out a survey in Haiti to retrieve more accurate numbers of where people were and when, the mobile phone data was much more closely associated with these results. The mobile phone data also helped to estimate where the cholera outbreaks were happening and to get people out of the danger zones.

Graph from Richard Garfield mobile data in Haiti article

Estimated net changes of the Port-au-Prince population compared to the capital's population on the earthquake day

Garfield emphasized that while these results do not indicate that mobile data should be used as final, official counts on death tolls, it can provide initial estimates while waiting for more accurate counts. The key point is to mine the data rapidly and assist in a quick response.

Will this research lead to improved quick responses for future disasters? It certainly could be combined with current disaster relief efforts following the recent earthquake in Turkey, such as Google’s Person Finder app or social media response.

October 26, 2011/by actualize

Agriculture, Connectivity, Mobile, Originally posted on the GBI Portal

What a Crowd! Sourcing through Stories, Ideas and Questions @ ITU Telecom World 2011

Photo Credit: ITU

ITU Telecom World 2011 takes off in Geneva today with live webcasts of key events from the Opening Ceremony at 12.00-13.00 CET to the Closing Address at 16.00-17.00 CET on Thursday 27th. The forum brings together industry CEOs and world leaders, digital experts, technology gurus, and grassroots technology pioneers to tackle core issues shaping the global ICT landscape in the age of broadband technology through knowledge sharing, networking, deal making, and consensus building.

An interesting feature of this years’ forum in which Telecentre.org is collaborating with ITU to bring to bare is the opportunity for the whole world to get involved through a new model of ‘crowdsourcing.’ Crowdsourcing enables firms, organizations, foundations etc. to open up an “issue” to the public (away from a small pool of experts) and seek solution from as many ‘crowd’ as possible. Allows companies or institutions to take functions once performed by employees and outsourcing it to an undeﬁned (and generally large) network of people in the form of an open call. It is gradually being seen as a web-based business model that harnesses the creative solutions through distributed network of individuals.

Several months prior to the forum, the power of crowdsourcing was used to gather rich contributions from the general public through stories created through videos, ideas, and questions.

Over 30 stories presented through videos have been uploaded at the site. Stories cover issues such as making affordable broadband access to thousands of SMBs in the tourism industry in Vietnam; using mobile phones and TRACnet in Rwanda to help with the treatment and prevention of AIDS; deploying mobile and web tools to enable citizen reporters to give early warning about human rights violation, among others.

There are over 100 ideas brought up by people across the world from using “Justxt.org” mobile platform to empower victims of corruption by giving them the ability to anonymously report demands for bribes via cell phone using a simple SMS (UK); QUICKSMSs that will allow secondary schools to communicate with student and parents instantly (Rwanda); integration of a VoIP service on GSM mobile to allow two or more people with the Internet service on their mobile phones to communicate for free (Benin); real time validation of mobile phone “Sim Cards” for authenticity of the user to prevent cheating and fraud (India) and a host of other ideas.

The number of questions posed was rather small but covering issues such as standards in place to promote universal experience on the Internet for people with disabilities; regulatory bodies or authorities to ensure full access to the Internet by people with disabilities (USA); the challenge of achieving a digital economy whilst the digital divide is alive and well; the need for telecommunication companies, governments, and ISPs to work together to cement freedom of the internet for everyone (USA); how are governments measuring the impact of their policies for stimulating growth, GDP and employment, from the use of ICT (UK); and what or how much would it take to completely bridge the digital divide gap in our world (Lesotho).

Highlights of the 3-day program include “Pathway to a Connected World” on Tuesday that will feature ITU Secretary-General Dr Hamadoun Touré; Igor Shchegolev, Minister of Communications and Mass Media, Russian Federation; Jianzhou Wang, Chairman & CEO, China Mobile; and Stephen Conroy, Minister for Broadband, Communications and Digital Economy, Australia and will be moderated by BBC World presenter Nik Gowing. The discussion will continue on Wednesday on “Digital Cities”, an issue centred around the challenges of urbanization, the Digital Cities stream features leading stakeholders in city development, including mayors of the world’s major cities, digital innovators, utility experts, industry CEOs and city planning and transport specialists. The Thursday session titled “Heads in the Cloud” will examine the rapid spread of cloud computing, and taking a look at questions around how people, organizations, and governments will handle information and interactions in the cloud environment.

Live sessions will be streamed and for full coverage visit the ITU Telecom World 2011 site and also follow events on Facebook and through the @ITU_News twitter account #ITUworld11.

October 25, 2011/by actualize

Case Studies

Contact Details

Quick Links

About

Expertise

Impact

Join

Sign up for Updates