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The Spoken Web: Searching for Farming info by Voice (VIDEO)

The emergence of IBM’s Spoken Web, a mobile innovation that eliminates literacy as a precursor to access the internet, is a game-changer in the ICT for Agriculture sector.

Unlike other efforts to bridge the global information divide, even people with limited to no functional literacy skills will find Spoken Web user-friendly. With nearly 800 million functional illiterates around the world, the inability to read remains a major impediment to the use of ICT4D. This is most acute in the most remote parts of the developing world where livelihoods and agriculture are inextricably linked.

The mobile innovation is essentially a world wide network of VoiceSites joined to make the Spoken Web. Its most essential hardware is a telephone, which people use to browse VoiceSites by saying keywords, also known as VoiLinks.

This rapidly progressing network of voice recordings is predicated on a system called VoiGem, which simplifies the process of creating voice-based applications. VoiGem is unique compared to existing interactive voice response technology because it allows users to create their own VoiceSites that consists of voice pages (VoiceXML files) that may be linked. Each page is identified by the user’s phone number. This identification mode allows the user to easily edit VoiceSites and pages from their phone.

The mobile-centric nature of this development reflects a global trend and complements a development need, particularly for agriculture. Although small scale farmers, scattered across some of the most far-flung places around the globe, make up a large portion of the 5 billion people without access to the internet and computers, a growing number of these people own cellphones. In fact, farmers constitute a strong contingent among the 3 in 4 people worldwide who own mobiles. Although only a fifth of those with mobile subscriptions worldwide have access to mobile broadband services, the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) “predicts that within the next five years, more people will hop onto the Web from laptops and mobile gadgets than from desktop computers”.

As more farmers join the growing legion of wired folks, they will have faster and more reliable opportunities to access and share information. This development will reduce information asymmetries, structure and strengthen agricultural markets by bringing the internet to parts of the world where small scale farmers, consumers, middlemen and traders have limited knowledge about where to access and trade food.

The technology is also culturally appropriate given the oral nature of many cultures in the developing world. Farmers will also have the opportunity to efficaciously share valuable indigenous farming retentions.

As with most things, the Spoken Web also comes with challenges. Chief among the challenges is that though voice-recognition technology can match search terms against a previously processed index of recorded voice sites, it presents cumbersome results. However, the technology is being refined to be more precise. Precision is especially important because farmers and other end-users will not be able to retain all the information found on lengthy voice pages/sites, and they may not have the literacy skills to jot down points. Interestingly though, the Spoken Web comes with a fast-forward feature that enables the user to listen as if they were skim-reading.

Despite these challenges, the technology has been successfully piloted in eight Indian villages. It is now a central part of farming and health-care delivery in four Indian states, parts of Thailand and Brazil.

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ICT Access: a Human Right in Pakistan

Pakistani Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani held a press conference on Tuesday, declaring that ICT access and use is vital to the development of Pakistan.  Given recent modifications in the allocation and use of USF funds in Pakistan, Gilani’s strong support for ICT investment is particularly noteworthy.

At the 24th Board Meeting for USF Pakistani, presiding Gilani stated that ICTs potential could not be overemphasized in terms of socio-economic development and job opportunities.  He went on to explain that the ability to communicate in the information driven era was a basic human right.  These are strong words, especially in light of current debates about the Internet as a human right at the UN and amongst practitioners.

Gilani’s support comes just weeks after Pakistan’s USF announced an agreement with national telecommunications consultant Pakistan Telecommunications Company Limited (PTCL) to “promote development of telecom services in underserved areas.”  In the partnership, PTCL will help USF to meet its targeted goals, advancing Gilani’s agenda of providing IT access as a human right.

Gilani

Photo Credit: The Express Tribune News Network

 

The USF-PTCL partnership to focus on the underserved is important to the success of Pakistan’s efforts to provide ICT access to all its citizens.  According to other reports, however, previous USF funds in Pakistan were not utilized due to the Prime Minister’s failure to attend meetings with the board and approve spending for the entire last year.

The ICT industry in Pakistan has major changes as of late.  USF Pakistan terminated a contract with telecommunications giant Telenor, citing security concerns that limited project completion.  Another project, to provide fiber optic cables to the Balochistan region, was approved this week.  And Telenor and Boston Consulting Group also completed a study finding that mobile financial services could increase the GDP by 3%.

USF funds disbursement is not a problem unique to Pakistan.  In fact, just last month, reports circulated about the U.S. FCC’s failure to disburse USF funds.  Despite this, however, public-private partnerships (PPP) offer hope for more effective USF fund usage.

 

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Administrator Shah Emphasizes the Role of Mobile Banking

At an OECD Meeting on May 27th, 2011, Administrator Shah outlined three areas of reform for USAID, one of which was “leveraging the role of science and technology,” particularly through mobile phone banking systems.  The announcement should not come as a surprise, given the growing movement among the leaders of the agency to support mobile phone programs.

Mobile Banking

Photo Credit: USAID

Shah’s announcement is coupled with his recent talk with MIT economist Esther Duflo at the USAID Development Forum on May 23rd.  During the question and answer session, Shah referred to the power of mobile banking, citing the financial security it provides to rural farmers.

In addition to voicing support for mobile banking, USAID has supported specific initiatives, coming to an agreement last year with the Gates Foundation to provide a $10 million incentive fund to companies in Haiti who provide mobile financial services.  Speaking about the fund, Shah said, “Before the earthquake, fewer than 10 percent of Haitians had ever used a commercial bank.  A mobile money system can restore and remake banking in Haiti and serve as an engine of inclusive growth.”

Eric Postel, assistant administrator at EGAT, has led USAID’s mobile money programs in Haiti, including one project that allows Haitians to purchase emergency relief food supplies via mobile money payments.  Postel praises Haitian shop owners who accept mobile payments, which, he claims, are “broaden their client base” and lower their risk by not carrying cash payments to the bank.

 

Mobile Banking in Haiti

Photo Credit: USAID

Other leaders in USAID have shown support for mobile banking as well.  Maura O’Neill, Chief Innovation Officer at the USAID Development Innovation Ventures in the Office of the Administrator, recently co-hosted the Mobile Money Summit in Afghanistan.  At the summit, the USAID Mobile Money Innovation Grant Fund was announced, which aims to create unique public-private partnerships to encourage mobile banking.  Currently, “only 4% of Afghans have bank accounts,” and given the success of M-PESA in Kenya and similar services worldwide, mobile banking is a legitimate solution to this problem.  O’Neill attended the summit with Senior Advisor to the Administrator Priya Jaisinghani, another notable expert in mobile banking.

USAID’s interest in mobile projects is not new.  In 2008, USAID commissioned a report on the use of phones in citizen media.  As well, numerous projects targeting women in development, have utilized mobile phones.  Mobile banking, however, appears to be a high priority for USAID currently.

 

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Schedule for 2011 IGF Finalized in Geneva

Panel of the 2007 Internet governance forum in Brazil listening

2007 IGF in Brazil

Stakeholders from around the world met in Geneva last week to finalize the program for the sixth annual 2011 Internet Governance Forum (IGF) which will be held in Nairobi in September. The focus of this year’s event will be on how to govern mobile Internet.

The consultations this past week garnered consensus for the final program and agenda for September.

Participants from around the world met in Geneva with the aim of maximizing the opportunity for the IGF to enable open, inclusive dialogue and draw on their experience.

Alice Munyua, Project Director for Catalyzing Access to ICTS for the Communications Commission of Kenya (CCK), chaired the second preparatory consultations of the IGF.

The finalized program is developed through and open process that began earlier this year and is overseen by a “Multi-stakeholder Advisory Group” of experts appointed by the UN Secretary General.

This year’s theme for the 2011 IGF is, “The Internet as a Catalyst for Change: Access, Development, Freedoms and Innovation”.

The stakeholders had an extensive discussion about what workshops would be important to include on the role of mobile, Internet, technology and their contribution to development.

A question to be highlighted in the forum was posed by a representative of the International Code Council (ICC): how will governance for the mobile Internet be differentiated from the wired world?

She divulged that governing this divide must be addressed as mobile has become a crucial part of how developing regions can tap into the marketplace:

On the area of mobile services and in particular for the region, it’s really an entry point to the Internet for many points of the world. There’s a leapfrogging, in essence, into this space. And I think examples of the mobile banking have been really exemplary in that.

With more than 4 million Kenyans accessing Internet through their mobile phones, this year’s IGF will prove to be an important forum for discussing and considering these issues, how they affect people in developing regions, and how it should be governed.

“…As you know, the lack of experts in capacity in relevant Internet governance issues is hampering participation of developing countries, especially Africa, on the policies, standards and also critical issues,” a representative for the United Nations Economic Commission for Africa (UNECA) stated in the consultations.

During the four days of the IGF in Nairobi, the main workshops will focus on issues such as broadband and mobile access; the resources critical to the stabilization and secure operation of the Internet; cybersecurity, privacy and Internet rights; along with innovative entrepreneurship and digitalizing local content.

Additionally, the multi-stakeholder team of experts have organized over 90 workshops to  cover a broad range of Internet policy and technology issues.

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U.S Leadership on Global Food Security

U.S leadership on global food security will get a major boost for the fiscal year 2011. This follows strong bipartisan support from Congress for a $1.15 billion budget to tackle food security issues around the world. Last week, USAID Administrator Dr. Raj Shah announced that nearly $1 billion will go towards Feed the Future, a global initiative launched by President Obama in 2009 to tackle hunger through sustained and endogenous multi-stakeholder partnerships.

Dr. Raj said, “$90 million will be spent on strengthening our nutrition programming”. Since the world food crisis in 2008, which caused riots in several countries and toppled governments, food security and agriculture grew in prominence on the international agenda.

He says, pending congressional approval, the agency will contribute $100 million to the Global Agriculture and Food Security Program, a joint multilateral trust fund established in partnership with the World Bank, to address food security and agriculture globally. Since its conception in 2009, the fund attracted nearly $1 billion  from donors, and allocated over $330 million to eight countries.

Conflict, natural disasters and the slow integration of ICT into agricultural policy remains a major impediment to food security and  the improvement of livelihoods. Nearly 2 billion people worldwide are unable to grow or get enough food to eat. Most of those affected by chronic food security problems live in rustic areas, where they have limited information about where to access and trade food, in the least developed countries.

The World Bank has warned that the problem is likely to become even more intractable in the next two decades. According to the Bank’s report, Reengaging in Agricultural Water Management: Challenges and Options, “by 2030 food demand will double as world population increases by an additional two billion people. The increase in food demand will come mostly from developing countries.” The publication says improved food security depends on increased agricultural productivity and improved water management across the developing world.

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TechCamps Converge Civil Society With Silicon Valley

Picture of a man with computer open with group of Indonesians listening

Photo Credit: U.S. Department of State

The US State Department hosted the second of its TechCamp workshops in Jakarta last month, in an effort to strengthen civil society organizations in disaster prone areas.

The idea is to take the knowledge of non-governmental (NGO) and civil society organizations (CSO) familiar with the humanitarian problems and unite them with the technology gurus who might have ground breaking ideas to solve them.

When the recent tsunami annihilated Japan, the world was able to band together on the Internet because innovative systems were created to help locate lost victims and donate funds. The State Department wants to leverage these inventive minds to help grassroots organizations around the world fight humanitarian crises.

“We saw the ability of digital natives and the networked world, using lightweight and easily iterated tools, to do something rapidly that a big organization or government would find difficult, if not impossible, to do,” Richard Boly, the State Department’s director of eDiplomacy, stated. “The question is: Can we get that same magic to happen when people aren’t dying?”

Secretary of State Clinton’s vision of Civil Society 2.0 is embodied in the Techcamps, to empower civil society groups with the digital tools and hands-on training needed to better execute their missions in the 21st century.

TechCamps focus on the challenges and needs of civil groups and then provides the technology consultations and digital literacy training to help solve them. The goal is to improve the resilience of NGOs and CSOs by increasing their literacy and connecting them with local, regional and international technology communities.

Last November, the TechCamp program piloted in Santiago, Chile as part of Secretary Hilton’s Civil Society 2.0 goal. In that gathering, NGOs and technologists from around Latin America discussed new tools to promote democracy and economic development.

Woman in discussion with group with TechCamp image in the background

Photo Credit: U.S. Department of State

TechCamp Jakarta, however, focused on disaster response and climate change.

Indonesia has a large social media presence, with the second largest number of Facebook members (after the U.S.), and like Haiti and Japan, is more susceptible to future disasters.

In addition to the change in topic, during the Techcamp in Jakarta, the State Department invited additional stakeholders—including the World Bank, USAID, and large technology corporations—so that emerging ideas would have the capital needed for a sustainable lifespan. Boly explained, “It’s a way to identify the next Ushahidi or FrontlineSMS and help them scale quickly”.

Several corporate partners signed on for the second session including Alcatel-Lucent, Novartis, Intel, Google, Microsoft, and Cisco. Leading technologists, including Josh Nesbit of MedicMobile and Kate Chapman of OpenStreetMap facilitated the discussions with Indonesian civil society leaders.

USAID is open to the new, collaborative approach. “TechCamp is all about digital development,” USAID Chief Innovation Officer Maura O’Neill asserted to Fast Company. “We are mashing up local insights and tech tools to save lives, create stable and open governments, and greater prosperity for all.”

The next TechCamp will take place in Lithuania this month to coincide with the biennial convening of the Community of Democracies.  Following will be Moldova in July with a focus on open government. Another six or seven gatherings are in the works, the State Department says, to possibly take place in India, sub-Saharan Africa, and Latin America.

 

 

 

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A Shift In Rhetoric At The WSIS Forum 2011: Incorporating ICTs Into All Aspects of Development

On May 16-20th, world leaders gathered in Geneva for the annual World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) Forum.  Speakers emphasized the role of incorporating ICTs into all aspects of the MDGs as opposed to the previous goal of providing ICT access.

This type of rhetoric respecting the role of ICTs is different than previous global summits and conferences.  In 2000, when the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) were first released, the eightieth goal – Global Partnership – included a specific target to “make available new technologies, especially information and communications.”  Subsequently, the 2010 MDGs Report included measurements of ICT availability and number of users.  In this report, ICT usage was the primary goal.

However, more recently, the ITU and UNESCO announced the establishment of the Broadband Commission for Digital Development, which embraces ICTs as “uniquely powerful tools for achieving the MDGs.”  One of the commissioners, Bruno Lanvin, boldly explains: “Broadband is not just about infrastructure…it presents the opportunity for a quantum leap.  …We may soon discover that Broadband has been the biggest absolute accelerator in our efforts to realize the MDGs.”

The shift in rhetoric surrounding ICTs is now beginning to affect international measurements.  For example, last month the World Economic Forum released The Global Information Technology Report 2010-2011, and announced new changes to the Network Readiness Index.  The WEF acknowledged that the original index “falls short in looking at the impacts of ICT usage,” and in their revised index elements such as business innovation, governance, citizens’ political participation, and social cohesion are incorporated, demonstrating the acceptance of ICTs as important development tools in all sectors.

A keynote speaker at the WSIS Forum, Mr. Mohammed Nasser Al Ghanim, Director General of the Telecommunications Regulatory Authority in the UAE, explained that ICTs are crucial for “every sector of the economy and contribute to areas so diverse as health, education, and public safety.”

Other forum sessions at the conference further emphasized the importance of ICT utility in achieving all of the MDGs, including “Better Life in Rural Communities with ICTs,” and “ICTs as an enabler for Development of LDCs.”

The second day of the conference, May 17th, was the annual World Telecommunications and Information Society Day.  In a public video celebrating the event, ITU Secretary-General Hamadoun I. Touré states: “It is time for global action to connect rural communities to the opportunities offered by ICTs.”

The WSIS Forum 2011 verified the need to utilize ICTs to accelerate the completion of all the MDGs.  This change in rhetoric and measurements regarding ICTs will likely affect public policy in the short future.  The WSIS Forum 2011 was an important marker in the history of ICT4D.  ICT access and connectivity is the means to making sustained impacts in all the MDGs, but is not the end goal in itself.

 

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Uganda Blames Food Price Protests on Media

Ugandan man throwing a brick into a fire

Photo credit: Reuters/Edward Echwalu

Protests over rising fuel and food prices continue despite Ugandan government attempts to slow them down by blocking Facebook, Twitter, and censoring media content.

Last week, President Yoweri Museveni cited social media and negative media coverage as primary proponents of fueling social unrest amid state led violence.

Protestors boycotted fuel purchases by “walking to work” for the past two months in an effort to demonstrate against the government spending at a time of heightened government expenditures.

In Uganda, the price of staples such as wheat have increased up to 40%, according to the World Bank.

UCC wrote to all ISPs last month asking them to block access to the two social media websites for 48 hours, but their request was denied.

“If someone is telling people to go and cause mass violence and kill people and uses these media to spread such messages, I can assure you we’ll not hesitate to intervene and shut down these platforms,” Godfrey Mutabazi, executive director of the Uganda Communications Commission (UCC) stated last month.

The Uganda’s communications regulator relies on Internet service providers to enforce their demands, as they cannot block access to the sites themselves.

Separately, last week Museveni described both local and international media, like the BBC, as “enemies of the state” at a time when journalists are reporting brutal assaults and harassment by security forces.

Journalists have imposed a news blackout on the Ugandan government in protest against what they described as rising brutality against covering demonstrations over the high prices. The media blackout includes official police and army functions.

Following Museveni’s warning this week, the outgoing Minister for Information, Kabakumba Masiko, told BBC’s Network Africa program that Ugandan laws would be amended to deal with any journalist who behaves as an “enemy of the state”.

She state on the program:

If you look at the way these media houses have been reporting what has been going on in our country, you realise they were inciting people and trying to show that Uganda is now ungovernable, is under fire as if the state is about to collapse.

Early last year the minister took a proposed Press and Journalist Amendment Bill to the Cabinet, where it creates a new publication offense of “economic sabotage”.

Ugandan president Museveni with paper accusing media of sabotage

Museveni accused media of sabotage in 2008 address Photo credit: Monitor

If passed, the law would give absolute dominance to Media Council, the statutory regulator, the authority to revoke the license of any media outlet that publishes “material that amounts to economic sabotage”.

The officials’ efforts are part of a recent trend by autocratic governments to block social media sites and having media blackouts to control social movements.

The US State Department spokesman issued a statement of concern in how blocking communication mediums adversely affects civil society.

“We are also concerned by reports that the Ugandan government has attempted to restrict media coverage of these protests and, on at least one occasion, block certain social networking websites,” the statement said.

The ongoing role of social media and the concurrent suppression of media freedom in anti-government protests make governments’ actions against civil society measurable and accountable.

It is clear that the future of reporting will be increasingly difficult for authoritarian countries to really control what their people see and hear.

 

 

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Mobiles for Agriculture at the InfoDev Global Forum

Woman with a phone with the Esoko app.

Esoko application billboard in Accra, Ghana

The global movement to improve agriculture and natural resources management through ICT takes center stage this week at the fourth InfoDev Global Forum in Helsinki.

Though in its nascent stage, the forum attracts a wide cross-section of attendees (business incubator managers, policy-makers, SMEs, financiers and development agencies)  from around the globe “for a unique South-South and North-South networking and knowledge-sharing experience”.

The four day forum, which ends on June 3, zeros in on mobile applications for agri-businesses and clean technologies. Yesterday, a  high level panel discussion featuring experts from the World Bank, FAO, AgriCord, Uganda and Kenya examined the varied use of mobile technology in agriculture and the management of natural resources, namely forestry. The discussion was a prelude to the launch of a new virtual resource that the experts believe will function as a “living updatable document”.

The e-Sourcebook “Information and Communication Technologies for Agriculture” will be released in October. The resource will feature a plethora of ICT innovations and examine their potential to improve agricultural development.

This year marks the fourth staging of the bi-annual event, which is functioning within the framework of a joint program with the Government of Finland and Nokia to create sustainable businesses for a knowledge economy. The $17 million program seeks to enhance the competitiveness of the information and communication technologies (ICT) and agribusiness sectors in small and medium sized emerging markets.

A key feature of the two year initiative is the use of mobile technologies to provide content, services and applications for developing countries. This development comes less than a year after global mobile subscriptions topped five billion, according to the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

Despite improvement in mobile subscriptions, access to fixed phone lines and internet usage, the ITU says one billion people worldwide still lack connection to any kind of ICT. This is particularly problematic for the drive to improve agriculture as  most  people without access to any form of ICT depend on agriculture to some extent  for their livelihoods.

The Global Forum was last held by Brazil in 2009.

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ACP Youth Leaders Call for Stronger Pro-Youth Agricultural Policies

White text on a green banner calling on you to use ICT to address agriculture

CTA/ARDYIS Facebook Photo

Emerging leaders in ICT for agriculture, from African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) states, are calling for pro-youth policies to reduce youth unemployment. Although agriculture accounts for over 50 percent of the GNP of many ACP countries, youth involvement is very low while unemployment remains high.

The young agriculture and ICT leaders have called for “thoughtful, dynamic, multilevel and relevant policies” from governments and institutions across the block of countries to remedy the problem. They have put forward a series of recommendations that they believe will help to encourage more young people to work in agriculture. The recommendations range from curricula revisions to capacity building and financial aid, ICT proliferation to increasing the involvement of women and marginalized youth.

The group wants to see the dynamism of the agricultural sector reflected in curricula across all levels of education as well as emphasis on agri-business and technological integration. “The absence of agriculture from the curriculum, particularly at the compulsory levels of education in some ACP countries is untenable. Its broad-based and compulsory inclusion with the appropriate resources will help to motivate youth towards having a more favorable view of employment opportunities in the agricultural sector,” said ICT4D Researcher Tyrone Hall.

The requisite financial resources also need to be made available in the form of scholarships, grants, concessionary education and research loans to those under 35 who are interested in critical areas of agricultural and rural development such as agronomy, food science and technology, agricultural engineering and water management.

“The current university structure in most ACP countries favors the Arts and Social Sciences, sectors for which our economies are expanding too slowly to provide enough employment opportunities,” according to ICT developer Chris Mwangi.

Complementary capacity building is also necessary to get the most out of the sector, the group recommended. This will require training in good agricultural practices and agro-processing as well as developing ICT officer programs across the ACP group to assist young farmers master their trade. “Our collective experience shows that a critical mass of young people in ACP countries is interested in pursuing careers in the field of agriculture, but they are hamstrung by limited skills, knowledge and training opportunities. Resolving these intractable problems requires urgent attention… given the need to reduce food imports,” added Tyrone Hall.

Another recommendation is the creation of “a legible, collateral-free micro-credit environment that offers incentives tailored to the financial needs of young farmers, and ICT software developers who are focused on rural development and agriculture,” said Samantha Christie.

The establishment of regional ICT incubators over the next five years to develop contextual and efficient technological responses to agricultural problems is also critical.

Finally, the participants recommended the provision of legal structures to facilitate increased participation of the youth in ICT, particularly women, physically challenged and marginalized youth with the required skills and interest. “We forthrightly endorse the prioritization of these groups in land reform programs. We also urge ACP countries to meaningfully institutionalize youth involvement in agricultural policy making,” said the group.

We are energized and prepared to share our newly acquired and boosted skills in advanced web 2.0 tools and to support networking among youth involved in agriculture and rural development in our home countries,” said Maureen Agena.

 

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