The African Drone Forum’s Business Challenge is the first Pan-African business plan competition designed exclusively for African entrepreneurs that have identified new and innovative business models enabled through drone technology and data. The commercial use cases for drone applications can impact a broad array of sectors. At present, there are emerging applications in Africa related to healthcare delivery, land digitization, agriculture or livestock monitoring, disease surveillance, urbanization tracking, and flood impact assessment. The objective of the African Drone Business Challenge is...
The following news was published by Watani International and is shared for information purposes. CAIRO, 22 July 2019. The Food and Agriculture organization of the UN has launched in Egypt a digital model of agricultural extension to enhance agricultural productivity. The move comes within the programme signed between FAO and the Egyptian Government to boost information exchange and technology transfer in agriculture for the period 2018 – 2022. Ezz El-Din Abu-Steit, Egypt’s Minister of Agriculture and Land Reclamation, stressed that digital technology had the potential of facing threats of...
You could join global leaders for a 1-day conference exploring the future of agriculture, food security, resilient populations and technology, on June 5, 2019 in Washington, DC. Those who wishes to submit session and speakers ideas by May 1st This conference will explore how data, new technologies and innovation are remaking food and water systems and value chains around the world, and how international development organizations can leverage these changes to accelerate impact. ICTforAg 2019 Conference This conference is sponsored by the Feed the Future , ICTforAg 2019 will be a smaller, more...
There has been much hype about blockchain and their application in various sectors. In the agricultural domain, e-Agriculture has reported some of these initiatives. We came across an interesting blog by Sam on Disruptor, and provides interesting use cases of this technology in western and advanced farms. The technology has been applied in “managing warehouses, silos, and supply chains more intelligently, or utilized in the field as a tool to transmit real-time data about crops and livestock”. The following use cases are explained in detail, Overseeing Farm Inventory Enhancing Agricultural...
In an opinion piece on CNN Business , the WorldBank Group CEO and interim presidents noted that automation and artificial intelligence (and other disruptive technologies) could revolutionize the industrialized world, and with great potential to the developing world. O n her tweeter account , Ms Kristalina Georgieva noted in order to support Africa’s digital transformation, the WorldBank Group will invest $25 billion between now and 2030 and is aiming to mobilize $25 billion more from the private sector. How can African countries leapfrog themselves for this challenge? In the above mentioned...
In sub-Saharan Africa and indeed in most of the developing world, women form a greater part of the agricultural labour force. There is potential of information and communications technologies (ICTs) to include women fully in the agricultural systems. The recent ICT Update 90 focuses on Women and Digitization in Agriculture and chronicles the work that The Technical Centre for Agriculture and Rural Cooperation (CTA) has done within the African Caribbean and Pacific (ACP). The interventions deal with CTA’s contribution to rural economies, the growing advancements in digitization and lessening...
Serge Auguste Zaonogo from Burkina Faso won the Radio France Internationale (RFI) Challenge App Africa for his invention ‘Saagga’ - an electronic mapping system that optimizes irrigation in the agricultural sector, permitting management while on-the-move. In a recent article , FAO noted that in addition to the prize, Serge Auguste Zaonogo will be offered an Internship with FAO in one of its innovation units. The RFI Challenge App Africa aims to support and promote the integration of new, innovative technologies in the field of sustainable development in Francophone Africa. Read this news here...
A one-size-fits-all approach to agricultural finance and insufficient resources make it difficult for smallholder farmers to become profitable, despite the pivotal role they play in agricultural production. Over the last four years, Grameen Foundation and Musoni Microfinance Kenya have built a...
The partnership will support efforts to achieve the Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2 – a world with zero hunger . Alibaba and The United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) have entered into a strategic partnership to achieve a world with zero hunger – which is Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 2. Under the framework agreement, Alibaba will provide its leading technology and resources to support the digital transformation of WFP’s operations. Alibaba operates the Alibaba Cloud and will avail this infrastructure and collaborate with WFP to develop a digital ‘World Hunger Map’ to monitor...
A one-size-fits-all approach to agricultural finance and insufficient resources make it difficult for smallholder farmers to become profitable, despite the pivotal role they play in agricultural production. Over the last four years, Grameen Foundation and Musoni Microfinance Kenya have built a...