When you spend time in Africa you realize immediately that the use mobile phones for SMS is huge. In the big cities just about everyone has a phone. Even in rural areas, most farmers use mobile phones regularly. Applications such as FrontlineSMS and RapidSMS have made it relatively easy for NGOs and others working in [...]
Archive for the ‘TECHNOLOGY’ Category
The Elusive SMS Interface
Posted in NEWS, TECHNOLOGY, tagged GIS, platform, SMS, Technical Infrastructure on February 1, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
An Unconventional Approach to Integration
Posted in TECHNOLOGY, tagged GIS, platform, TECHNOLOGY on January 21, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
The AGCommons geospatial platform needs to support a wide variety of users and a large number of different scenarios in order to be successful.
From a design perspective, the ideal platform solution must be:
♦ Unbiased in terms of software tools and platforms.
♦ Based on standards to enable maximum interoperability.
♦ Driven by user needs and be user oriented.
Redistributing the AGCommons Technical Platform
Posted in TECHNOLOGY, tagged GeoServer, GIS on January 12, 2010 | Leave a Comment »
One of the technical goals of the AGCommons project has been to design the platform in such a way that it could be taken off-line and widely distributed at little or no cost. This results from direct feedback that we heard from African users during the outreach trips. We found that most potential users in [...]
Applying mapping technology to make spatial information useful in Africa
Posted in TECHNOLOGY, tagged Technical Infrastructure on November 27, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
In the last post I tried to summarize some of the goals and inputs to the AGCommons technology platform that will ultimately benefit small-holder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa.
From a technical perspective what does it take to do this?
AGCommons technical infrastructure – How to make spatial data useful to farmers?
Posted in TECHNOLOGY, tagged CGIAR, Crop Disease, CSI, Technical Infrastructure on November 23, 2009 | Leave a Comment »
A major component of the AGCommons program from the beginning has been to find a way to make spatial information more relevant and useful to small-holder farmers in the field. The idea that we can bring the same level of location intelligence used by large scale farming operations and agribusinesses in North America to small-holder [...]







