The Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) and the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources (MINAGRI), Rwanda, are organising an international conference on ICT for Agriculture (ICT4Ag) in Kigali from 4 to 8 November 2013. It will promote the application of ICTs in the agricultural sector with particular emphasis on value chains, advocacy and policy development. Around 400 international delegates are expected to attend the event, coming from the private and public sectors, civil society, farmers and community organizations, development practitioners, academics, entrepreneurs, telecom operators, technology hubs and policy makers.
Agri-Hack Championship
One of the key activities planned to run in parallel to the conference is a “hackathon”, focused on the agricultural sector. A hackathon is an event during which computer programmers (and development stakeholders when required) collaborate intensively to develop an ICT application or platform addressing a specific challenge. It is a great instrument to demonstrate how communities of developers provide IT solutions that can address development information issues. The ICT4Ag Hackathon called “Agri-Hack Championship” is the first event of its kind organized by CTA. It focuses on East Africa, as a pilot event. Lessons learned will be shared with all ACP regions and beyond.
Aim of the hackathon
The aim is to highlight the potential of ICT applications in agriculture and to support the development of ICT innovation and entrepreneurship in agriculture, especially by young people. Indeed, the ICT4Ag hackathon does not aim to be a one-shot event that will end with the closing ceremony and site visits of the ICT4Ag Conference. It is conceived as an event with follow-up, which will be facilitated notably by CTA. It takes the form of regional championship, with national selection events or hackathons, and the Finals will be held during the conference. Development of applications will thus start before the conference.
Subject of the hackathon
Applications to be developed during the hackathon will offer solutions to strategic information dissemination challenges and access to financial services for agricultural stakeholders in East Africa. They have been selected following consultation with key East African stakeholders, during a planning meeting organized from 16 to 17 July 2013 in Rwanda.
Collaboration with technology hubs
A call for Expression of Interest to select tech hubs/labs which will be involved as partners was launched in August 2013. The institutions selected, which are the most reputed in the region, are: kLab (Rwanda), KINU and Buni Hub (Tanzania), Ice Addis (Ethiopia), Hive Colab and Outbox (Uganda), C4DLab (Computing for Development Lab) and iBizAfrica (Kenya), Habaka Madagascar Innovation Hub (Madagascar). Each of these partners will organise a national event to select a team which will take part in the Finals during the Conference. Each team will send two representatives to the finals in Kigali. Hubs/labs will also be involved in follow-up activities. m:lab East Africa has been selected as technical partner for the entire event. iHub (Kenya) will also take part in some activities.
Follow-up to the Hackathon, Multi-stakeholder collaboration
To ensure that the applications developed meet the needs of agricultural stakeholders in East Africa and that the developers have the opportunity to further refine and launch the applications after the event, CTA has involved, from the start, key East African stakeholders, including agricultural authorities, ICT institutions and business support organizations to collaborate on the initiative. After the conference, follow-up activities are planned and the involvement of various national and international institutions is being explored. Representative of those institutions attended the planning meeting of the event, who notably contributed in fine-tuning the concept of the activity and proposed the challenges for which the applications are to be developed. The Ministries in charge of Agriculture and ICT are strong partners of Rwanda. A fully-fledge hackathon will take place in Rwanda as part of the regional event.
Winning applications
The top three applications developed and the ICT innovation hubs supporting them will receive a substantial prize including cash awards, capacity building and incubation opportunities. In addition, the winning applications will be pitched and showcased at the ICT4Ag awards dinner on 07 November 2013.
Interested in being a partner?
Partners can contribute by:
- Funding prizes for the winners
- Providing business development, incubation or investment opportunities
- Collaborating on the design or implementation of follow-up activities
- Any other partnership possibilities can be discussed with CTA
Contact for the Hackathon
Ken Lohento
ICT4D Programme Coordinator
Email:
Technical manager
m:lab East
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