An initiative of CTA, facilitated by the ARDYIS project

Survey on Agriculture open data in the Caribbean

August 9, 2014 By KLO With no comments yet

The survey https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/agridata aims to identify the availability, use and issues in relation with agriculture open data in the Caribbean. Open data are complete sets of information on an issue or activity, that are open and free to use, reuse, and redistribute. They are formatted for ease of use, in many cases take the form of databases, and favour public information, transparency, accountability and innovations.

It is undertaken by the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) , in collaboration with the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) www.iica.int and Connectimass (a Caribbean association http://connectimass.com/), in the framework of the Agrihack Talent Caribbean initiative, and of the efforts of these organisations to promote knowledge sharing on agriculture in the Caribbean. The AgriHack Talent Caribbean project aims to support the development of ICT innovations and entrepreneurship in agriculture by young people.

Most agricultural organisations have information on their website; we are more interested here on specific links to sets of data on specific topic(s) or activity(ies) that can be re-used.

Your response to this survey will help the development of ICT applications that will enhance the agricultural sector as well as help better address agriculture data challenges in the Caribbean. The research targets in particular agriculture stakeholders and IT developers involved in developing solutions for agriculture from the Caribbean.

It will only take a few minutes to complete this form.  Questions marked with an asterisk (*) are compulsory.

Please respond to this survey by 24 August 2014. Preferably, please respond today here https://www.surveymonkey.com/s/agridata

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Call for Expression of Interest – To Caribbean tech hubs & labs: Get involved in AgriHack Talent Caribbean

August 7, 2014 By KLO With no comments yet

The Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), in collaboration with institutions including the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI), the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) and ConnectiMass will organise a Caribbean Initiative for ICT for Agriculture called Agrihack Talent Caribbean. Its main objective is to support the development of ICT innovations and entrepreneurship in agriculture by young people.

Private, public sector and non-governement run innovation or entrepreneurship hubs/labs/communities (including university labs) are invited to express interest in being partners nominating and supporting teams to the finals of the Agrihack Talent Caribbean competition in Suriname.

1. Concept of the AgriHack Talent Caribbean (overview)

The Agrihack Talent Caribbean initiative is different. It begins with national hackathons or coding competitive selection events, staged by selected Caribbean Tech hubs/Innovation Labs and related institutions. Up to ten (10) Tech hubs/labs may be selected to organise hackathons or other competitive coding team selection events.

The winning teams from the national events will move on to the regional finals that will be held during the Caribbean Week of Agriculture to be held in Suriname in October 6th- 12th, 2014. An incubation process will follow for winners to fine-tune their products and favor actual roll-out. Promotional activities will also be undertaken for winners. (more…)

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Agrihack Talent Caribbean! launched

August 3, 2014 By KLO With no comments yet

agrihack carib logo greenThe AgriHack Talent Caribbean initiative has been launched with the planning meeting that was held in Jamaica. A Call for Expression of Interest will be launched on 2 August 2014 to the attention of Caribbean labs and hubs interested to partner on the programme. The regional Finals of the AgriHack competition will be held in Suriname, in the framework of the Caribbean Week of Agriculture organised by the Secretariat of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) and Caribbean Ministries in charge of Agriculture in October 2014 in Suriname. Best teams of developers will be awarded on this occasion and  will afterwards be incubated for several months. Initial partners of this initiative include the Caribbean Agricultural Research and Development Institute (CARDI), the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture, ConnectiMass and the Caribbean Open Institute.

This blog will be updated in that perspective.

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Caribbean – Youth Urged To Develop Apps That Solve Agricultural Problems (by JIS)

July 31, 2014 By KLO With no comments yet
ICT Minister Julian Robinson, Jamaica

ICT Minister Julian Robinson, Jamaica

State Minister in the Ministry of Science, Technology, Energy and Mining, Hon. Julian Robinson, has challenged the country’s youth to use their skills and imagination to develop applications (apps) that will solve the country’s agricultural problems.

These, problems, he said, relate to food security, praedial larceny, linking buyers to suppliers, drought, and addressing the high food importation bill.

“We spend about US$4 billion on food imports in the region and certainly, Jamaica spends at least US$1 billion of that amount. It’s important that we find ways of reducing that importation bill and to improve our own production locally,” he stated.

Mr. Robinson was speaking on Tuesday, July 22, at the opening of the two­day stakeholders planning meeting of the AgriHack Talents Programme at the Knutsford Court hotel in New Kingston. (more…)

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AgriHack Initiative: learning and follow-up workshop, 11 to 12 July 2014

June 26, 2014 By KLO With no comments yet

In 2013, the Technical Center for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) organised a pilot regional hackathon in collaboration with institutions such as the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources (MINAGRI) and the Ministry of Youth and ICT (MyICT) of Rwanda and the Alliance for a Green Revolution in Africa (AGRA). Young aspiring entrepreneurs from East Africa developed ICT applications targeting agriculture. The winners and some best participants are currently being incubated and coached in partner ICT innovation centers to fine-tune their products, their business strategies and prepare the roll-out of the applications.

From 11 to 12 July 2014 in Nairobi, Kenya, CTA will organize a workshop to review the process of this acclaimed and innovative experience, its results, promote the young entrepreneurs and their products, discuss modalities for improvement, replication and scale-up of this activity in other ACP regions. (more…)

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Crowdfunding offers kickstart for hackathon champions

June 26, 2014 By KLO With no comments yet
As a young man growing up in a farming household in rural Uganda, Opio Obwangamoi David often asked himself a question: “How could agriculture, a sector that employs 80 per cent of Uganda’s population and feeds every household, be so sidelined in the national planning process?” 

In 2012, with a degree in economics and a postgraduate diploma in agribusiness, David started engaging with farmers from neighbouring regions. He soon realised that most farmers had difficulties in accessing markets and finance, which in turn stifled production. David teamed up with Gerald Otim with whom he had attended college, and together they worked to connect rural small holder farmers to markets and microfinance institutions.

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By early 2013, David and Otim had helped more than one thousand smallholder farmers to access commodity markets worth US$80,000 (€57,700). They had also helped 500 farmers to access agricultural loans through a microfinance institution. But lack of collateral and the high costs of accessing formal finance remained a problem. The only other alternative, Saving and Credit Cooperative Societies (SACCOs), had become tainted by fraud and lost public confidence. Revitalising the role of SACCOs in providing finance to rural smallholder farmers became the quest of the two young entrepreneurs.Their search for a workable solution led them to Outbox, a collaborative space for ICT inspired entrepreneurs in Kampala, Uganda. It is here that they learned of CTA’sthe ICT4Ag Hackathon, planned for November in 2013, and it organized by CTA at Outbox. It was at the AgriHack Championship that an innovative solution was first conceived.

Read more here  

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Farmer finance tool sparks investor interest

June 26, 2014 By KLO With no comments yet
A Kenyan ICT4Ag application showcased at the regional finals of the CTA Agrihack Championship has proved a winning idea, with commercial potential.
  
, a platform that connects farmers and lenders, has attracted the interest of a Japanese investor, who was present at the hackathon, held in November 2013.”He approached us at the event and said he found the idea interesting,” explains Caroline Muteti, one of the four young Kenyans who developed the app. “Since then, he has been working with us to perfect it, so we can see if there is scope for applying the same idea in Japan.”
DSC 7049Also helping the team to develop and modify their prototype is Kenyan innovation hub , together with mentors for agriculture and finance, all based at the University of Nairobi, where the young app developers are studying computer science.”It has been fundamental to have this kind of support from other sectors,” says Muteti, who, like her team mates, is 23-years-old. Three of the four inventors of Farmdrive are women.The idea for the app came from the team members’ own background. All their parents are farmers, and it soon became clear that accessing credit was a common problem….


Read more here

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Hackathon launches apps for agriculture

June 26, 2014 By KLO With no comments yet
Poor access to credit and savings, uncertainty about which fertiliser to use, difficulties in attracting capital and ensuring efficient farm management – these are some of the most intractable problems facing small-scale farmers in ACP countries, so addressing them can make all the difference between success and failure.An event organised by CTA and partners to develop ICT solutions for agricultural challenges has done just that. Called the Agrihack Championship, the initiative was based on the idea of a hackathon – a gathering that brings together computer programmers for a short period of time to develop an ICT application or platform that offers solutions for a specific challenge.

But this was a hackathon with a difference. Determined to produce concrete results with a real impact for young entrepreneurs and small-scale producers, CTA organisers decided to customise the concept and make it more of a learning and entrepreneurial exercise. Instead of lasting just a few days or a week, this first CTA “hackathon” and its accompanying activities were spread over the space of a year, with preparation and follow-up activities to support participants.The Agrihack Championship, which focused on East Africa, took the form of a regional tournament, with key stakeholders involved in the preliminary phase to identify the agricultural challenges needing solutions from ICT applications. A series of national selection events was held before the nine most promising entries, drawn from six countries, were invited to the finals, held in Kigali, Rwanda on November 7, 2013 as part of CTA’s 2013 ICT4Ag Conference. All the entries were from young people interested in developing ICT solutions for agriculture. Many of them are still students.

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Partners for the hackathon were the Ministry of Agriculture and Animal Resources (MINAGRI, Rwanda), the Ministry of Youth and ICT (, Rwanda), AGRA, Microsoft Africa, mLab East and other key ICT hubs from the region.

Coaching is key

A key ingredient in the mix was bringing together a broad range of expertise from the ICT, agriculture and business sectors, to provide support and help take products to the next level.

Read more here  

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ICT4Ag Hackathon – Springboarding young agricultural developers to new horizons

June 19, 2014 By KLO With no comments yet
In November 2013, Gerald Otim of Ensibuuko and Peris Bosire of were two of the 20 participants competing in the first ever regional agri-hackathon. Fast forward nine months to July 2014, and these two are back at CTA’s 2014 international conference, Fin4Ag, but this time they are as part of Plug & Play Day and as speakers in the main event.

Since ICT4Ag, Ensibuuko, FarmDrive and a number of other participants, have been incubated in partner ICT innovation hubs in Uganda, Tanzania, Ethiopia and Rwanda, fine tuning their innovations and finding markets.

Being part of Plug & Play Day at Fin4Ag will expose these young start-ups to more potential investors as well as offering a fantastic opportunity to network and identify new opportunities.

The astonishing success and popularity of the ICT4Ag Hackathon, has lead CTA and its partners to look at how to establish a more long lasting initiative. The AgriHack initiative will be facilitated by the ARDYIS project and a first workshop will be held prior to Fin4Ag in July. Participants will look at how the 2013 hackathon model and process can be improved upon and will consider how to replicate the initiative in other regions and strengthen multistakeholder collaboration around it.

Although still in the fledgling stages, this idea which started out in East Africa is set to provide a highly desired launch platform for hundreds of young people around the ACP region with a dream to contribute to agricultural and rural development.

What will you discover at Fin4Ag Plug & Play Day?

Learn more about ICT4Ag hackathon

(Originally published )

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intro east agrihack

Videos on the Finals of the AgriHack Championship

June 18, 2014 By KLO With no comments yet
  • A six minute video presenting the various activities held at the Finals of the AgriHack Championship, including the pitching session of young developers and the prize giving ceremony.

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Tweet……Tweet……Tweet…

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Congratulations Gerald

Pitch Agrihack 2016, WAPIC 2016, and other places black folk have had….

La start-up du programme Youth CDC est finaliste du pitch AgriHack2017 pour l’Afrique de l’ouest buff.ly/2vgaa6x

Bonne continuation !