Our “Growing Talents: Youth in Agriculture” series of interviews, which puts a face to the youth in agricultural research for development (ARD), hears their voices and obtains an insight into their roles, perspectives, experiences and aspirations, continues with Silvia Renn. Silvia is a young woman who is committed to helping rural communities in Malawi manage…
RSS2
Geospatial Information
A moving story-Putting the film in context
During the African Agricultural GIS Week (AAGW10), a compelling story emerged. On Day 2 of AAGW10 each of the CGIAR Centre representatives to the Consortium for Spatial Information (CSI) were given time to present. They were asked to tell their top three stories of what their centres have been doing, sell themselves/their units and share…
Open Access Agriculture: opening the gates
So you may have heard of Open Access or even open access, maybe the Open Access movement or open access publishing–but what about ‘Open Access Agriculture’? When I first heard the term ‘Open Access Agriculture’ I imagined farms with gates wide open in which I could go visit, check out what was there, try my…
From the Roots, From the Stars – Scaling Up and Out
Link to Original Post written by Sibiry Traore on AgCommons Some time back, we argued against top‐down approaches. But we also said that fruitful knowledge exchange was a two‐way street. Confused? Clarification: Roots for Relevance. Stars to Scale up. We want STRONG ROOTS to grow from the bottom up. Like Honorables Mamadou Simpara and Sounkoutoun Sissoko , MPs for…
AAGW 2010 Roundup
The 2nd Africa Agriculture Geospatial Week (AAGW) opened earlier this month in Nairobi with a speech from Kenya’s Minister for Agriculture, Hon. Dr Sally Kosgei. Her thought-provoking address challenged researchers and GIS practitioners to ‘discuss steps towards the development of delivery mechanisms for making geospatial information accessible to poor smallholders in the villages across Sub-Saharan…
Part 2 – My first back-to-office blog: ‘AAGW and CIARD- a match made in space!”
So in this second part of the blog about back-to-office blogs, I am actually writing a back-to-office blog about my recent trip to Nairobi, Kenya to work on the 2nd Africa Agriculture Geospatial Week (AAGW10), held on the ILRI Campus from 8th-11th June 2010. In my blog post about re-joining the CGIAR ICT-KM program, I…
‘Navigating the Change’- Mapping out the role of spatial information in ARD
If you don’t know where you are going, any road will take you there These wise words were spoken to Alice by the Cheshire Cat when she was trying to move around in Wonderland, but serve as a good addage to many of us when we are thinking about the future. For the Consortium for Spatial…
Rewarding innovation at the Africa Agriculture Geospatial Week
Maps are cognitive guides. They locate us, helping us to figure out where we are now in relation to where we’ve been, and to plan where we’re going. The quote above is from the book “Outcome Mapping: Building learning and reflection into development programs, by Sarah Earl, Fred Carden and Terry Smutylo” and fits well…
Kenya’s agriculture minister opens Africa Agriculture Geospatial Week
Kenya’s agriculture minister opens Africa Agriculture Geospatial Week and calls for efforts to take geospatial information to the ‘last mile’ While addressing the 2nd Africa Agriculture Geospatial Week (AAGW) that opened this week at the International Livestock Research Institute (ILRI) campus in Nairobi; Kenya’s Minister for Agriculture, Hon Dr Sally Kosgei, challenged researchers and GIS…
Launch of AgCommons Platform: Enhancing location-based intelligence
On the first day (Tuesday 8th June 2010) of the 2nd Africa Agriculture Geospatial Week, the afternoon was devoted to looking at the AgCommons project and the launching of its new platform. An introduction to AgCommons was given by Enrica Porcari, Chief Information Officer of the CGIAR, and Laban MacOpiyo, Director of AgCommons, which provided a background to the…