At the recent CSI-AGCommons-WhereCampAfrica event in Nairobi we interviewed some of the participants to get their perspectives on why maps are important, on their role in the response to climate change, on their use in recent crises…. Why maps? is a video produced by a Nairobi-based crew to help...

I am doing it again…giving titles that sound like an Aesop’s fable….just like my earlier “The Starfish and the Spider” post. But again, this has nothing to do with the more famous fables…. This is about applying map technology to reduce a public-health menace. After...

Using satellite imagery for counting crop acreage A conversation with Lieven Claessens, of the International Potato Center Sweet PotatoLet’s say you have a wonder food—or anyway, a crop you’re promoting or tracking. Other than a laborious foot trek, how do you know how much of it people are really...

Andy JarvisAn interview with Andy Jarvis, agricultural geographer, CIAT and Bioversity Q: You say you have two “mantras.” What are they? A: One is “crop wild relatives.” (Note: A crop wild relative (CWR) is the wild variety of a domesticated food crop.) When you look at the status of crop wild...

Google Maps has just arrived in Kenya, where it’s feared that mapping the region could inflame inter-tribal tensions over land ownership. That’s one of the issues that came out of our meeting in Kenya last week: WhereCampAfrica.. But there is a bright side to this! WhereCampAfrica, which was...

    CJ Terborgh An interview with Carmelle J. Terborgh, Federal/Global Affairs team lead, ESRI at the Africa Geospatial technology for Agriculture week in Nairobi Context: Launched 40 years ago as a consulting and research firm, ESRI created the first commercial geographic information software, ArcInfo....

Whitney Gantt A Quick Win: Community Knowledge Workers in Uganda AGCommons, the newly funded project coordinated by the CGIAR, is about getting the right farm information to the right person in the right place at the right time. To jumpstart the effort, in December 2008 AGCommons challenged...

A conversation with Meshak Nyabenge, GIS Unit Manager, WorldAgroforestry Center (ICRAF) Nairobi at the CSI-AGCommons meeting in Nairobi Q: What sparked your interested in GIS? A: As a kid, I was always imagining I could develop a boundary map of my village. I don’t know why–maybe ‘cause I...

Patti KristjansonA reaction to the CSI conference from Patti Kristjanson Leader, Innovation Works Initiative International Livestock Research Institute, Nairobi, Kenya Governments, particularly in places like Africa, collect all this data. And they hang onto it. It’s starting to change, but it is...

     Srikant Vasan, BMGF An interview with Srikant Vasan, Senior Program Officer for Agricultural Development, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and member of the AGCommons steering committee. Now at the AGCommons meeting in Nairobi Q: What’s the Gates Foundation’s major interest in Geographic...