Moving to the midline – a new approach to evaluating mKisan
In March 2013, a variety of quantitative and qualitative methods were used to capture a snapshot of Handygo’s mKisan service 6 months after its launch in October 2012. mKisan provides market prices,...
View ArticleData, Mobile Technology and the Future of Agriculture: Addressing perceived...
My last blog ‘Mobile Technology and Agriculture’, focused on potential benefits to be derived from the application of mobile technology in the agricultural sector. I mentioned agricultural extension...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Creating what’s next for ICT4Ag: Farmerline’s voice services for farmers
(Lessons learned from over 2,000 small-scale farm households in Ghana) This is a guest blog written by Alloysius Attah, the Co-founder/CEO of Farmerline, and Michele Messina, a Consultant at...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The Experience of Mobile Banking for Coffee Growers in Colombia
This is a guest blog written by Juan Camilo Arias H., the Africa and Middle East Operations Director at Aldeamo. Colombia is well known for the quality of its coffee around the world. During an...
View ArticleBuilding sustainability: lessons from Swazi cotton
This post is written by Georgia Barrie, the Commercial Programme Manager for GSMA mWomen. Program information provided by Cooper Swift, Program Manager, TechnoServe Swaziland. It’s a simple idea:...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Business intelligence for mobile services: turning customer behaviour into...
Mobile services have a distinct advantage over other delivery methods: they can easily capture information about customer behaviour. Analysing the quality of the user base and customer behaviour...
View ArticleClik here to view.
A Guide to Developing Mobile Agricultural Services for Women
Agriculture is the main source of income and employment for 70% of the world’s poor living in rural areas. [1] Yet, access to crucial farming information and technologies such as weather forecasts,...
View ArticleTurkcell Agro-Doc: Farmers Pay Phone Bills with Extra Yield
This is a guest post written by the Agro-Doc Team at Turkcell GSM companies nowadays mean more than simple communications service providers. Customers seek value added services as a part of their...
View ArticleGSMA mAgri Programme is gearing up to achieve its next goal
Almost one billion people globally face hunger and are unable to get enough food to meet their dietary needs. 165 million children (26% of children under 5 years) are stunted which is associated with...
View ArticleBalancing Bottom-up Innovation with a Top-down Mandate
Most discussions around developing mAgri services (or most any mobile for development service) tend to revolve around the user and how we must cater to them. We talk about the importance of researching...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Problems vs. ideas: why GSMA mAgri is investing in human centred design
Being based in the ‘Silicon Savannah’, also known as Nairobi, I’ve heard entrepreneurs talking about “looking for a problem, not an idea”. After the deluge of M-Pesa wannabes, social entrepreneurs in...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Farmers learn to use mAgri services as it improves their livelihood
In my last blog ‘Mobile Literacy: A Significant Barrier to Rural Value Added Service Usage’ we talked about one of the challenges that is holding back users experiencing the service in the first place...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Food for thought and high yielding ideas at mAgri’s first Asian Working Group...
The latest mAgri Working Group Meeting saw a room filled with many excited mobile agriculture practitioners ready to hear more on how to create successful mAgri services. The Working Group Meeting,...
View ArticleClik here to view.
What do Tanzanian farmers want from Agri-VAS?
In March 2014, two M4D researchers went to a village in the Bagamoyo district of Tanzania. We wanted to find out what Tanzanian farmers want from Agri-VAS using techniques from human-centred design....
View ArticleLatest insights from mFarmer services revealed in new evaluation reports by GSMA
This week we are publishing a number of evaluation reports on mFarmer services: the mKisan service by Handygo in India; the Airtel Kilimo service in Kenya and Orange’s Sènèkèla service in Mali. GSMA...
View ArticleClik here to view.
How far we’ve come: comparing GSMA mAgri events in 2011 and 2014
mAgri Working Group Cape Town 2014 Back in June 2011, the GSMA mAgri team held its first Working Group meeting in Cape Town. We had a small gathering – the early pioneers of mAgri- and the session...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Mobile Human-Centered Design for Good
This is a guest blog by Fabio Sergio, Vice President of Creative, frog & Global Lead, frogImpact. There’s no doubt that mobile technologies offer new opportunities to address pressing societal...
View ArticleDeveloping Content for Mobile Agricultural Platforms
The increasing role of mobile technology in the development sector cannot be over emphasised. Mobile technology application in areas such as financial services, health and agricultural initiatives are...
View ArticleClik here to view.
The VAS provider’s viewpoint on mAgri in East Africa
This is an interview with Stella Lugalambi from Hamwe East Africa Ltd. Can you tell us a bit about Hamwe and what you do? Hamwe East Africa Ltd is a mobile value added services provider and aggregator...
View ArticleClik here to view.
Opportunities for mAgri services for fisherman in Bangladesh
This is my first blog as part of our brand new initiative, mNutrition; a joint collaboration with GSMA mHeath programme supported by DFID. In last November as part of the service design field trip with...
View Article
