ICT-KM Program

A method of using bar-codes to track the handling of material in genebanks that was developed by the International Potato center (CIP) is so useful that the kit of techniques and equipment is being adopted by other CGIAR centers to improve their daily genebank operations. Managing genebanks involves repeatedly identifying the samples, or accessions, to track them and to update the information describing them after various processes like pathogen testing, cleaning, multiplication, characterization, evaluation, seed storage and inventory, and distribution. This process is both time-consuming and prone to human error if it is done using conventional hand registration with paper records.

A group of CIP staff sought to use bar-codes as a pivotal element in improving the processes and information management in the Center’s genebank. But introducing them required several changes in the traditional systems that were used in the genebank. “CIP’s genebank manages accessions with an array of processes,” said David Tay, the Leader of CIP’s Division of Conservation and Characterization of Genetic Resources. “They include cleaning, multiplication, evaluation and conservation of samples in the field, as tubers and plants, and in seeds, cryogenic, in vitro and DNA storage. Data are recorded at each stage. The transition from hand registration to complete electronic management meant that the whole procedure in the genebank had to be analyzed to identify where bar-coding could best be applied with the highest potential cost/benefit. This assessment resulted in staff closely documenting the processes they were using and consolidating a number of databases. It also became clear that using bar-codes required several complementary hardware components, such a readers and label printers, and labels that would resist -196°C temperatures.
“Once we had done all the work, we put everything into a kit,” said Reinhard Simon, CIP’s Head of Research Informatics, “Including procedures, hardware and software specifications, using cutting edge technologies that had never been brought together before.” The kit consists of six hardware components; mobile or handhelds computers, thermal printers, bar-code labels for different environments, hand barcode reader, barcode specifications and wireless access points. It also includes a technical specification document and web site, complete with links to application videos and complementary information. The kit is defined by a series of hardware specifications that give personnel in each genebank flexibility in selecting whatever equipment and consumables are available locally and engaging technical support. The kit also describes the procedures to standardize germplasm labeling and exchange information together with the best ways to use identification technologies like bar-coding.
Optional components include open source software for data capture, inventory management, information integration and advice on designing and documenting workflows. To make the transfer of technology easier, the requirement to reassess genebank procedures is not an integral part of the barcode kit itself. Users are free to continue using their existing databases and software and add the bar-code kit or adapt both in case no workflows and databases are documented. “To encourage adoption we have established an on-line helpdesk,” said Simon.

CIP shared information on its barcode kit in a training workshop in 2008 that was using the kits. “The knowledge we obtained helped us with very specific topics – for barcode printing and approaches used in developing a bar-coding system,” said Matija Obreza, Software Development Manager at the International Institute for Tropical Agriculture. “IITA will continue developing its bar-coding solution for its inventory system and supporting architecture, focusing on wireless and hand-held computing aspects of the genebank inventory.”

The processes and software that were developed for the kit contributed considerably to the relatively quick International Standards Organization (ISO) accreditation of CIP’s genebank. So other genebanks interested in ISO certification or accreditation might be interested in adopting CIP’s bar-coding kit and supporting workflows, software and databases. The concept of a kit also foresees the eventual replacement of bar-code by other identification technologies like the recently established radio frequency identification that is rapidly becoming popular in the industry. However, current cost-benefit analysis shows the unit costs are still in favor of bar-coding under genebank conditions. The emergence of a competing new technology will most probably result in further declining costs for bar-code-related tools. “From this viewpoint, integrating the bar-code kit will be a worthwhile investment for the next technology life cycle of 3-5 years as well as a facilitator to implement any new tracking or high throughput identification technology,” said Simon.

If you want to learn more about CGIAR’s genebanks visit our Genebank site

After a successful pilot online event (See blog posts about the event), the CGIAR, through its ICT-KM Program, is pleased to offer an online Social Media Workshop from May 25 to June 12 2009.

“Social media is using the Internet to instantly collaborate, share information, and have a conversation about ideas, and causes we care about, powered by web based tools.” – [We Media] Social media offers a move from “push” communications towards a place where we can interact with our constituents and engage with them in ways we never could before. It enables us to network with colleagues and some stakeholders.

Objective of the workshop: Introduce researchers, communications professionals and knowledge sharing practitioners to social media tools and support their social media strategy development. As a participant, you will:

• Obtain an understanding and appreciation of the role and value of social media.
• Learn how to apply social media concepts and tools to both gather information and increase the dissemination of your information.
• Learn how to apply social media concepts and tools for collaboration and interaction with your organization’s staff and partners.
• Learn from participants of mixed professional and organizational backgrounds.

Outline of the 3-week event

• Week 1 – Introductions, conversations and assessment of your communications needs and goals.
• Week 2 – Social Media Tools (wikis, blogs, twitter, file and photo sharing, and many more). You can join the exploration of a range of tools or start a new discussion on tools of your own choice.
• Week 3 – Social Media Tools and strategies. How these tools can help you to achieve your knowledge sharing goals. Develop your strategy.

Number of participants: minimum 22,maximum 30

Language: English

Dedicated time: A minimum of one hour per day, asynchronous (you decide when you go online), as well as two telephone conversations, one during Week 1 and the other during Week 3. Optional synchronous calls or chats may be offered if there is an interest.

Open to: CGIAR staff, partners, agricultural and development organizations

Platform: Moodle, Skype and/or telephone. If you choose to use a landline, you will be responsible for long-distance costs. You should have regular access to the Internet. Some tools may not be accessible for those with low bandwidths. You may need to check with your IT department, as some web-based services you wish to explore may be currently blocked in your organization and you may need to seek support to access them.

Facilitators: Nancy White (Full Circle Associates), Simone Staiger-Rivas (CGIAR-CIAT), Meena Arivananthan (CGIAR-WorldFish)

Cost: USD 500

Please write to Simone Staiger-Rivas (s.staiger@cgiar.org) for questions and subscription by May, 15 latest.

Using satellite imagery for counting crop acreage

A conversation with Lieven Claessens, of the International Potato Center

Sweet Potato

Yes, district officers estimate acreage devoted to various items. But how good are those estimations?

CIP, the International Potato Centre, promotes sweet potato for its high Vitamin A content and other nutrients. CIP wanted to know how much sweet potato was being planted by farmers in eastern Uganda.

So they developed a way to use satellite imagery to peer closely into fields. Until recently, most thought it wouldn’t be possible to differentiate food crops in a complex farming system. But for this project researchers tuned the satellite cameras to pick up not what the human eye would see–a tangle of green—but wavelengths we can’t see, mostly “infrared.”

Satellite images of infrared are similar the infrared film you (or more likely your parents) may have experimented with in the ’60s or ’70s– trees and grass came out in reds and violets.

Each species reflects its own “signature” colour. Using a hand-held sensor, researchers figure out what that colour is, for, say, sweet potato, as well as crops planted next to or near it, so they can differentiate them. Then they check for those colours in the satellite images.

The result? According to CIP researcher Lieven Claessens,“We discovered that only 63 percent of sweet potatoes in the field showed up in the national statistics. In other words, sweet potatoes were undercounted by nearly 40 percent.”

Improving the accuracy of counting by such a large percentage could be a boon to agriculture researchers worldwide. One more win for “the eye in the sky.”

The BBC Nairobi reporter David Ogot reports with interviews to our AGCommons steering committee member, Peter Ndunda, to Bioversity and CIAT’s Andy Jarvis and ICRISAT’s Pierre Sibiry.

A Message of Hope to Farmers, by Joyce Mulama, IPS Correspondent in Kenya

Helping farmers at the touch of a button, IRIN News  

More to come….stay tuned!

The April 2009 edition of the CGIAR E-News has just been released and is now available- see CGIAR News April 2009.

According the Laura Ivers  from the CGIAR Secretariat Communications Unit who produces the E-News- from her Yammer post:

” This issue highlights innovative CGIAR research initiatives delivered through collective action and partnerships and the promising impact of this work in the field. We hope you find the information to be of interest.”

Of particular interest in this issue is an article prepared by Nadia Manning-Thomas, project Leader of the Knowledge Sharing in Research Project, on the recently held Knowledge Share Fair. Held in FAO HQ in Rome in January 2009, this innovative event was the first of its kind, organised by FAO, CGIAR (through the ICT-KM program), Bioversity, IFAD and WFP.

To read this article see- ‘Thanks for sharing’

In the online publishing world, blogs seem to have taken off like wildfire. While the blog may have humble beginnings as a personal journal, it has transformed into a powerful tool for communicating online.  

Not too long ago, research ideas were written in closely guarded notebooks, discussed in hushed tones over coffee and within tight circles. Research collaborators across continents shared ideas via ‘snail’ mail, which may have improved penmanship but probably did not do much for research itself.

The  advent of the Internet and email allowed researchers and academics to learn, share and collaborate, all at a fraction of the time such activities used to take. Beyond the obvious time-saving, researchers gained from a wider network of peers.

Imagine a research scientist working on maize crops or rice varieties in isolated fields in far-flung locations being able to connect with other researchers, academics and even farmers in other parts of the world – people, known or unknown to the scientist as yet. 

While an email exchange connects two or more known individuals, blogging takes communications to a higher level, allowing the researcher to state an idea or question or problem out to a larger landscape of researchers and networks.

Within the CGIAR, researchers are already beginning to see the benefits of blogging. But first, for the uninitiated, what are blogs? 

Blogs consist of a series of regular entries displayed in reverse chronological order. They allow multiple authorship, the integration of several media in one site (photos, video, RSS feeds), and interaction with readers through comments and replies. 

With thousands of new blogs launched daily, the so-called blogosphere covers an infinite range of subject matters written by professionals and amateurs alike. There are several blogging software with popular ones being Blogger, Typepad and WordPress. 

Why should an international research organization care about blogging?

How can a blog work to your advantage? 

• A primary source for news.
  Blogs are ideal for sharing breaking news with a wide audience online; instant reporting on events and conferences. Event updates that get out to people are current and provide personal perspective.
• Let the human voice be heard.
  Interviews, reviews and commentaries are written by real people, based on first-hand experience. A well-written blog post connects with readers on a personal level, it is the blogger’s personal voice that readers ‘hear’.
• Project and personal information management.
  Blogs can double as your daily digest of activities and news. Yes, the versatility of blogs can no longer be denied – imagine a one-stop store for your photos, videos, documents and web links; your blog posts with valuable comments/ discussions. And imagine this, every entry has a permanent link and can be searched easily. 
• Conversations.
  Blogs can be used as the sounding board to debate and voice opinions. Blogs are an avenue for people to step away from conventional communication modes that tend to conform to organizational red tape. Blogs give you a sense of how people think and what is of value to them. Comments to controversial blog posts can be used to gauge reactions and opinions in a less intimidating setting.
• Knowledge sharing. 
  Blogging style dictates that authors provide abundant links to additional resources and information. This information is selected, distilled and organized to help elucidate and improve a reader’s understanding of a specific topic. When a reader comments with her own experiences, her own stories, what we have is a charming example of, dare I say…knowledge sharing.
• Website management.
  Blogging software are content management systems to all effects. You can build a fully-fledged website on this technology. A regular, constant flow of information and exchange would, in this case, be the core of your institutional presence on the web, while still allowing you to manage information that remains stable over time.
• More traffic = more visibility.
  Search engines crawl (i.e. discover and include results from) sites that are updated frequently and regularly. So in effect, every time you post to your blog, search engines will visit it, boosting your website’s search engine ranking, which is a good thing!

• Blogs should be updated regularly
• The tone should not be too formal
• Ownership: give blogs a personal voice with perspective
• Link to what other people say or do
• Answer each comment

I’m not sure if I agree with the last point completely, I’d say answer only if a response is needed for clarification. Your comments on this are welcome.

How do we tackle ‘institutional’ blogs?

Are you ready to blog?

If it is all about the human voice and relationships (as well as good, fresh and relevant content), how do we introduce blogging into websites that tend to have a formal, uptight feel? 

Readers can immediately sense the distance and lack of personal commitment that come from ‘ghost writers’ and politically-correct writers/ bloggers who use blogs as a channel to give out information that can already be found in websites and newsletters. Interaction not required! 

Then, why use blogs?  Blogs have great potential not only to inform but also to challenge perceptions. They can be used to draw out different points of view, commentaries, personal experiences and even, support for your blog post. The blog as a tool empowers people and helps create change. 

Nancy White, noted online communication expert and facilitator at the online workshop, stated in the context of institutional blogs:

If leadership wants transparency, in social media, they are going to have to take some personal risks because….people pick up on the ghost writing, the lack of an authentic voice.

She questions if they are realistically willing to blog, to be vulnerable and yet confident in their position and voice. 

Personally, I started my first blog post in 2005. It was a harrowing experience filled with fear – that my words would represent my stand on a topic or on life itself, that all and sundry would read it and hold me accountable. In short, I was not ready to share my thoughts so I quit with just that one post sitting anonymously in the blogosphere. Until early this year, that is, when I realised that blogging was a great way to share new perspectives and gather feedback. I could post a blog about a particular topic and share it with a wide group of friends and colleagues – mass outreach in a fraction of the time it would normally take if I were to talk to different groups separately. 

• Blogs allow several means for communicating your ideas. People who aren’t comfortable with writing may find it easier to record a podcast or a video and post that in their blog with a short summary.
• When leaders in an organization are asked to blog, a good way to get the juices flowing would be to ask them to ‘tell a story’. It sets a more conversational tone to the blog, cutting out the formal-speak, making it more appealing.
• Encourage frequent, short updates that aim to keep in touch. This ties in with Simone’s list for effective management of blogs.  

• CGIAR Change Management blog:
• IFAD blog 
• IFPRI blogs
• Climate Change and Agrobiodiversity Research
• CIMMYT blog
• ASB (Partnership for the Tropical Forest Margins)
• Net-Map Toolbox

And –  of  course – the ICT-KM blog…

The list grows daily (if you know of any other interesting blogs, tell us here in the comments). So, check them out. I’m going to subscribe to them via RSS feeds… but that’s another blog post! 

Resources

• Blogs on the KS Toolkit
• Blogs in Plain English (video)
• Nancy White’s bookmarks on Agriculture-related blogs  and on Development-related blogs 

In December 2008 the CGIAR decided to change its governance structure and way of doing business to better serve a world that is changing fast in financial, social, climatic and environmental terms. Four months into the implementation phase, is the CGIAR change process on track? Building momentum? Gaining traction?

The second second edition of Embracing Change gets to the heart of the matter with an interview with the Transition Management Team (TMT).

Also….In March, communications experts from CGIAR Centers gathered in Penang for a Strategic Communications Workshop to strengthen collaborative communications across the CGIAR. Change communications was on the agenda, and the event coincided with the TMT meeting and provided an opportunity for engagement between the two groups. Read the article on our blog to get a taste of the lively exchange.

Andy Jarvis

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 relatives, it’s actually very scary. They’re not conserved in the wild. And the degree of conservation in gene banks is appallingly low. Many have gone extinct already—and we have no idea what genes they might have had—for disease resistance, productivity, drought or salt tolerance….

At the same time, there’s exponential growth in the demand for and use of these genes through biotechnology. In the past, when you bred a wild crop relative with a cultivar you might get what you wanted—say disease resistance—but along with that came a tough seed coat or small pod or other things you don’t want. Now, you can use molecular markers to take just what you want.

Q: If they’re not in the genebanks, how do you find wild crop relatives?

A: We’ve been going through 30 major crop genepools, including beans, potatoes, wheat, rice, sorghum, cassava, some forages, coffee…. We collect all available information, through herbarium and genebank databases, of every point where wild crop relatives have been observed. Then we model the species distribution see what all these habitats have in common, to come up with suitability requirements.

So if, for instance, we know something exists in ten sites with these characteristics—where else in the world has those characteristics? That’s where you’re likely to find the species.

Q: For example…?

A: Geneticists were searching for wild chili peppers in Paraguay. We found records of 18 places with chili populations in the past, but they weren’t there any more, nor in collections So we modeled the conditions in the sites the botanists had described—and came up with 20 places with similar environments where people might look. It worked–they found the chilis in seven of those places.

In beans, there are 70-plus wild species, all in the Americas. There are 170-plus wild relatives of potatoes. But in lots of crops—maize being one of the most notable—there are just a few wild relatives left. Most of the species have been lost.

A massive global initiative is urgent for our major crops. That’s what the Global Crop Diversity Trust, housed at FAO, is trying to do.

Q: And the other mantra?

A: Climate change and crops. We’ve taken the 50 biggest crops, by area, and modeled how climate change will change their geography. After the biggest—rice, maize, wheat and a couple of others—no one has done this. We’re using a simple, niche-based approach: this crop grows in an environment with this rainfall and other characteristics, based on expert knowledge.

The shocking thing is that there are huge changes, for both 2020 and 2050. For instance, the models show that maize goes way down in Africa. But cassava gains area. Already, there’s anecdotal evidence of farmers shifting from maize to cassava or sorghum.

In a few areas farmers will lose all sorts of options. Maybe today they have 20 crop options; in the future, maybe they’ll only have 3. Some regions are in serious trouble: Southern Africa. Parts of Sahel. Eastern Brazil, northern Africa and the Mediterranean, including southern Europe.

But in East Africa—the rainy parts, such as most of Uganda—massive increases in rainfall are predicted. So farmers may have more choices. And they may be able to crop continuously. But the models show that pests and diseases also rise.

The bottom line is that everything’s changing, and quickly. The first users of climate-change information should be researchers themselves. Most agricultural research programs take at least 10 years to come to fruition out in the fields. So researchers need to target a 2020 world for their 2020 research results—not work toward better strategies for a 2009 world in 2020.

Q: Why do you call yourself a “promiscuous geographer?”

A: I use the same geographic tools—but apply them to all sorts of things: what we’ve been talking about, plus forest biodiversity, coffee quality, forage, threats to protected areas…. I’m interested in so many things, I seem to need to keep moving around.

You can hear Andy’s perspective on BBC Digital Planet – available at ICT-KM Blog on Famers’ productivity

This article was first published in the International Livestock Research Institute’s (ILRI, www.ilri.org ) internal intranet site. ILRI hosts the Bioscience facility for East and Central Africa (BecA) and is ramping up its work in the area of biotechnology. However, East Africa will be the last region in the world to be connected to the internet by optic fibre cable. Slow, expensive, often contested satellite bandwidth is a big constraint to carrying out this work. These are some thoughts from our partner Erik Bongcam Rudloff and from Etienne de Villiers and Ian Moore of ILRI.

———————————————

Is our bandwidth sufficient to do networked science? and if it’s not, what are the implications and potential solutions? Ian, Etienne and Erik puzzle it out!

Ian, Etienne and Erik

Today’s scientific work is becoming more networked!

Erik Bongcam-Rudloff, associate professor of bioinformatics at the Swedish University of Agricultural Sciences (SLU), talks about networked science and the need for high bandwidth.

Erik Bongcam-Rudloff

Erik, who has been a regular visitor to ILRI Nairobi since 2006, says: ‘Scientific work is becoming more and more networked and technology development is going VERY fast.

‘We are in a golden era of development. We need to look at bandwidth and the channels (ports) we have open for communications and what scientists need to ‘do’ science today and tomorrow.

‘Email is just a primitive communication tool from the past!

Erik argues: ‘Good internet connectivity is more imperative than ever before.

 ‘You’ll soon have a new 454 machine at the BecA-ILRI hub. [For non-scientists a ‘454’ is a ‘second generation’ high throughput sequencing machine – apparently the ‘new paradigm in sequencing’!].

About Erik

‘These machines will change the way people design experiments and allow us to ask research questions that weren’t possible before. These machines can produce lots of data… but without knowledge the data is worthless! It’s all about how you connect data to knowledge and no single institute or university or lab is capable of coping with this alone. New science demands that many people – many thousands of people – connect and share in real time!

‘So there’s a huge need for a very fast internet connection to distribute, communicate and do analysis of scientific data. All future research will be done collectively. Living in silos, unconnected to the rest of the world, is out!

Fibre optic connection coming soon! 

Ian Moore

Ian Moore (ILRI-ICRAF ICT Manager) says: ‘Reliability, bandwidth capacity and speed are the three most important factors that we take into account when implementing an internet connection. A research institute the size of ILRI should have an absolute minimum capacity of 10Mbps of uncontested bandwidth on each campus, preferably through a fibre optic connection to the internet.

‘This capacity is still small when compared to universities like SLU where Erik works or even compared to our sister centre IRRI in the Philippines.

‘In Ethiopia the optic fibre internet connection is fast but very unreliable so we’re going to install a satellite connection to improve the reliability, but unfortunately that won’t help the speed!

‘In Kenya and many other parts of eastern and southern Africa we’re still waiting for fibre optic internet connections, so until then we have to access the internet through slower, expensive satellites. For an asymmetrical satellite connection of 4Mbps incoming and 1Mbps outgoing in Nairobi ILRI spends an extortionate USD 180,000 per year. In Europe you can have shared 10Mbps in your house for USD20 per month!

‘The growth of the mobile phone industry and the loss of several satellites means that available capacity in the region is limited… costs are high and our upgrade options are limited. The limited bandwidth means that the link becomes congested at peak times and this is the main reason for slow speeds.

‘But the good news is that fibre optic internet connections from TEAMS, a Kenyan Government project, and SEACOM will land in Mombasa by March and be commissioned in June [That’s THIS year: 2009!]. The cost of bandwidth is estimated to drop to around USD800 per Mbps per month. If ILRI continues its policy of increasing bandwidth rather than making savings when prices fall then we’ll be able to implement the minimum 10Mbps internet connection that we need. Fibre optic connections are 5 times faster than a good satellite connection, so speeds will improve too.

So what can we do in the meantime?

Ian says: ‘First we needed to make sure that we were using our bandwidth productively. We’ve been monitoring to ensure capacity is not being taken up by viruses, other unexpected traffic, that staff are not using the internet for personal entertainment or gain and that we’re caching regularly accessed content. But at the same time we don’t want to frustrate scientists by blocking access to sites they need to do their work!

‘We’re now confident that the large majority of bandwidth is being used solely for work-related purposes. We’ve also ordered a bandwidth manager device which will be installed within the next month. This will give us more flexibility to assign priority use of the bandwidth to specific groups of users or to certain types of internet traffic. The young scientists who struggled at the bioinformatics webinar last week will, in future, receive the bandwidth they require, but this will be at the expense of others. These measures offer only limited respite and soon we’ll have to upgrade our bandwidth capacity.

‘I totally sympathise with the scientists, especially the bioinformatics team who need to regularly update their huge datasets. If we were located in a region with fast internet 2 connectivity for research and education establishments, like GEANT in Europe or APAN in Asia, then Etienne (de Villiers) and his team would be able to download a dataset within a matter of hours. At the moment, it’s quicker for them to receive datasets on removable media via DHL, rather than attempting to download them through our internet connection.

‘To cater for the new generation of scientists, make use of the new communication and collaboration tools, not to mention the resources required to carry out research on the internet, we DO need more bandwidth. So ILRI scientists and management have to weigh up if the savings and improved productivity that can be gained from a non-contested internet connection is worth the increased investment in bandwidth and whether this investment should be made immediately or whether ILRI can afford to wait for the faster fibre optic cables to be commissioned.

‘The existing internet connection is funded almost entirely from unrestricted core funds recovered through the ICT service charge. But this is not sustainable and in the future more funds need to be built into restricted grants especially by those who need the additional capacity. So we need to do an assessment with scientists and figure out the best way to go.

Is it possible to ‘stay in the game’ if we don’t have high bandwidth?

Erik believes that productivity improvements and other costs savings can be made by upgrading now: ‘Huge amounts of money can be saved by increasing bandwidth. I’m chairman and board member of two international bioinformatics groups. We meet once a year face to face, but hold monthly meetings over the internet using a webcam, microphone, freely available video conferencing tools and a good internet connection. This saves us at least Euros 100,000 a year in travel costs AND reduces our carbon footprint! We talk to people in China, Brazil, South Africa and all over the world. We can have rapid questions and answers and this saves us weeks, if not months, of time! We also give teaching courses through this system.

‘I believe the future of science is in building gigantic wiki-like systems where whole communities collectively write datasets and these datasets will, of course, be open source!

‘We already have two examples – Wikigenes and BioGPS. It’s amazing how much data is there already. Yes, it’s primitive at the moment but so was Wikipedia when it started and just look at it now! There are few scientific articles today that don’t cite [our friend] Wikipedia as a source! [Tip for scientists: Check out Wikipedia’s page on your research topic and make sure your research is cited! And if there isn’t a page – just create one!]

Erik concludes: ‘So is it possible to do research with the latest technologies if you don’t have high bandwidth? No, it is not possible any more! No research can work by itself. Today’s science is network-based using a plethora of internet-based tools.

‘Scientists need to be prepared for collective working. And a lack of bandwidth will hinder real progress. If you don’t practice and use the tools, then you will be left behind! This new way of working is here now and it’s already ongoing.’

So do you agree with Erik’s views on where science is going? What are your experiences? Can you provide examples of this new networked science and how it’s working in your area? Please post your comments below.

—————————————————–

Article by: Margaret Macdonald-Levy with thanks to Erik Bongcam-Rudloff, Ian Moore and Etienne de Villiers.

Find the full call for articles and papers for the December 2009 issue of the Knowledge Management for Development Journal at km4dj_call_for_papers-december-20093

Over the weekend, a popular film actor, Hugh Jackman (of X-Men fame), posted an interesting challenge to charitable organizations. He pledged to give USD 100,000 to anyone who could convince him as to why their charity deserved the money. But wait, there’s a catch. The person would have to use Twitter!

Twitter, a microblogging service, allows users to write brief text updates within a 140 character limit (see recent post on microblogging). Which got me thinking of how the WorldFish Center a long time ago decided to revamp and create a meaningful and easy-to-understand Mission statement. The DG, Dr. Stephen Hall, recommended that the statement should in effect be the ‘elevator spin’ for what WorldFish stands for, but in as few words as possible. This exercise drove home the point that sometimes, short, sharp keywords had more impact than lengthy paragraphs.

But are we looking at a sea-change here? Will people now expect us to give a ‘ Twitter-spin’ to grab their attention?  Are investors moving in this direction? (Btw, these 3 questions already take up 154 characters)

One hundred and forty characters to summarize why an investor should pick us – what do you think, feasible idea or ridiculous? Anybody up for the Hugh Jackman challenge? 

Here are a few examples of how several investors and organizations are using Twitter to reach a wider audience:  UK DFID, USAID, Oxfam International.

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 part of our First Africa Geospatial Agriculture week, brought together about 100 between geographers, cartographers and mobile mapping specialists to discuss the potential – and difficulties – of the ‘geographic web’ in Africa.

The BBC Nairobi reporter David Ogot reports with interviews to our AGCommons steering committee member, Peter Ndunda, CIAT’s Andy Jarvis and ICRISAT’s Pierre Sibiry.

To hear the issues covered in the BBC Digital Planet visit WhereCampAfrica on BBC

 

 

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. Since then, geographical information system (GIS) solutions have found use in at least 40 industries– from environmental management to epidemiology; agriculture to transportation; disaster response to demining.

ESRI and the CGIAR centres enjoy a close and longstanding relationship. It’s easy to see how the CG benefits: The memorandum of understanding with ESRI provides CGIAR centres with a number of licenses for software, plus technical support, training and professional development opportunities for a fraction of their commercial cost.

In her interview, ESRI’s Carmelle Terborgh describes, among other things, the arrangement from her company’s point of view.

Q: Why focus on GIS?

A: Our founder and president, Jack Dangermond, likes to say: When humans first developed a microscope, we could see things smaller than we could otherwise. GIS is a “macroscope.” Now we can see bigger parts of the world than we could without it. You can only see 13 miles on flat terrain. But the macrosocope gives you a way to understand the world in a way you could never experience from one location. You can sit in Nairobi, say, and see the world.

Q: How do you view the CGIAR?

We want to support people working in agriculture, food security, livestock—their work is critical, and we can’t do it ourselves. We support a number of conservation, humanitarian, educational programs.

As far as the CGIAR goes, we feel honoured that CGIAR centres are using this.

Jack and Laura (Jack’s wife and VP) have a passion for seeing these tools applied for really good purposes. When you see a huge need, you just have to respond.

Q: Any big event coming up for geospatial specialists to get together?

A: We like to convene the people who are using our software and give them a forum. We host the ESRI International User Conference–this year it’s July 13-17 in San Diego. It’s a really good professional development opportunity for CG staff. Usually representatives from about five CG centres come.

A few years ago we focused on poverty mapping. I’d love to do another one focused on food security. That’s an offer we can make to the CG.

Q: What’s a favorite example of using GIS for agriculture?

A: One of our customers, USAID, had a project in Ghana called TIPCEE. It was really innovative in that they had women using GPS to go out and map the size of farmer fields. One thing they found was that plots were generally considerably smaller than people had thought. So farmers had been wasting money paying extra money for fertilizer and plowing. Also, they were buying too much fertilizer, so it was likely running off into the groundwater.

Another result was that since they had good maps of where the cash crops are grown, they had a better idea of where cooperatives and warehouses should be. Better location of those facilities could mean faster processing for export and shipment.

In addition, the maps helped them get organic certification by European markets. For that certification, you need a map to show you’re not, say, in a protected area, or surrounded by farms using chemicals.

Q: How did you get into this?

A: I’m a geography geek. When I was a kid, I used to read a Time Magazine atlas of the world at night, under the covers with a flashlight.

In college I was a forestry major –I wanted to be working out in the field. But then I developed horrible allergies to trees. So I went back to my first love and did my Master’s and PhD in geography.

Also…my father’s blind, and I think his lack of vision made me passionate about seeing the world. I got pretty good at describing the world to him as we walked together, and as we traveled. And geography is the art of describing our world.

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 organizations to come up with a “Quick Win”: a product that would have real impact on the ground, useable within six to nine months.

The Grameen Technology Center, an initiative of the Grameen Foundation, is one of 5 recently announced winners out of 40 entries. Known for supporting microfinance programs across the world, Grameen Foundation also sponsors other wealth-creation ideas, including “Village Phone”. For this micro-enterprise, a villager takes out a loan, buys a phone, or rather a “business in a box”—and then allows everyone in the village to use the mobile for a small fee

“ Village Phone worked really well in 2001 when we started it, but began losing competitiveness as the cost of mobile phones dropped,” says Whitney Gantt, a Program Officer working with Grameen Technology Center. “But mobiles have much more potential for rural dwellers than just phone calls….”

Enter Grameen’s Quick Win solution. First, Grameen is creating a network of Community Knowledge Workers (CKWs). They will be the information “hubs” who connect agricultural and research institutions with farmers, and vice versa. They’ll have a mobile phone with either a camera or a camera and GPS.

Next comes figuring out the exact types of information farmers need—and how to collect, package, and deliver it through the CKW’s mobile devices. So, for instance, instead of calling an uncle in Kampala to ask about fertilizers, a farmer could ask a CKW, who would connect to the right data source and a have a site-specific answer.

One use of the CKW setup would be an early warning system for crop diseases. Banana diseases, for instance, create a huge drain on farmer income in Uganda, where bananas are a staple crop.

A farmer could call the CKW: “There’s a disease on my bananas.” The CKW motors or bikes to the farm, snaps a photo of the infected plant, and debriefs the farmer with a structured survey, already installed in the mobile. A few clicks send that info plus the exact location (in GPS coordinates) directly to the computers housing the database. As more surveys come in, an analysis of the disease’s whereabouts and progression comes back to the CKWs to distribute to the farmers—along with treatment or preventive actions to take.

And there’s more. “We want to create a suite of information products that CKWs can access and pass along to farmers,” says Whitney. These might include:

 Real-time information on markets and prices
 Where to buy high-quality seed and chemicals—plus information on improved seeds and how to use them
 A farmer hotline. Operators at a call center would answer technical questions using a database, or search on the internet—even connect directly to an expert if necessary. The call-center pilot will begin in early April
 A way for institutions and innovators to get news to farmers, e.g. on a new technique for growing organic coffee, or improved, drought-resistant seeds.

“My dream vision,” says Whitney, “is to see this network scaled up—one community knowledge worker per parish. And all functioning as a two-way info channel. Then farmers can overcome info barriers, increase productivity, get higher prices….

“One big challenge is gender. We have about one third women. But it’s not easy to find women to participate. They can get stuck on the farm with their duties. Or prevented by family members from attending meetings or trainings. How to ensure that this includes women and doesn’t exacerbate gender imbalances is a priority.

“I like how dynamic this is. There are a lot of different opportunities to create value with the farmers and CKWs. It’s not just one mobile application focused on markets. You have a system you can plug ideas into and test. If they work, great. If not, you move on to the next thing.”

There was a distinct buzz in the air immediately following the dialog session (Finally, a CGIAR Reform Initiative with Legs) between the CGIAR Transition Management Team (TMT) and the group of communication specialists attending the second day of the CGIAR Strategic Communications Workshop in Penang, Malaysia. A shift in perceptions had been brought about by the open, straightforward discussions that had just taken place.

Susan MacMillan

Susan MacMillan, Head of Public Awareness, ILRI, was not alone in thinking that the candor of the TMT was refreshing. For the first time, she felt there was a distinct possibility that the communication specialists would be able to contribute to the CGIAR change process.

As she said after the dialog, “It always pays to be more straightforward, because you’ll get people’s engagement. The four TMT members said it the way it really is. For example, we heard them say that, yes, the CGIAR change process has been donor-driven.

“When people are straight in their speaking, I find myself trusting them. When people push information at me first, I find it hard to keep listening to them because I have no relationship with them. I would advise the TMT members not to be afraid to tell the truth, but to be themselves and honest about negative aspects of the change process. That will engender our trust.”

This one has legs

Part of Susan’s optimism has to do with some of the things said by TMT member Jonathan Wadsworth, who brings a donor perspective to the Team.

“Jonathan said the reason this reform initiative is different from previous CGIAR reforms is because it has legs,” she explained. “That bit of exciting news – that this change process, unlike former ones in the CGIAR, is going to go to the very end of the change process – has been missing in the CGIAR Change Management newsletter, blog, website and in messages from CGIAR Chair Kathy Sierra.

“In person, these are obviously honest, forthright, committed and intelligent men. But those engaging qualities are not yet reflected in their written communications about the change process. I would like to see more of their personalities and ideas featured in future communications by and about the TMT. I’m actually interested in what they have to say.”

The personal touch

Susan feels that face-to-face meetings are necessary to gain the trust of CGIAR staff.

“With about 10,000 people spread across the CGIAR Centers, real-time meetings with everyone would be impossible, but we mustn’t discount the effectiveness of such interactions,” she said. “For example, I first heard Ren Wang speak when he delivered an 8-minute talk to my Center’s entire assembly of staff. Although I was impressed with what he had to say and how he said it, his message wouldn’t have had the same impact conveyed in a blog or a newsletter. Perhaps we could communicate messages using videos.

“Even during today’s dialog session there were three things brought up that weren’t mentioned in the change strategy or any of the change management communications: change is necessary to keep our jobs; there’s a lack of efficiency in the System; and there’s a lack of leadership that’s palpable. None of this would have surfaced without a face-to-face meeting.”

The need for leadership

“If we don’t know the reasons behind change, if they haven’t been articulated, we can’t even begin to work on a message. We need leaders to tell us how things really are and give us their message for us to work on. Jonathan Wadsworth and his team, who seem to have an appetite for the way it really is and to have the natural ability to tell it like it is, make great spokespeople.”