I have seen Sportfreunde Stiller almost live this weekend, and I found this video … funny how they think about manipulating the media and social habits …
This is the first sketch of our logo. How do you like it? The “C” looks a bit like the old ORF logo … We have to work on it, but I want you to have a chance to contribute, so please write a comment. This logo was donated by Totti Design Team so thanks to you guys …
Last weekend the first BarCamp took place in Narobi, Kenya. A lot of people attended, far more as expected. About 200+ tech people, bloggers, programmers and people just curious about the topic came there and attended. Some of the topics mobile communication, mobile applications, linux, google … Check out the photos here and there and the voices here and there. The next BarCamp is up to come in Kampala, Uganda on August 29, 2008 … so I hope this will be a success also. I am also thinking about a BarCamp in Zanzibar in March/April/May 2008 … Anyone interested in helping us organize this event?
I want to write a follow up on Florians post about SRI. There is an interesting dossier published by Spore on how SMS techologie can boost the output of sugarcane. Farmers in South Africa use cell phone technologie to get notified when it is necessary to irrigate their crops. The key goal is to reduce cost of irrigation by pulling down the amount of water used.
The system, called My Canesim, uses automatic weather stations, the Internet and cellular technology to produce up-to-date information about when to irrigate crops. Extrapolating information from field and real-time weather data, My Canesim estimates the recent, current and future water balance, as well as the crop status and projected yield of a given plot. It then automatically generates and distributes simple irrigation advice by SMS to farmers’ mobile phones. [snip taken from here]
I think “traditional” methods of optimizing harvest should combined with new technologie, to get the best out of agriculture.
Though this post has to do nothing with information technology, I found it very interesting for the general topic of fighting poverty and hunger in the world. I read it in the Standard today, it’s about a method to maximize the yield in producing rice.
Increased yield is achieved with 80-90% reductions in seed requirements (lower plant population) and 25-50% less irrigation water. Chemical fertilizer and agrochemical crop protection can be used, but best results can be attained without use of purchased inputs. [Citation from wikipedia]
The method is called System of Rice Intensification - I find it amazing that this environment-friendly and simple method seems to work better than any genetically modified or chemically enhanced one.
One of the presentations of PechaKucha was about the project SARCH - social sustainable architecture. It’s about letting European aechitecture students build public buildings like schools, libraries, … together with the local residents. The claim is: “build together learn together”, both parties learn about and from each other. I find it quite interesting and ambitious, though it has no direct connection with ICT4D. After PechaKucha I talked to the initiator of the project - Christoph Chorherr - and he also mentioned that WLAN is planned for one of their schools. Another connected project is ITHUBA. Check it out, it’s an example what few motivated people can do.
The PecheKucha Night Vienna is over (already a while) and it was a really cool event. There were many interesting presentations and I talked to quite some interesting people. I had some problems with my time management regrettably, as can be seen on the video which is hopefully available soon. Anyway I hope I got some people interested in the topic.
Tomorrow in the Museumsquartier Wien, the fifth PecheKucha Night Vienna will be held. It’s about PechaKucha, a certain format of presentations which have become quite famous in Japan and now spread to the world. There are 20 photos with respectively 20 seconds of time to talk or perform or whatever. In these 6 minutes in total the audience should be entertained or made interested in the topic. Martin booked a slot for me some time ago and so I will talk about ICT4D generally and the platform tomorrow. Maybe there are some interested people gathered and we will get new input, I’m quite curious. So once again: tomorrow - 10.6., 20:20, Museumsquartier - Quartier D.
One of the few newsletters I am subscribed to and I really read every time is the one of IPID. IPID - The International Network for PG Students in ICT4D - is an international organisation for all students interested in ICT4D research. It was launched some years ago by the Swedish organisation Spider (The Swedish Program for ICT in Developing Regions) which is funded by the Swedish central development agency SIDA (Styrelsen för internationellt utvecklingssamarbete). IPID works with many universities around the globe and organises meeting of interested students, mostly in Scandinavia. The newsletter gives a regular overview of research activities, conferences, job offers and other in the context of ICT4D. Regrettably I did not find the time to attend workshops or meetings organised by them - this one is in Finnland (Joensuu) in September - but next time I will definitely go there. The reason why I know them is the Master program I attended in my exchange year in Sweden. But I will write about that another time.
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