AOPP and the W4RA team will continue collaboration on the topic of Food Security in rural Mali, focusing on the information and knowledge sharing, which is necessary to improve value chains for seeds. This project is made possible through a recent grant from Nuffic in the OKP NFP-TMT-RC program, for which we are very thankful. […]
The annual project-based field course “ICT for Development In The Field” will be given this year for the second time, coordinated by VU together with UNIMAS, the Universiti Malaysia Sarawak. This course offers master students Information Science, Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence a unique experience, as it involves close collaboration with local rural and often […]
For several decades ICT4D practitioners over the world — funded by international development donor agencies or private funds — have tried to empower disadvantaged communities by providing them with ICT solutions. However, this has not not always worked out successfully. Often, technologies have been deployed for the “poor” without knowing their needs or assessing their […]
Despite the fact that more than 70% of Africa’s population depends on agriculture for basic life needs, and in Africa’s drylands rain-fed agriculture is widespread, reliable meteorological data about rainfall and weather forecasts — in Europe timely and accurate — is often not available for African farmers. Recent studies in rural areas of Burkina Faso and Ghana have […]
In recent years, critical research literature in ICT4D has grown. It is widely accepted that theory is to inform practice. However, the inverse directionality, practice informs theory, is much less present in ICT4D, including in critical research. In this paper, we discuss ways how ICT4D research and theory may be better informed by practice — […]
The Digital Divide is not just a North-South divide in the world. Digital exclusion is all around us. We don’t need to travel far. To tackle this problem, in 2019 the W4RA program has started exploration of the Digital Gap in Amsterdam. This project fits into the Community Service Learning program of VU. The student […]
A group of students from VU Amsterdam and UNIMAS, Sarawak, have carried out an ICT4D in the Field project in June 2018. The goal of this project was to build an information system that supports the work of banana contract farmers in rural Sarawak. To do so, the students did a context analysis followed by […]
Appong is the name of an application that helps increase sales of Gula Apong, a traditional sugar product, produced by smallholder farmers in Sarawak, Malaysia. The application was designed and built by a mixed team of master students from VU Amsterdam and UNIMAS: Giorgi, Judith, Kuan and Chris, in the framework of an educational ICT4D […]
Our friend and partner Yacouba Sawadogo, the Man who Stopped the Desert, has received the prestigeous international Right Livelihood Award for his great achievements in African Regreening Initiatives and farmer innovation. See a Yacouba Sawadogo is one of the innovative farmers of the Yatenga district, who participates in our “Meteo Data Services for Innovative Farmers […]
Good drinking water is essential for all. However, in e.g. rural Africa the quality of water, for example from wells is not always reliable. Lab water testing and existing tools are expensive and time consuming. Allard Oelen developed a low-cost sensor kit, for the rural context of rural Africa. The IoT sensor measures a number […]
