From the 4th to 8th November, 2013 the ICT4Ag Conference was held at Serena Hotel – Kigali. The conference was hosted by CTA and MINAGRI in partnership with many other organisations including Agri-ProFocus. More than 400 (policy makers, government officials, farmers, development practitioners, ICT solution developers from the private sector, etc.) attended the conference. The main objective of the conference was to promote ICTs as an effective driver of agricultural growth and transformation.

- Text and photos by Didier Muyiramye, Agri-ProFocus Rwanda -

Several emerging innovations (in the area of ICT applications to agriculture sector) have been highlighted at the ICT4Ag conference as solutions for overcoming different challenges in value chain development, governance and resource conservation.

The Agri-ProFocus Rwanda coordination team, along with 30 of its members (mostly farmers, staff from support organisations and people from the private sector) attended the conference and had interesting experiences during the week.

Agri-ProFocus members at the 4th day of the ICT4ag conference

Kick-off day: Plug & Play
November 04th, 2013 exactly at 8:30 a.m.: I am ready to register for the plug & play day. People are quiet and everyone is impatient to be given the conference materials as the queue is too long! After registering, we enter the Kivu Room, where different agricultural innovations related to ICT are being presented to the participants in different booths.

“We are all here to learn and we will have the opportunity to learn”, says Krishan Bheenick (Senior Programme coordinator at CTA) at the end of the introductory session. Then the Plug & Play day begins, a day with speedy presentations that are kept coming and are well-timed by the sound of a vuvuzela. Each company is given 15 minutes of presentation.

Going from booth to booth, anyone can easily see the attention and appreciation that the participants are paying to the presenters to capture everything on innovations that are being shared. Agrico, Farmline, iCow, mFisheries, M-Farm, mlouma, M-Shamba, AgroSIM, M-AHWII, etc. are all there, to showcase a long series of innovations including mobile app technologies, online platforms, agricultural tutorial videos, phone directories, etc.; some more convincing than others. Innovations presented are targeting different topics: GIS data (location of farmers), the price information & market linkages, environment, money transfers, advisory services, weather forecasts, plant health, veterinary services, crop and animal husbandry, data collection, etc.

Paul Cunningham, CEO/Living Labs at the Plug & Play day explaining the “Innovation Concept”

With the majority of the Plug and Play presenters being mobile-related, it is recommended that an agricultural television system be developed to complement mobile apps. One video company is represented at the Plug and Play session. This encourages some companies to concentrate on this video system in their future plans.

At the end of the plug & play day, participants have group discussions to review what impressed them. The plenary session ends with our minds all open and curious for the programme of the second day!

Day 2: Let’s get started!
The launching ceremony is attended by Dr. Agnes Matilda Kalibata, Rwandan Minister of Agriculture and Animal Resources (MINAGRI), Jean Philbert Nsengimana, Rwandan Minister of Youth and ICT (MYICT), Michael Hailu, Director of Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA) and others.

During the opening ceremony, this is quoted: “By 2016, approximately one billion people in Africa will have access to a mobile phone”. Apart from the mobile use, being the leading innovation in technology, it is said that we should start thinking on other technological IT applications. It’s not simply about receiving information on markets or crop diseases via mobile phones; ICT should also include remote sensing technology.

Gender in agriculture is also one the themes considered. As the majority of people engaged in agriculture are women, it is recommended to the innovators and applications’ developers, to think on creating applications aiming at empowering women through ICTs and hence, facilitate their integration in the agricultural development.

Finally, another target group that is considered as the one driving the technological innovations worldwide are the youth. Youth must see ICT as a leading tool to fast-track all the opportunities in different development sectors, mainly agriculture. Social media is changing the way people are interacting nowadays; it moves information easily and in an attractive way. And the youth are the main social media users.

The AgriHack competition
The Hackathon competition is organised to showcase the potential of ICT applications in agriculture and to support the development of innovation and entrepreneurship in agriculture, especially by young people.

Nine teams participate in the hackathon from six countries: Rwanda, Ethiopia, Uganda, Tanzania, Madagascar and Kenya. A team of students in the College of Science and Technology represent Rwanda in the competition with their Fertilizer Logic project.

The winner of the hackathon is a team of Ugandan developers (members of the Agri-Hub Uganda!) with their “Ensibuuko agri-solution” product. They win 5,000 euros prize money. Agrivas from Ethiopia is voted second and Agrinfo from Tanzania comes third, winning 4,000 euros and 3,000 euros respectively.

On the third and fourth days, different sessions are held to alleviate issues in the agricultural sector. See the themes here: Conference Schedule.

Agri-ProFocus members participating in group discussions in one of the conference sessions

“This conference was really helpful for me: I learned much on how ICT is used to get information on market prices, weather forecasts, etc. through SMS and other mobile applications. Integrating the youth in agriculture through ICT is also a big need as they are the future manpower of the next generation. We have to use ICT to attract them in agriculture.” – Isaac Nzabarinda, Agri-Hub Rwanda member.

It is clear that the ICT4ag leaves us with great knowledge and information to move on with and make a change in the upcoming ICT-oriented future.
One of my friends I met in the conference tweeted this: “The information is an input to agriculture, ICT a way to get there.” So, what’s next? It’s up to us. We, as Agri-Hub Rwanda decided to go out there and make it happen!

Let me finally share with you the links to the 2 videos produced by CTA showing the process of the Agricultural revolution:

a) The @gricultural revolution
b) 2015 Year of the @agricultural revolution