Focus on multi-stakeholder partnerships and develop tangible new ICT projects says forum

“Making e-Agriculture Work through Public Private Partnership in Asia” a panel discussion.

At eIndia yesterday, partners in the global e-Agriculture initiative came together to continue the discussion about the role of public private partnerships (PPP) in supporting e-agriculture. (Building on the March 2008 online forum on www.e-agriculture.org.)

I’m very pleased that we were successful in creating a lively audience-focused discussion, anchored by four experienced panelists. During the 90 minute period we identified the need to move from a focus on PPP to a more inclusive “multi-stakeholder partnerships” (MSP). The importance of MSP was further supported with examples of the important roles that could be played by stakeholders from government, the private sector, NGOs, farmers, intermediaries, and others.

The complexity of this form of relationship has great potential for advancing the use of ICT to support sustainable rural development. Success depends on merging the different agendas of each stakeholder in complementary ways, finding complementary competencies, and recognizing the professional integrity and incentives of all participants.

In addition to the critical issues identified in the online forum (which are summarized in a two page policy brief), the discussion added the critical role of addressing organizational issues from the beginning of the programme, in order to assure sustainability and maximizing benefits.

These are the organizational management issues that I continue to find are key to most ICT4D projects. This very issue had been emphasized earlier in the day by the presentation of Dr. Sapna Narula, Assistant Professor at the University of Agriculture and Technology, Pantnagar.

The importance of delivering user-focused, demand driven content was re-emphasized, as well as the need to not only continue documenting successful cases of MSP supporting e-agriculture, but to develop from these cases a comprehensive set of business models for implementation.

Finally, it was recommended that the next forum should focus on in country interventions, with clear objectives of defining pilot and proof of concept projects, clearly defining the focus of part of my own work in the coming months.

Looking Towards e-Agriculture at eIndia 2008!

The next main ICT4D event in this region will be eIndia 2008, 29-31 July, in New Delhi.

In the eAgriculture track at eIndia, FAO, GKP and OneWorld South Asia have teamed up to bring some of the brightest minds in KM4D and ICT4D together at this event, people dedicated to improving rural development. The group will discuss some new topics, shine the light on some challenges, and see what innovative ideas the collective group can identify for acting on in the near future.

There will be a headline presenation on the global e-Agriculture initiative and the growing importance of the e-agriculture.org platform in Asia-Pacific.

On Wednesday, 30 July there will be a panel discussion on "Making e-Agriculture work through public-private partnership in Asia."Public private partnerships (PPPs) in e-Agriculture are generally found at the community level where the strengths of the public and private sectors complement each other in providing information and advisory services that address the needs of farmers and rural communities. Examples of PPP in e-Agriculture abound in Asia-Pacific, and range from establishing access points (e.g. cybercafés, telecenters) to generation and delivery of content through mobile phones (SMS) and the internet. Understanding why a PPP is required, the respective mandates and incentives of the partners, and their roles in the partnership, are fundamental to its success. This face-to-face event builds on the March 2008 online forum hosted by www.e-agriculture.org with an audience led discussion on how to further this understanding, and to identify opportunities for collaboration.
Panelists:

- Mr. Amit Dasgupta, IBM Global Services India
- Mr. Manish Pandey, Deputy General Manager , Katalyst-Swisscontact
- Mr. Naimur Rahman, Director, OneWorld South Asia

- Dr. (Mr) N.T. Yaduraju, NAIP/ICAR
- Dr. (Ms) Amrita Patel, Chairman, National Dairy Development Board (TBC)

Moderated by Michael Riggs, FAO

On Thursday, 31 July there will be a panel discussion on "The role of communities of practice (COP) and networks in e-Agriculture." COP strengthen links between networks of practitioners, allow individuals to gather and gain access to policy and technical information, facilitate sharing and exchange of complementary knowledge and resources, and can organize and create knowledge in ways that are flexible. Following up the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) plan of action, the e-Agriculture Working Group conducted a global survey on "e-agriculture". The need for networks of experts and a community of practice was high on the resulting list of actions. This panel representing some of the leading COP in Asia that are active through virtual collaboration spaces, face-to-face events, and in-country interventions. The panel will interact with the audience to analyze what role COP play and what value they bring to the application of e-Agriculture and through that successful, sustainable rural development in the region.
Panelists:

- Dr. Gopi Ghosh, Assistant FAO Representative, and Solution Exchange India network coordinator
- Dr. Alexander Flor, Dean & Professor, Faculty of Information and Communication Studies, University of the Philippines Open Univ.
- Mr. Michael Riggs, e-Agriculture.org
- Mr. Rikin Gandhi, Assistant Researcher, Microsoft Research India; Founding Member, Digital Green
- Dr. (Ms) Prema Ramchandran, Director, Nutrition Foundation of India
Moderated by Ms. Shalini Kala, IDRC, ENRAP coordinator

And so much more!! It's a chance to listen, learn, speak, meet and network ... all key to personal knowledge sharing! I hope to see you there. Do come up and say "hi" when you see me! ;-)

Network Globally, Focus Locally - success in the age of Internet networking

The uniquely successful use of social networking by a candidate* in the upcoming American Presidential race is discussed in an online International Herald Tribune article. The article notes that by borrowing from principles that drive Facebook the highly successful social networking site (indeed they even “borrowed” one of Facebook’s founders to manage the site), this candidate’s website growth strategy is driven by the principle: keep it real and keep it local.

This is a true challenge in the facilitation of any large online community. While novelty and the excitement of newness can quickly galvanize a new community online, it remains a challenge to keep a large, geographically and culturally disperse community dynamic and working together productively in the medium-term. The e-Agriculture community, while still young and growing, recognized this challenge from the beginning and has been striving to keep it real and local, buy targeting solutions to key issues identified by the community itself, and by fostering locally-relevant events on subjects such as public private partnerships.

This political candidate’s site discussed on IHT.com also shows the power of reaching beyond the typical younger, Internet savvy crowd that flocks to social networking sites by advocating “off line” actions and more traditional modes of communication such as house parties and telephone banks. Here I think there is another parallel with the e-Agriculture community, as it focuses on three levels of action: the online Community of Experts global platform www.e-agriculture.org; face-to-face events, including GK3, and the upcoming eIndia2008 and IAALD World Congress; and in-country interventions.

The e-Agriculture community developed for everyone trying to improve sustainable rural development through the use of ICT. Join the community, voice your concerns and opinions, and use the online platform to sound out issues important to your local community as we did with the public private partnerships forum. Success is there waiting for us!


* While many of you have probably guessed who this candidate is, I have intentionally left out a name so as not to distract from the ICT issues at hand, and leave the debate on national politics to other blogs ;-)

ICT and the Generations

I found a very interesting article "Ten Reasons Gen Xers are Unhappy at Work" (It comes from the author's larger group of online discussions on Gen X and Y management issues. The site is a new find for me, and as I find it quite interesting I am sharing.)

By the way, I guess I should divulge that I am part of Gen X.

We will get to ICT, but first let me say it is very interesting to read analysis about managing different generations. If one generalizes about my workplace, my superiors are mostly Boomers, my peers are Gen X, and the newer staff are Gen Y. Quite a conundrum!

Recently I was told that Gen Y has proclaimed itself renamed the "Millennium Generation." Hmm ... I mean they were hardly even old enough to worry about their Windows files exploding on the "doom" date of 01/01/00!

Getting back to the issue at hand, there are some very useful tidbits - points 5, 6 & 8 - in this article about how the different generations relate to new technologies and also how they communicate. Both of these issues are critical to successful application of ICT for development (or in any context really). It may be possible to argue this is written from a the perspective of a western manger, and while I agree adamantly that awareness and understanding of cultural context is critical, I still find the considerations and sensitivities made apparent by this author's writings applicable here in Asia.

We must be aware of how different groups of people relate to each other and to technology. Generalizations are useful tools in developing models to handle such situations (and as such I disagree with some of the detractors of this article). We have to start somewhere, and an informed generalization combined with experience and skill (wisdom?!) can lead to the successful adaption of good ICT4D models in our day-to-day, real world projects and programs.

Human Capacity Building Efforts of FAO and Others Brought to a New Focus Online

The role of capacity building is essential to knowledge management and sharing, and of crucial importance in the development field. Without an understanding of both the information that is available to us as well as the tools and methodologies to organize and make use of this information, it cannot have a positive impact and we get nowhere.

FAO says capacity building is at the heart of its mandate, a fact reinforced by the recent IEE report (PDF file). To further this role, FAO has just published the Capacity Building Portal, contributing to the organization’s “vision to strengthen the national capacities of its member states to achieve their goals in food security and agricultural development.”

The portal highlights:

• Learning Resources, both corporate and specialized collections
• Learning Services, searchable by keyword and topic and providing access to FAO's Fellowships/Funding Sources database
• Featured Sites highlighting specific initiatives in capacity building

There are links to FAO's own featured capacity building sites, to other initiatives in the UN, and to the broader international development community’s efforts. I encourage the ICT4D community to try this site in order to identify new capacity building resources and tools.

Learning never stops!

Some spontaneous thoughts on PLN ... Nancy White's bookmarks on del.icio.us just showed up with something about "PLN"and somehow it occurred to me that I needed to know what this meant. Timely really, as I read this article on David Warlick's blog, because I am just wrapping up a four week online course on knowledge sharing, which I now realize is a clear example of my PLN, my "Personal Learning Network."

Learning is next to godliness ... somehow my PLN of my early years managed to sink that value deep into me. Although caught up in the day-to-day demands of large organizations and professional "carrots and sticks," I think it becomes possible to lose track of this. PLN play a vital role not only for one self, but also for others as:

• part of our own "continuing education" for professional and personal development
• something to be instilled in others; key role in mentoring and managing

Each of these points is an essay in itself. Does anyone know of good information supporting these ideas?

My mind has already got me thinking of how the Web2.0 technologies will impact our PLN. The article talks about Twitter.

Personally I'm fascinated thinking of the cultural and organizational impact of technology such as Twitter ... an enclosed classroom or meeting room, or a delimited group of individuals, is suddenly opened up to the Global Village. Of course opening up can be good or bad, depending on one's perspective. Not all would be comfortable with, welcome, or find value in this level of exposure. I doubt there will be Twittering in my office's meetings anytime soon!

It would seem there is the potential for too much of a good thing here, although Twitter's website does say it is the "modern antidote to information overload." There certainly is a need for limiting or filtering, and this is why the role of an established, defined networks is so very important.

But the potential for valuable input is phenomenal.

Knowledge Societies and Governance in Asia

I was recently invited to speak at a conference that considered the development of knowledge societies in Asia, and how this development has an impact on economies and in particular governance. It was a very interesting (and for me very unusual) gathering of individuals from academia, government, the private sector and development organizations.

There were some fascinating presentations on the impact of cultural diversity on knowledge sharing, efforts to quantify the impact of ICT on development and economic growth, projects to alleviate poverty and food insecurity with ICT, successes and failures in large scale knowledge management practices, national case studies, and many other topics. It was both a good opportunity to network with colleagues, and also a chance to learn both theory and practice from some leading thinkers in the knowledge management field.

This all took place under the banner of the Fourth International Research Conference on Asian Business - Knowledge Architectures for Development: Challenges Ahead for Business and Governance and was held at Singapore Management University, 24-25 March 2008.

Further information is available on the conference website.