In collaboration with the World Bank Group, the Ministry of Agriculture, Animal Industry and Fisheries (MAAIF), will host the DAT Innovation Challenge on November 19th 2019 in Kampala, Uganda.

The Innovation Challenge is designed to discover and link Disruptive Agricultural Technology (DAT) solutions to project needs in Component 1 (Support for Intensification of On-farm production). Winners of the Innovation Challenge will be invited to provide services to The Agriculture Cluster Development Project (ACDP) as Preferred Vendors.

Component 1 of ACOP aims to support the intensification of on-farm production of maize, beans, rice, cassava, and coffee, in 42 districts grouped into 12 clusters across Uganda.

The sub-components are (i) e-voucher program; (ii) training of the recipients of e-voucher; and (iii) development of agricultural inputs markets.

Eligible farm households receive an e-voucher that covers part of the costs involved in the purchase of a menu of inputs [fertilizer, seed, ,on-farm storage, and access to technical and market information through ICT tools, small scale irrigation equipment, including mobile phones).

Themes

Advisory and Information for Agricultural Productivity: This theme covers extension services and Climate Smart Agriculture advisory, as well as the delivery of credible and actionable information in real-time directly to Ugandan farmers to increase productivity. This will help them transition from time, labor, input and resource-intensive practices to more efficient and sustainable planning, production, and management systems.

-Market Linkages: Looks at tools to help Ugandan farmers produce high quality, high yield crops as well as help link them to markets, including digital platforms to sell farm produce.

-Farmer Financial Inclusion: It focuses on innovators, organizations and businesses that link Ugandan farmers to credit and savings products, insurance, and other innovative financial services, enabling them to invest in their farms.

-Data Analytics and Agricultural Intelligence: This challenge is open to solutions that have leveraged data infrastructure, remote sensing and mapping technologies, precision agriculture tools, and computing power to enable data-driven decision-making by policymakers, public agencies, and private service providers in the agriculture sector.

Context

Agriculture remains the major source of livelihood in Uganda. According to the Uganda National Household Survey (UNHS) 2016/17, the bigger proportion of the working population is engaged in agriculture, forestry and fishing (65%). Among the females in the working population, 70% are engaged in agriculture compared to 58% of the males.

Furthermore, 38% of persons in employment were in paid employment with a higher proportion of males (46%) compared to females (28%). The Agricultural sector accounted for the largest share of employment (36%).

The agriculture sector had a total contribution to GDP at current prices of 24.9 percent in the FY 2016/17 compared to 23.7 percent in FY 2015/16. The food crop sub sector registered the highest contribution within the agricultural sector of 13.6 percent in FY 2016/17, an increase from 12.1 percent in FY 2015/16.

Challenge

There are several implementation challenges/issues which have hampered the progress of this ACDP component and are causing delays.

First, the project has not achieved farmer registration and enrolment targets. Second, the e-voucher menu currently does not offer mechanization as a service, which is essential at the land preparation stage, especially for cassava producers.

Third, farmer institutions (such as Rural Producer Organizations) lack the institutional capacity for training individual farmers regarding the use of improved inputs received through the e-voucher
program.

Other steps not implemented, but likely to impact the desired project outcome include, but not limited to: the lack of systematic pest and disease management, poor market access for agricultural produce, as well as inadequate access to soil and weather data for informed decision making.

Solution

MAAIF, through the ACOP, is working on the implementation of OATs to deliver other services along the value-chain. Using OATs, MAAIF further intends to pilot the Agriculture Extension Strategy in the 12 clusters targeting 450,000 households with specific aspects that are critical to
ACDP implementation.

 These aspects include: (i) training extension staff; (ii) development of e-extension platforms and a knowledge database; (iii) strengthen research-extension linkages; (iv) develop the tools for quality assurance of extension services and performance evaluation and monitoring of service provision; and (v) establishment of demonstration sites.

Given these issues and recommendations and in trying to improve the project outcomes, the Innovation Challenge will, on one hand, invite ‘individual systems developers, as well as enterprise/solutions development firms with a solution customized to solving any or several of the challenges highlighted. And on the other, the ACOP and business owners to pitch for solutions they could find interesting for uptake and business opportunity respectively. The Innovation Challenge will specifically look out for solutions to the following:

Agricultural technology solutions/firms interested in applying to participate in the Innovation Challenge will be vetted based on their demonstrated technology and capacity. On November 19th, only vetted start-ups will be invited to showcase their solutions in a Shark Tank format structured around delivering the identified solutions above. If deemed to have the capacity for participation by an independent jury of highly qualified professionals, winners will be announced thereafter Winners will receive a certificate as well as incubation and mentorship support, with the opportunity/chance to scale up their solutions through ACDP.

By Divya Mistry

With the current period being touted as the Age of Technology, it is no wonder that technological advancements and upgraded gizmos are taking over our daily lives and basic needs to make things convenient. Right from our phones doubling up as Personal Assistants and offices being compressed into portable gadgets like laptops, phones, tablets, technology is a basic necessity to lead an optimum life. With creativity driving new innovations, there is no dearth in new products in multiple sectors; and one of the upcoming markets for smart innovations is home automation.

Today, with most people working long hours and opting for convenience when doing up their home, the concept of home automation or smart homes has been picking up steam steadily in India. A smart home is convenient to maintain, has better security and better to monitor and also makes your life easier significantly. While most of us know what is a smart home , the question here is how to make a smart home, especially when there are a multitude of options with numerous functions to choose from.

Start by looking at what do you need instead of looking at products first. Make a list of the basic things you need as per your lifestyle to look at what kind of features and products you will need. You could also start with some basic products to begin your home’s ‘smart’ makeover and keep on adding to it over time.

Security

One of the most advanced segments under smart homes is the security segment. Your safety and your home’s safety can now be easily ensured and monitored by installing smart locks, CCTV cameras[V2] , video door phones which can even be connected to apps and be made password protected. This way your home is literally a safe haven for you and your family and you can keep a check on everything through your phones anywhere, anytime.

Lighting

A smart home needs smart interior décor, not just in terms of aesthetics but also functionality. And one of the prerequisites of smart interiors is smart lighting. There are a lot of options to choose from when it comes to lighting with motion sensor lights, coloured lights, curtains that are connected to apps to let in natural light. Such lighting options are convenient and energy efficient as they can be switched on and off and customised to suit your mood and events with just a tap.  

AI

With Artificial Intelligence being the talk of the decade, a lot of devices have been introduced to make life easier and have a sort of a personal home assistant to take care of a lot of your daily tasks. Such devices are handy to get information about your social calendars, to do lists, general knowledge, music, etc. by just one command. These devices are also designed keeping in mind spaces and are very compact and super-efficient.

Entertainment

When setting up a home, entertainment plays a key aspect in the planning as good entertainment is something that most of us look forward to at the end of a long day and even when hosting a great house party. Well planned spaces give you the benefit of well-planned systems and set up your wireless speakers, game zones, smart TVs, etc. 

By Divya Mistry

Droning is quite popular these days, and many people are getting into the hobby without too much trouble – even those without serious technical skills. It’s no longer a fundamental requirement to know your way around computers and electronics in general if you want to operate a drone. But if you want to build your own, or even customize pre-made market models, you’ll need to get your hands dirty and learn a thing or two about how they work. The thing about drones is that they combine knowledge from multiple different fields, and it’s important to explore all of them if you want to see the full picture.

Electronics

There’s no way around it – being an electronic device, a drone requires a good understanding of gadgets in order to modify. You should start with a basic PCB design course if you’re not sure how to even approach this. The amount of knowledge you’ll have to cover is quite significant, but at least it can be learned incrementally very well. That is, you’ll find yourself building on what you’ve learned very easily, and your learning will keep getting smoother and smoother over time.

Physics

It might seem like you’re just spinning up four propellers, but the kinds of physical calculations that happen under the hood of a modern drone are nothing short of amazing. You don’t need to get a full degree in mechanics to understand flight physics, but you should definitely go through at least one formal basic course on the subject. Prepare to brush up your math because you’re going to need to solve various semi-complex equations if you want to control something like a drone zipping through the air. In fact, this is probably one of the most beneficial fields to hit hard in because it can lay a solid foundation for your future learning progress.

Advanced Programming

Last but not least, even if you’re a competent programmer already, you should check out some courses with more advanced material. Low-level programming, working with assembly, writing to registers directly, bit operations, and all sorts of things like that will be important if you want to squeeze every last bit of performance out of those tiny chips. And that will be quite important because drones often suffer from the problem of finding the right balance between programming complexity and battery use. Learning to write clean, optimized code that runs on low-level hardware is one of the best things you could do as far as improving your technical aptitude goes.

Be patient, too. Learning something like this can take quite a long time, even if you already have some experience in one of those fields. The way they are combined when working with drones is on a whole new level, and you might be shocked by the sheer complexity of it all. But in the end, this is also one of the most fun hobbies you can take up, and it can be a very rewarding one in the long run.