Knowledge at ICT4AG

We were active at the ICT4Ag conference organised by CTA. It was a big event. About 400 people passed through over four days, and even by the end of the fourth day around 200

(thanks to Nancy White for this photo of groups at work)

people were still prepared to spend time thinking together about what they had learnt and what kind of actions would advance the different agendas that had been surfaced

Pier Andrea Pirani trained and led the social reporting team and we were also there to both support and try to enrich the learning and knowledge sharing and try to capture some of the processes  – the conversations, any outputs of individual and shared thinking, the formal presentations and, if at all possible, some of the informal exchanges that are always at the centre of conferences and workshops. It was a busy time, for participants and us. After an introductory Plug and Play day, which we helped facilitate, and of which more in another blog, the central three days of the conference were split up into:

• Plenary panel presentations 
• Parallel sessions, 24 in total, where three or four people presented case-studies, projects, studies and stories and, if the presenters were able to convince people to keep to time, some discussion; 
• Two ‘open sessions’, where the aim was to encourage collective reflection, cutting across the thematic streams which were part of the organising framework, to surface fresh perspectives and emerging trends   

Learning and knowledge sharing 

So participants at ICT4 Ag experienced a rich and varied programme, that offered a broad span of opportunities to learn new things, to deepen existing knowledge, to meet informally and exchange ideas with other people, to take part in more organised group discussion activities, participate in processes aimed at encouraging reflective thinking and the emergence of collectively sifted ways to improve the use of ICTs in Agriculture. Participants had access to detailed programme and background information from a website, a mobile phone application, a printed catalogue, presentations during content sessions and brochure material distributed by those who were presenting. Those who use and engage in social media shared in the production of a huge number of content items including tweets (8,778!), blogs, video interviews and Facebook posts

Participatory?

A daily narrative of each day was published on the site, as was a short video story. And then there were the evenings – something happening most nights, for most participants, with one ‘reception’ well fuelled by alcohol (there is a blog somewhere about alcohol and development, how for people who meet rarely, and work virtually globally, it shortcuts to more intense connections and conversations and, of course, makes it more fun!)

If my own experience is typical, all of those channels will have enabled those who participated actively to leave with an enriched understanding of trends; new ideas; which older ideas work and which don’t; deepened relationships and extended networks, as well as a range of fully and partially formed ideas about doing things differently, or doing new things.

Knowledge – or information – management 

And that is all without having a look at all the output that we and others have gathered during and since the conference. We weren't able or resourced to provide a full record of the event: 

• If we had videoed content session we would still only be providing a small proportion of the learning represented by the recorded sessions, since there wouldn’t have been the conversations before, during and after those sessions that provided context and material for comparison. 
• We could have documented each content session in detail: harder to absorb, but possibly a basis for later analysis for major and common ideas. 

Instead the CTA team aimed to participate fully in the event and gather material from the inside, looking to surface and record learning:

• Four people were employed to participate in and write syntheses of the key ideas and features of the parallel content sessions. Deliberately, we aren’t looking for neutral reports of proceedings but a personal take of the material and conversations, based on our own judgement, informed by experience and, of course, our own preconceptions, based on our own imperfect understanding and knowledge; 
• The output of from the social reporter team was aligned to those content sessions using tags identifying three main streams of work 
• Participants were encouraged to leave ‘what next’ reflections on wall boards, which we will be sifting and sorting; 
• In the two non-structured 'open sessions' participants were first encouraged to identify themes which had emerged, cross-cutting the formal conference structure and then envision a future within the themes which emerged and note down what could be done to support progress, actions for themselves or by other stakeholders in agriculture. 

We’ve been capturing and analysing the material, sense-making as we go along. And we’re at the stage now of trying to work out what will be really useful, for both participants and other people interested in ICT4Ag. We don’t want to generate material that is only valuable to researchers and archivists. So who needs what? 

• One of the main audiences is participants themselves, who have a shared experience and for whom syntheses, tweets, blog stories will serve to jog memories and start reflections. 
• Another is CTA and its organising partners, who will all value more structured, forward-looking material, to support planning and programme development and to help shape the course of ICT4Ag, as well as attract more resources to support that work and those who work in it, all ultimately aimed at improving the well-being of populations in ACP countries. 
• There are some lessons and ideas that will be valuable to people who weren’t at the event. Although without the conversations and atmosphere of the conference those will be thinner in terms of understanding. 

The challenge, I think, is that whatever we produce will be a pale reflection of the actual event, where participations had a kind of broadband experience, multi-dimensional and intense.

So what’s our K goal? I’ve been trying to use the triple-loop learning frame as a guide 

AIM	LOOP
To capture for CTA, for reflection and planning?	Single
To share more widely, selectively, to help people practically (e.g. trip reports) ….. …..and in terms of learning (double)?	Single Double
To identify what we think are lessons that people in the sector could use to make their own work better?	Double
To promote innovations that we think are worth watching or backing?	Single
To reflect on our own learning?	Triple
To encourage/enable others to reflect on their own action…. and learning	Double Triple

Again, if my own experience is a guide, participants are likely to look at some of the final output, selectively, picking out those things that impressed or moved me. And while I do sometimes watch video-recorded events, I personally find that reports or summaries of action-points, however full and well-written, rarely move me to do anything. Whereas the energy from a good event continues to drive follow-up of various kinds for some time afterwards.

What about you? What kind of output from events that you didn’t attend do you find genuinely useful, and how much do you read?

Why aren’t climate change-change issues mainstream in agricultural development?

I have recently joined a great email list from Prolinnnova, that provides a regular digest of content relating to my own interests in social learning and locally-held knowledge (thanks again to Ann-Waters Bayer of Prolinnova for the recommendation which came in a conversation within the Climate Change and Social Learning (CCSL) network , funded by the Climate Change, Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) programme with which we have been working with since May 2012.

From the list I learnt of an excellent resource describing a range of approaches to providing agricultural Advisory and Extension Services (AES) that were captured at a USAID organised workshop. The summary that was circulated to the list is a great example of practical Knowledge Sharing – with a template for reports linking to a participative face-to-face meeting (speed-dating) and then shared on an email list. All the reports and much more material is available from the same site.

A climate filter

Oxford's Merton Border, seasonally dry
grassland seeds from across the globe, 

I was reading wearing a CCSL lens, assessing whether there is material that could be relevant to the network – our role includes network animation – but also because we have done a lot of work on Climate Change projects in the past few years. Seeking to learn more about how people are adapting to the increasing uncertainty and intensity of weather events that the climate change models predict has become one of my standard reading and browsing filters. So I was startled to discover on a first skim of the workshop report that there were no explicit references to climate change in any of the project descriptions. On one level, that is perhaps to be expected, since the event didn’t mention climate in the brief or in the template for reports. But I find it both odd and disturbing that connecting in some way with the realities of climate change isn’t simply a mainstream activity, something that is included as a matter of routine in discussions of agricultural development. It’s all the odder since USAID themselves have a big climate change programme, as do several of the other organisations represented. And climate-change is an issue permeating all sorts of agendas: even an ancient institution like the Oxford Botanic Garden, known for its lush English garden displays, is experimenting with "sustainable horticultural development", experimenting with seeds from semi-arid regions across the globe.

I think there’s a concern too, in that many of the approaches described in the documents focus on improving farm level inputs with externally supplied seeds and increased use of fertilisers, approaches that, on their own, may not be very adaptation-sensitive. Of course climate-change sensitive practices are included and promoted in many of the projects, with mentions of, “improved soil management methods”, “sustainable farming techniques”, “sound agronomic practices, including no till and minimum till agriculture” and “composting”. But one of the key questions in the report template was on challenges - shortcomings - limitations of the models, and another was on sustainability. It makes me gloomy to realise how far we have to go before the reality of climate-change is something that is unconsciously considered as part of the answer to such questions.

The CCSL lens focuses attention on participative and inclusive approaches, which I personally also link closely to issues relating of balancing exogenous and endogenous knowledge. This blending of locally held/endogenous with external knowledge is explicitly mentioned in only one case, a World Vision project. I acknowledge my likely bias but their project pressed all my buttons: “Emphasis on 1) experiential discovery and learning, 2) combining local and external science-based knowledge, and 3) farmer-to-farm diffusion, mediated by local experts (lead farmers) for credibility and sustainability”. Another programme that a CCSL lens highlighted is from www.fintrac.com who focus on, “Integrated Crop Management – the integration of Good Agricultural Practices with sustainable technologies to improve smallholder production quality, volumes and consistency”. As well as their emphasis on linking farmers to commercial value chains, Fintrac are actively addressing the issue of financial sustainability for the services they provide, although without a great deal of apparent tangible success to date.

Sustainability and social learning

On the one hand the integration of improved agricultural practices at a village or community level is, almost by definition, dependant on ‘socialising’ of those practices by all who are engaged in or affected by the systems. The seminar had had a narrower focus on financial sustainability. I was struck by the sharp and thought-provoking difference between three or four broad approaches

• Commercial approaches, which tend to be associated with input suppliers, where extension services become integral to supply-chain management and promotion. These have a built-in revenue model and thus good prospects for longer-term sustainability, and there is plenty of evidence that farmers benefit financially, certainly in the short to medium term. There was less emphasis on practices which we could recognise as social learning or the importance of locally-held knowledge within the project descriptions from this category 
• Paid-for services models, which provide start-up funding and/or training for extension services that are paid for on the farm. In terms of Social Learning, it’s interesting to see the challenge outlined by Farm Input Promotions in their summary: “VBAs tend to specialize in activities that earn them income e.g. chicken vaccination and neglect activities which only add them social capital e.g. advice on deep tillage”. 
• Government programmes, which explicitly rely on continued central Government funds, much of which depends in turn on continued aid-flows. Again, Social Learning approaches weren’t immediately visible in the reports.
• Traditional NGO led approaches, some of which have succeeded in enabling the development of revenue streams but all have to make the normal, optimistic statements about exploring diversified models while continuing to rely on grant funds. As noted above, it was examples from this category that the CCSL lens picked out. 

The sustainability conundrum is well expressed by Commercial Input Supply and Farm Service Enterprises (CNFA) in their response to the template question about challenges, shortcomings and limitations of the model. They say, “as a purely private sector model for delivery of training and information to farmers, CNFA retailers do not provide the kind of “classic” extension services that link academic research to independent (“objective”) extension agents in the field. Such an independent research and extension system is almost always a public investment few developing countries can afford.” Commercially oriented EAS are likely to continue growing, and there are many examples of businesses that integrate climate-change into their planning and activities. The question for us is perhaps how to engage commercial organisations in conversations about Climate Change, and Social Learning. These may involve activities that are less profitable in the short term but are essential for genuine long-term sustainability.

Third loop reflections or ‘go out and do some stuff’

This is the second post on the Climate Change Knowledge Exchange - From Action to Learning - held at IDS in early March 2013. As laid out in the first post, Ewen Le Borgne, Carl Jackson and I co-facilitated the workshop as part of our work for the Climate Change and Social Learning (CCSL) project, a stream of work in the Climate Change for Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) programme. We wanted to weave the social learning approach into the IDS Knowledge Exchange, partly because we believe that it provides an interesting methodology to address the issue of how to move from learning to action and partly as part of our own social learning about Social Learning. In this post I do my own reflecting on the process and it's outputs.

What would you do differently?

For the second day we set up a process that we hoped would put people into a different, more reflective, frame of mind as they approached the third thematic break-out session. The framing for the whole day was asking people to think about what they would do differently after the workshop at four levels: personally, in their organisations, in the context of their thematic groups - i.e. with those people gathered in the room - and, possibly, more widely.

Rob van der Berg, of the Global Environment Facility Evaluation Office, who had co-sponsored the workshop and led a key thematic group of evaluation of climate change, introduced the session with a five minute 'TED talk' style  speech from the floor. He spoke without notes, passionately, about the extraordinarily gloomy outlook for the environment over the coming years. All, all  the indicators - of bio-diversity, of sea temperature, of pollution, of climate-change related event - are spiralling downwards. The GEF has $20 billion for corrective action: the need is for trillions of dollars. 

Participants were asked then to 

• "Reflect individually on a story of collective change in which you have been involved, part of your work, or separate, that illustrates how change works, and how have you been learning in that change. (5)
• Meet with two other people and discuss what leads to change (20)
• Then reflect individually on your own learning history: what can you learn from success or failure that will help you act differently how to act upon learning in an event without falling in the same trap
• Share it with another person (10)

After coffee the participants returned to their thematic groups.

What does a third loop look and feel like?

On Day One the three of us did a nonsensical but fun introduction to the idea of triple loop learning, based on the iconic British class system sketch from the 1960s, in which each of us represented a loop. Ironically, I realise I approached the planning mainly in loop one and two mode, and hadn’t reflected enough myself, hadn't really gone into third loop mode. So I hadn’t grasped a key point about the relationship between the three loops which is that there is an exponential increase in the complexity of the process as we move from first to second to third loop. That means that the process slows, also exponentially. 

Thinking Fast and Slow, a tremendous book by the Nobel Prize winning Daniel Kahnemann, talks about the mental and physical energy required to do complex tasks: we can’t drive effectively, walk slower, burn more calories if we focus on difficult tasks requiring what Kahnemann calls System Two thinking. Loop three thinking occupies different parts of our thinking processes, some foreground, some background. Writing this blog is a reflective act, but it is anchoring me to current processes that reflecting on a long walk wouldn’t. So it is the product of those slower, more reflective processes.

As we approached the final stages, considering what could come of the workshop, one of the participants reminded us that having no immediate outputs would be appropriate, indeed normal: that taking on board reflections that come out of a process designed to encourage deeper, non-operational, non-quotidian thinking will often take long time to surface. As an activist type I’d anticipated this kind of reaction from reflectors, but it’s hard not to feel disappointed when the actual outputs from the event seemed no different from any other event. Meanwhile, there was a lot of very positive feeling in the room, during our walking evaluation, and a many concrete proposals for future collaborations and other actions. People will be going out, 'to do stuff', as they were encouraged to do in the conference closing. And, with the IDS climate change team, we’re going to follow up in 3 months which will be an interesting exercise in itself: it’s rare that we follow up longer term, systematically – although it’s a common Next Step from workshops. 

Development people default to project mode, framing responses and concepts in terms of a planning framework, action oriented, timebound, constrained by project definition processes. Part of that is a mindset, part of it is simply the product of the constant requirements created by project plans and operational realities, that people ‘see’ in lists and planning frameworks. That's reinforced by a typically insightful reflection from Liz Carlisle of IIED, that many busy people, especially at more senior levels, tend not to engage a lot with new ideas or people. Meetings, conferences, workshops, tend to be with people engaged in similar programmes, or networks: so being creative and innovative in workshop settings calls on relatively unfamiliar processes, and a sometime stale knowledge base. Therefore  thinking about learning itself, about how change happens in a personal way requires a step sideways and out of daily life which is hard to achieve in a two day workshop. In our After Action Review Andy Newsham, the organiser, and I agreed that we needed at least a third day to match our ambitions.

As someone who promotes and takes part in social reporting from events, I was brought up short by the realisation that we make that pressure worse by tweeting, blogging, wiki-ing during the event: although our social reporting outputs are to some extent reflective, commentaries, holding up a mirror to processes and interacting in a different space to the physical, by running those streams we immediately anchor ourselves in the present and engage those parts of our brains which I associate with second loop learning. This blog, on the other hand, is the product of something different, which is interesting to me at least: we often stress the importance of blogging as a learning tool, for sharing, but it is only since I started blogging regularly here and for the Diplo Foundation that I have recognised the value of structuring reflections as a communication. That's critically important for those of us who work as consultants since we often don't have a team with whom we reflect or an organisation with various learning and KS processes. Pier Andrea Pirani, the other Euforic Associates and I work both together and separately, but even when we work together it's often online, so we relish the times when we meet and have time to share ideas.

'Slow Knowledge' and what would I do differently?

1. Not be so linear, since triple loop thinking isn’t linear, in the sense of having to pass sequentially between each stage. 
2. Given, that and the issue of complexity, time and attention discussed above, I would start with a ‘loop three’ type exercise: get the reflection process started from the outset, and then constantly return to that process in short, intense bursts.
3. Following a request from a couple of participants, we added in a rapid Knowledge Cafe type process on Day Two morning (pictured here), when people moved around 'stations' within the large plenary room, visiting and hearing about the other thematic groups outputs from the Loop One and Loop Two processes. Another participant commented, when we were in the middle of our 'Loop Three style' conversation that she'd found that mixing of themes the most useful because in her experience, meeting people outside her specialism is what made her think differently, challenge her assumptions.  So I would ensure we built in both thematic work - making sure people have an opportunity to dive deep, develop their story - and cross-thematic work.
4. Have moments without connectivity! I co-facilitated a Day O Learning exercise on 'Face2Face Knowledge Sharing' at the 2010 AgKnowledge Africa ShareFair in Addis. It's fascinating to re-read what I wrote in a reflective blog post, Slow Knowledge at the AgKnowledge Africa ShareFair and McK-snacks, 

"In much of my own work, within and outside IKM emergent, I engage with the Knowledge equivalent of Fast Food: new technology mediated communication and knowledge sharing, blood-pressure raising snacks of Tweets, Blogs or Blips, where the consumption only encourages more consumption."

Social Learning in an IDS Knowledge Exchange

Carl Jackson, Ewen LeBorgne and I co-facilitated a knowledge exchange at IDS entitled, "Acting on what we know and how we learn for climate and development policy' Andy Newsham of the IDS Climate Change team, the lead organiser, blogged on the genesis of the workshop, as did the IDS Director, Lawrence Haddad, on the context.

The three of us were were co-facilitating as part of our work for the Climate Change and Social Learning (CCSL) project, a stream of work in the Climate Change for Agriculture and Food Security (CCAFS) programme. We wanted to weave the social learning approach into the IDS Knowledge Exchange, partly because we believe that it provides an interesting methodology to address the issue of how to move from learning to action and partly as part of our own social learning about Social Learning.

This first blog describes the approach and the programme, developed by the three of us together with Andy Newsham and Geoff Barnard of the Climate Development Knowledge Network (CDKN), one of the event sponsors.

This event brought together four different strands or ‘framing cases’ (1) which all related to an overarching learning theme in relation with the focus of the event: ‘acting on what we learn for climate and development policy’. We wanted to integrate ‘social learning’ activities into the event to reflect on the relationship between individual and collective learning, seeking to identify what circumstances encourage the collaborative learning and action at scale necessary to engage with Climate Change.

The social learning experience was based on the triple-loop learning approach:

1. Instrumental learning: acquiring new knowledge
2. Communicative: understanding/reinterpreting knowledge through communication with others
3. Transformative: examining underlying assumptions leading to change in attitudes and social norms and collective action, ideally

This table lays out some differences between these three learning loops


This event has to bring together four different strands or ‘framing cases’ which all relate to an overarching learning theme in relation with the focus of the event: ‘acting on what we learn for climate and development policy’. To make this conference an even stronger and memorable event that leads to effective change, we propose to integrate ‘social learning’ activities into the event to weave the reflections and actions together and tap into the transformative potential of social learning. We aim particularly to reflect on the relationship between individual and collective learning, seeking to identify what circumstances encourage the collaborative learning and action at scale necessary to engage with Climate Change.

The social learning experience will use the triple-loop learning approach:

1. Instrumental learning: acquiring new knowledge
2. Communicative: understanding/reinterpreting knowledge through communication with others
3. Transformative: examining underlying assumptions leading to change in attitudes and social norms and collective action, ideally

This table lays out some differences between these three learning loops:

	First loop	Double loop	Triple loop
Nature	Instrumental	Communicative	Transformative
Use of knowledge	Acquiring new knowledge	Understanding / reinterpreting knowledge	Examining assumptions behind (particularly dominant) knowledge
Focus (also temporal)	Efficiency (now)	Effectiveness (next)	Dynamic relevance (over time) / adaptive capacity
Key questions	What are we doing now and how can we improve this? WHAT IS	What could we do to improve the pursuit of our aims? WHAT COULD BE	What should we do to improve the way we think about improving our approach? WHAT SHOULD BE
Approach followed	Static, unilateral information flows e.g. dissemination of case studies etc.	Participatory communication, bilateral knowledge flows	Dynamic experience building, multilateral knowledge flows

As the event unfolded we planned activities gave participants opportunities to go through these three loops by examining successively:

• existing experiences: what are we doing now? 
• opportunities to integrate and improve our collective approaches: what could we do together? 
• reflections about how we are learning about our effectiveness in climate change work: what should we do to learn more effectively and remain relevant over time, build our adaptive management and critical thinking capacity to influence collective social learning and action at scale?

In a second blog I'll add my own learning about learning from the event.

Research to Impact Hackathon ....and the winner was...

Well, we were all winners, if truth be told, in the sense that we all learned a lot from the experience of the Hackathon at iHub Research in Nairobi last week. To begin with, the iHub itself is still under three years old yet has blossomed into an extraordinary innovation centre at the centre of a buzzing ecosystem of developers, projects, events, people, good coffee and, well, more people. There are over 10,000 registered members of the iHub community and it was through those networks that we were able to attract so many creative and plugged-in developers.

One of the newer projects is iHub Research, one of the co-organisers of the event. Leo Mukutu is Research Manager there and she was one of the judges of the competition. In this clip Leo describes the role of iHub Research and the criteria she used to judge the entries.



There were six entries in all, and in this video clip people from each team describe their proposals - and you can see who won!

(Update: a summary blog from iHub research) 

'Let me Hackathon that thing'

'Every good piece of software starts by scratching a developer's personal itch', says Eric Raymond, author of the fabulous book on Open Source software, The Cathedral and the Bazaar. Hackathons evolved to harness that personal passion of software developers to create interesting code that solves problems - or sometimes, just create elegant, interesting code simply to see what happens. Organisers provide a context - for example software platforms such as Ushahidi that constantly need to to be improved or movements and campaigns such as development data or aid transparency which need lots of programmes to import and aggregate data or present the data in a form usable by others and the public - and a space, with coffee, cakes and chocolate. Developers who enjoy working individually or in teams and are moved by the spirit of the organisers come together and have fun.

The Research to Impact Hackathon is different in significant ways to a standard hackathon. Firstly, there is often criticism that these events produce a lot of interesting but unfinished code, which is either taken over by the sponsor and developed internally or simply abandoned, with the developers un-engaged in the follow up. The sponsors of this event, IDS/ELDIS and CABI/R4D see this event as Phase One in a longer term process. They are providing small prizes for the best products but committing larger sums to supporting the development of particularly promising ideas and prototypes that have the potential to increase the use of research data.

Secondly, we wanted to provide focus to the developers based on an informed understanding of specific challenges faced on the ground, in East Africa, by those working in agriculture and nutrition, challenges which constrain the use of development data and opportunities it offers to enrich the development process. However, we had to steer carefully between being too directive of the developers - which could reduce creative and risk appearing to be asking for some free labour to help large organisations solve their problems - and not providing a clear enough set of scenarios.

So we were a bit anxious about how Day Two of the Hackathon would develop, especially since we were joined by some new developers who hadn't had the introduction to the personas, challenges and triggers which emerged from Day One of the Hackathon nor been part of the Ideation session. We should have known better: we are in the iHub, in Nairobi, Kenya, at the centre of a vibrant developer community, supported by the ideas and contacts of iHub Research. Many of the participants had been trained in mobile application development at the mLab - yet another source of energy within the iHub ecosystem (and the iHub is not even three years old!). And all the developers were in some way or another connected or developing software solutions to the needs of those in the agriculture value chain.

We introduced the data available from ELDIS, R4D and other relevant open data sources, including the World Bank's data site and the rapidly growing Kenyan Government OpenData portal; the ways to access the data through the ELDIS open API and the tools which Tim Davies is developing to access the data, including in Linked Data formats. Finally we introduced the personas from Day One, together with the ideas which had been rated as having the highest potential impact and most viable as the basis for developing a Proof of Concept in only two days (and nights!).

Chaos of the most productive kind ensued. People discussed ideas; formed, and reformed, teams; ate sausages; asked for more information about the personas; drank coffee; got support in exploring the data and learning to use the access tools available; fed-back ideas for discussion; storyboarded and planned; ate cake; began to hack. By the end of the day four groupings of ideas and people had emerged, all interesting and within the frameworks we had established, and some with the beginnings of demonstration code - either created or imported. Then we went for beer.

Day Three is a hack-day: teams will continue working on their ideas, preparing for a presentation on the morning of the fourth day, in some kind of Dragon's Den format. While the progress has been remarkable for two days, the acid test is, of course, what the teams can present on Day Four. Given their commitment to the longer term, the organisers are looking as much for coherent plans and realistic assumptions as finished code - but watch this space.

Research to Impact Hackathon with iHub Research, Nairobi

Open data on the web makes it possible to take information on research from many sources, and to generate ‘mash-ups’ that make it available in different places, on different platforms, and in ways that support action and impact. Open data can be remixed to answer key questions in ways that were not possible before.

One of the most interesting developments in the R4D project, which we have been supporting with CommsConsult and CABI, has been converting the metadata in the R4D database of DfID funded research to Open and Linked Data formats. The Institute for Development Studies (IDS) ELDIS team have been travelling in the same direction - working to open up access to their research information including by creating open APIs allowing anyone to tap into their 15+ years of curated development research. The rationale for this is that every year institutions, researchers and practitioners generate thousands of datasets, reports and articles about development issues. To give some idea of scale, DfID funds £200 million worth of research every year. Yet, much of this knowledge remains underused, locked away in online repositories such as R4D and ELDIS.

Presenting personas at the Research to Impact Hackathon

We tested this, perhaps a little unfairly, by asking the participants during the first day of the Hackathon we're working on this week in Nairobi, most of whom were subject experts we'd invited to provide context and scenarios for the developers to get their teeth into, how much they used either R4D or ELDIS data. About half had accessed the sites, very few accessed them more than once or twice a year. Yet these were researchers, information scientists and knowledge workers with intermediary NGOs like ALIN, all prime targets from the materials.

"Hackathons" (also known as a hackfest or hack day) are events in which computer programmers join forces with a number of other experts, such as designers, investors, project managers, and spend a short intense period together to develop technical ideas and solutions. The Research to Impact hackathon is focusing on the research data from R4D, ELDIS and other relevant sources - including those from Kenya such as KAINET - relating to agriculture and nutrition. We brought together subject matter experts with technical developers to explore and create innovative prototypes to increase the use and impact of research in development. The hackathon is being at the Nairobi iHub by iHub Research, a new programme within this open innovation space.

The first day focused on generating scenarios - use cases - for the developers to work on. We started by asking participants to identify some of the reasons that research data isn't accessed or used. The group then selected seven typical 'user types' who represent key potential audiences for the data. These personas included extension workers, researchers and knowledge workers - key intermediary roles for re-purposing data and linking with primary players in the agricultural value chain such as farmers, input suppliers and market intermediaries. The group also prioritised fleshing out the role of policy actors, key to addressing the whole range of issues which impact those working directly in agriculture. Working in groups these types were profiled and linked to the challenges previously identified. After rapid peer review specific 'triggers' were identified for each of the personas, things which might motivate them to change their behaviour in relation to the data. The personas will be shared in the EuforicWeb wiki as the Hackathon develops.

Evaluating ideas at the Research to Impact Hackathon

A group of developers joined in the afternoon. They were presented with the personas and had time to interrogate the subject specialists. We finished with an ideation session, when all participants were given 10 minutes to come up with at least 10 suggestions for technical developments - mobile or pad apps, web widgets or small pieces of linking or bridging code. Those ideas were located on a matrix representing high/low impact, high/low viability - in terms of being able to develop a proof of concept in the succeeding two days. There were an extraordinary number and range of ideas, both creative and very applied. The ideas which were voted as high/high will be taken into the hackdays to help kick-start the process.

Social media for outreach and engagement. The e-Agriculture platform

During the KM4Dev meeting held at IFAD in Rome last September, we had the chance to sit with FAO Michael Riggs for an interesting conversation on social media, and what benefits it brings to the e-Agriculture platform.

e-Agriculture is "a global Community of Practice, where people from all over the world exchange information, ideas, and resources related to the use of information and communication technologies (ICT) for sustainable agriculture and rural development." In this sense, e-Agriculture is essentially a web platform where users can register a profile, or simply browse content without loggin in onto the site.
Michael explains which social media channels they are using and what strategy and purpose each of them respond to. Michael also reflects on the issue of social media engagement and define what this means for the e-Agriculture platform. Further, he touches upon the resources they are investing in these efforts. He concludes with three top tips for effective use of social media:

1. Make it look human - There needs to be a person behind the accounts and you cannot just feed the different channles in fully automated ways.
2. Reach out to different communities -  Using multiple platforms allows to create awareness of what your are doing to users beyond your website visitors; it also allows to reach different demographics.
3. Be strategic - It is good to 'play around' with social media tools but eventually you have to strategically look at how they fit into your toolbox, and what they can help you achieve. Specific implementation depends on your context and your objectives. 

AgriKnowledge Share Fair 2011

The second AgriKnowledge Share Fair is about to kick off next week, hosted by IFAD in Rome (from 26 to 29 September).

It's going to be packed: "this four-day event will provide a forum to learn and share knowledge, experience and innovations on emerging trends relating to agriculture, food security, price volatility, climate change, changing demographics and other rural development related issues".

Having participated in two previous Share Fairs, in Rome in 2009 and Addis Ababa last year, I know this is going to be a very exciting gathering, with 160 presenters from across the planet, discussing their experiences and innovative ways to share knowledge in the agricultural and rural development sector - see the final agenda here.


We'll be in Rome for the whole week and we have a very exciting agenda ahead. More importantly, we look forward to meeting old and new friends.

To start with, on Day 0, Monday 26 September, we'll be facilitating several modules on knowledge sharing tools and methods:

• Collaborative writing (1100-12:30, room B400)
• Microblogging (14:00-1530, room C400)
• Video production, storing and sharing (14:00-1530, room C200)
• Open space (16:00-1730, room C500)
• Dgroups (14:00 to 15:30, room B500)

From Tuesday to Thursday, we will provide support and facilitation to the following sessions:

• On 27 September, Dgroups annual members meeting (14:00 room B100);
• On 28 September, Sensemaking: The cognitive map of farms - Experiences of sharing agricultural knowledge in Southern Africa (171) (11:00, room C400);
• On 29 Septembers, Helping farmers identify fake or genuine agro-inputs using SMS (138) (14:00 room C300)

We'll be also collaborating with the #sfrome social reporting team. We will focus on sourcing and aggregating the content that is produced during the event, so we can deliver it to users into a consolidated information product. Here's the link to the aggregated Share Fair newsfeed and email alerts. You can also take a look at the Netvibes dashboard we've been playing with: it still needs some work but we think it can be useful to keep track of the different "#sfrome" conversations in one single window - feedback and comments are most welcomed!

Finally, the week climaxes - for us at least - with the KM4DEV members meeting!

Follow the event remotely, comment on media and share your reactions with us.

Share Fair news and updates

Social Reporting at IAALD Congress 2010

Euforic has been closely associated with IAALD for over ten years, and their blog is a great example of how small, voluntary organisations can use web 2.0 tools to create a professional and dynamic online space.

The 2010 IAALD congress was held in Montpelier and we were there to support and facilitate the event with social reporting. We also participated and covered with blogs and blips some specific sessions

• The InfoAccess marketplace, with interviews by Stephen Rudgard of FAO on CIARD, Jan Reichelt on the innovative Mendely and Nikos Palavitsinis on the EU funded Organic Edunet
• The CGIAR ICT-KM demos on web2.0 and social media for research uptake
• The open space on Social Media for Information Specialists
• The final session, including an interview with Jean-François Giovannetti, chairman of the Programme Committee for the 2010 IAALD Congress, highlighting the main points that he saw emerging from the event.

m-agriculture & CTA

We also supported the m-agriculture workshop organised by CTA, as a follow up to the Observatory held earlier in the year. A report from the Knowledge Cafe at IAALD was published on the ICT/KM blog and there are three posts on the IAALD blog featuring a range of ICT4D specialists reflecting on the impact and role of mobile devices:

• Vercon, from FAO;
• Comments on mobile devices, telecenters and Policy regulation
• Anriette Esterhysen, of APC, and Michael Riggs of FAO gave interestingly nuanced comments on the role of mobiles in the context of ICT4D developments

Michael Riggs on Mobile Devices in ICT4D from CTA on Vimeo.

Interviewed at the IAALD Congress 2010, Michael Riggs of FAO gives some background to the work of FAO, CTA, IICD and others in developing a new conceptual framework for ICT4D. He also gives a measured view of what he sees as the role and importance of mobile devices.

Anriette Esterhuysen on Mobiles Devices in ICT4D from CTA on Vimeo.

Interviewed at the IAALD Congress 2010, Anriette Esterhuysen, Executive Director of APC (Association of Progressive Communications) reflects on the characteristics of mobile devices, their impact and the need to maintain a balanced view of their potential.
For both the CTA events we helped in the planning, facilitation, social and final reporting. CTA is organising a second m-agriculture observatory later this year, probably in Southern Africa.