WP5 m-agro pilot content

The objective of WP5 is to demonstrate through an extensive local pilot and through local community building activities focused on Mali and surrounding Sahel countries that the results of WP1, WP2 and WP3 can be adapted and adopted within a local African context. This will be done by testing and implementing the results specifically for re-greening knowledge sharing in a rural agricultural setting in the Sahel, to make sure that the results will be used after the end of the project, and will serve a large community, covering the main VOICES advances:

• Content: WP5 will contribute and test local content creation, organization, and management, especially radio content on regreening techniques and methods, agro-market information in rural areas, and civil education related to information and advice concerning legal matters in farming.
• Access: Services for easy mobile access and navigation to this content will be implemented and tested; here we will adopt and adapt results of WP2 on the Voice mobile service toolbox, and on African languages from WP3.
• Exploitation: Early in WP5 an interest group will be formed out of local partners with backgrounds both in rural development and ICT. This interest group will be closely involved in evaluating mobile content and service aspects, and later on in the pilot it serves the entry point for working with suitable interested business parties and entrepreneurs for exploiting the results.
• Uptake: A special task in WP5 will focus on local community building, in part through local events and workshops that can also involve tutorial or training activities (using results from WP6), and in the second cycle of the field pilot by introducing facilities for social networking related to rural and regreening matters. The focus of the last part of the pilot is on expanding rural communities that use the VOICES-produced content and services.