SUBJECT MATTER & FACILITATORS INTRODUCTIONS HERE Hello everyone. I am Michael, the lead facilitator of the e-Agriculture community of practice. Welcome to this, our 7th online forum! I have been working in the area of ICT4D for about ten years now, starting with [url=http://www.aphca.org]APHCA[/url], then as the regional Information Management Officer for [url=http://www.fao.org]FAO[/url], and now based in FAO's headquarters. We are very fortunate to have eight distinguished subject matter experts from around the world, representing a diverse set of perspectives and experiences, to enliven and enlighten our discussion in this forum. Please engage them fully. If you have any suggestions, comments or questions, please let me or one of the other facilitators (Charlotte or Lisa) know at any time. To learn more about me online, take a look at [url=http://unhub.com/mongkolroek]http://unhub.com/mongkolroek[/url]

Welcome Gaurav! It's good to see some friends from ISAP. Please take a look through the ongoing discussion threads when you have time and share your thoughts, experiences and questions with us. cheers, Michael (FAO)

Hello Dr Anand, this is a very interesting example you have given of a market information system that started out computer-based and is now being expanded to include mobile phones. Do you have any thoughts about how including the use of mobile phones will increase the socio-economic benefits of this system? Would you share those thoughts with the forum in today's new section "[url=http://www.e-agriculture.org/550.html?&no_cache=1&view=single_conf&cat_… 1 - question 3[/url]"? Thanks! Michael (FAO)

The ideas, sharing and discussion going on in this forum is super! :D It is great to see different perspectives coming together in a productive manner. This is so important for us to be able to learn. Thank you! The socio-economic impacts are essential for us to understand better, so we can develop better ICT4D projects and also so we can explain the benefits of our work to others (who may not understand ICT so well). Please continue sharing your thoughts. We will go even deeper into the issue of impact next week. cheers, Michael (FAO)

Hello Kirshna, That is very interesting news about the ekutir pilot project. Would you be willing to share with us some details about the three different models being tested, and some preliminary feedback (if that is available)? Thanks so much! Michael (FAO)

Hi Helene, I agree both that this is an important issue and we do not have enough substantive evidence to support our belief that there is positive socio-economic impact. It would also be interesting to know if concerns about potential negative impacts, not to argue against the use of mobile phones, but to prepare ourselves to mitigate the negative impact. (I for one believe that technology is basically neutral - we need to apply it in appropriate ways to get positive impact.) cheers, Michael (FAO)

The ideas, sharing and discussion going on in this forum is super! :D It is great to see different perspectives coming together in a productive manner. This is so important for us to be able to learn. Thank you! Please continue sharing your thoughts. cheers, Michael (FAO)

Helene, thanks for this reference. Someone was just asking about one-to-many information sharing using mobiles and now I can point to this. Do you think mobile phones will become a new form of rural radio? Michael (FAO)

Hi Collins. I like your point about the importance of communities and organizations! (This is why there was a demand to form the e-Agriculture Community, people realized that the full benefit of ICT would no be realized in isolation.) Can you point us to any examples of community-led use of mobile phones in rural areas? Thanks, Michael (FAO)

Hi Leisa, and thank you for this insight. I think it's important for us to see what is happening now in the rural areas of more developed countries, as well as the less developed. We can learn from the experience (both success and non-success) of those who are "ahead" in terms of their technology (e.g. having 3G networks) and capacity. We also should consider that the less developed areas tend to "leap-frog" in their application of new technologies - moving forward faster than earlier examples - making it is even more important to know about the experiences of others. cheers, Michael (FAO)