Agricultural organizations across East Africa are working hard to help smallholder farmers adapt to a changing climate and marketplace. Data is crucial to this adaptation, but organizations face challenges collecting reliable field data, sharing information with partners, and communicating actionable insights back to farmers.
To help improve the status quo, Nafundi has partnered with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and aWhere to bring together East African agricultural organizations and developers for a Hack4Farming event in Nairobi, Kenya.
From October 16th to October 18th at Sankara Nairobi, we will train developers on useful data collection tools like ODK, connect these developers with organizations in need, and support both as they brainstorm and build solutions during a hackathon. Teams will compete for the best solution and the winner will earn a consultancy contract to further develop their idea.
In addition to the training and hackathon, we will be hosting a kickoff and networking reception on the evening of October 16th. The reception will feature a keynote speech by Dr. Bitange Ndemo, former Permanent Secretary of Kenya's Ministry of Information and Communication.
We hope all of you in the East African developer community will be able to join us for the Hack4Farming hackathon in Nairobi from October 16th to 18th. To sign up, go to https://hack4farming.github.io.
In early 2018, polio virus was detected in the sewers of Mogadishu, Somalia and the government moved quickly to vaccinate the country's children in order to prevent a potential outbreak. A vaccination campaign targeting more than 726,000 children was launched in the Banadir and Lower and Middle Shabelle regions. The campaign was carried out by some 3,500 staffers and Nafundi assisted by enabling real-time tracking of vaccination coverage using ODK. Read more.
Fayaz Jatoi is the Coordinator of the Emergency Operations Centre (EOC) for Polio Eradication in Sindh, Pakistan. In this guest post, Fayaz describes why AFP surveillance is critical to polio eradication and how an SMS-based reporting system for private care provider helps. Read more.
This position has been filled. Thanks to everyone who applied! Read more.