by Judy Payne, e-Business Advisor, U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID)
WISENET (Women in ICTs Shared Excellence Network) is the International Bureau’s convening platform that aims to leverage the experience, resources and connections of the international ICT community to better the situation of women, their communities and their countries. As part of this work, the FCC has invited prominent women in technology from around the world to post blogs sharing their experiences.
As e-Business Advisor at USAID, I focus on using information and communications technologies (ICT) to make the agency’s economic growth projects more successful. Because agriculture drives the economies of many developing countries, much of this work is being done through the U.S. government’s Feed the Future Initiative.
I'm lucky to be able to get out into the field – literally – and see our agriculture projects and how ICT is or could be used to assist farmers. I’ve seen some high-end applications that seem to be working. For example, Sustainable Harvest uses iPads for coffee cooperatives in Rwanda to capture traceability information. The iPad’s intuitive user interface is much easier to use than a PC keyboard. (More information about the project is available here).
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