Digital Green: Technology and Social Networks for Agricultural Development

Speaker
Rikin Ganhi
CEO, Digital Green

When
-

Where
Newell-Simon Hall 1305 (Michael Mauldin Auditorium)

Description

Digital Green builds and deploys information and communication technology to amplify the effectiveness of agricultural development efforts. The unique components of the Digital Green system include (1) a participatory process for local video production, (2) a human-mediated instruction model for video dissemination and training, (3) a hardware and software technology platform for exchanging data in areas with limited Internet and electrical grid connectivity, and (4) an iterative model to progressively better address the needs and interests of the community with analytical tools and interactive phone-based feedback channels.

Digital Green has been shown to be at least ten times as effective, per dollar spent, in increasing the take up of sustainable agricultural practices by farmers compared to traditional approaches to agriculture extension. Thus far, the Digital Green network has connected over 1,100 villages in India and Ethiopia, produced over 2,000 videos, and reaches more than 80,000 farmers every week.

Speaker's Bio

Rikin Gandhi is chief executive officer of Digital Green. Rikin’s interests include sustainable agriculture and technology for socioeconomic development. He co-founded Digital Green as a research project in Microsoft Research India’s Technology for Emerging Markets team and now leads the spin-off of Digital Green that works to amplify the effectiveness of agricultural development globally. Rikin is a licensed private pilot and received patents for linguistic search algorithms that he helped develop at Oracle. He has a master’s in aeronautical and astronautical engineering from Massachusetts Institute of Technology and a bachelor’s in computer science from Carnegie Mellon University.

Speaker's Website
http://www.digitalgreen.org/

Host
Matthew Kam