Bangladesh Institute of ICT in Development (BIID), Grameenphone and Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE), together are delighted to award the most innovative ideas on “How to use ICT in Agriculture” of the triumphant campaign “Smart Farmer, Smart Future” on Tuesday, 07 April 2015 at the Krishibid Institution Bangladesh, Khamarbari, Farmgate, Dhaka at 10:00 am. Mr. Hasanul Haq Inu, MP Honorable Minister, Ministry of Information, Government of the Peoples Republic of Bangladesh was present as Chief Guest at this award Giving Ceremony. In this grand event, Top Three Idea winners were awarded, together with Three Best SAAO’s and Three Special ICT Entrepreneurs were given special recognition for their contribution in ICT in Agriculture as well as in this campaign.
BIID, Grameenphone and DAE came together for this promising campaign “Smart Farmer, Smart Future” targeting the young farmers for demonstrating value proposition (livelihood improvement) through positioning agriculture as a distinct profession highlighting the benefits of ICT enabled (Mobile & Internet) agricultural extension service. The campaign also had an aim at engaging youth farmers and agri-businesses through active participation in the competition with a bundle of incentives including prizes and recognition, along with building awareness of ICT enabled service propositions, and inspire & motivate the relevant stakeholders including the local information centres (GP CIC, UISC &Batighar), extension officers and input suppliers. “Smart Farmer, Smart Future” was an awareness building campaign as well as innovative idea hunting initiative to promote ICT enabled e-Krishok services in agricultural sector. The wide spread use of mobile phones, availability of shared access points and the constantly growing pace of high speed internet, provides a huge opportunity to provide the much required services and smart solutions for empowering our farmers and relevant stakeholders.
BIID has been working in the field of ICT4D since 2008 and launched the e-Krishok campaign in 2009 in 10 locations and transformed it into a service proposition in 2010. Later it was spread in 350 Upazilla’s in collaboration with Grameenphone, Katalyst and ACI Limited. In 2012, BIID signed MoU with the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) to foster the effort to integrate ICT enabled services in extension service more efficiently. “Smart Farmer, Smart Future” is another initiative of BIID as its continuous effort to promote e-Krishok services, mainly 16250, the short code based solution.
Reaching thousands of farmers directly through this campaign generated a wide interest on adoption of ICT enabled services. The campaign also had an aim at engaging youth farmers and agri-businesses through active participation in the competition with a bundle of incentives including prizes and recognition, along with building awareness of ICT enabled service propositions that inspires and motivates the relevant stakeholders. Through this Campaign 100 000 audiences have been reached in 100 different locations. More than 15000 participants directly engaged with the Campaign and generated about 700 ideas. Among all these ideas, 100 best idea generators were selected; they all will receive attractive prizes along with their names published in the e-Krishok website (www.ekrishok.com) officially as recognition and encouragement of their inventive efforts. Winners will also be recognized through exchange visits and documentary.
Grameenphone supported this campaign as part of it “Internet for All” ambition. The company wants to take the benefits of internet to people of Bangladesh by providing access to Internet and appropriate services.