The Ashoka's Changemakers community has selected three winners in its global search for innovative solutions to rural development and sustainable agricultural issues. Earlier this month I wrote about the ten finalists.
The winners, one each from India, Uganda and Brazil, cover traditional farming methods, female farmer empowerment, and integrated farming for small farms.
In Uganda, Dr. Mwalimu Musheshe helps smallholder farmers share and benefit from traditional farming methods through the Uganda Rural development and Training Programme.
Property rights and land ownership is something we take for granted in the west. Farmers across rural developing nations, however, farmers, especially women farmers, have little or no access to such ownership, which negatively affects their ability to pursue their livelihoods, feed their families, and send their kids to school. Now an Indian organization known as SRREOSHI puts land into the hands of groups of women farmers in West Bengal, a positive step to protecting women's rights and giving them control over the land they are cultivating.
The third winner is Agência Mandalla DHSA of Brazil, which promotes an integrated farming system employing the latest appropriate technologies and farming methods to small farm plots in both rural and urban areas.
Support from competition sponsors the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation provides each of the winners with a $5,000 prize and collaborative support to expand their work in rural agriculture and development. The Gates Foundation's Agricultural Development Program has a larger partnership with Ashoka to find the best innovations in rural development and agriculture.
"Being recognized among the most innovative solutions for rural communities is a pretty big achievement for us," said Tarcio Handel da Silva, Executive Director of Agência Mandalla DHSA. "It has maximized our motivation to keep replicating our work in knowledge and social change."
(Disclosure: The author was part of the team that developed the partnership between Ashoka and the Gates Foundation for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship to Agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa and India.)
Showing posts with label Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Show all posts
Reblog this post [with 03 July 2009
Culitvating Innovation: Vote for Best Rural Solutions on Changemakers
Ashoka's Changemakers announced the top ten finalists in their "Cultivating Innovation, Solutions for Rural Communities" competition.
In February, Changemakers launched a global search for innovative solutions to often complex issues facing rural development and sustainable agriculture, from food security to sustainably scaling-up production.
Sponsored by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the competition uncovered 455 ideas from around the globe. The judges have settled on ten finalists and now it is up to you and the Changemakers community to vote to select three winners. But hurry: the voting closes on July 8th.
Here are the finalists:
Vote here: Changemakers Cultivating Innovation (Note: you must join the Changemakers community to vote.)
Changemakers is a community of action where participants helped develop and refine and select solutions through a collaborative competition model.
(Disclosure: The author was part of the team that developed the partnership between Ashoka and the Gates Foundation for Social Innovation and Entrepreneurship to Agriculture in Sub-Saharan Africa and India.)
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03 March 2009
Changemakers Launches Competition for Agricultural Innovations
Ashoka's Changemakers announced the launch of "Cultivating Innovation: Solutions for Rural Communities," a new global, online competition to seek out the most innovative solutions in farming and rural communities in Sub-Saharan Africa, India, and around the world.
The competition is funded as part of a grant awarded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. Using the Changemakers' open-source online platform, the competition will be open to anyone striving to stimulate rural development and agriculture.
Today, three quarters of the world’s poorest people —- the one billion who live on $1 a day or less —- live in rural areas, and most rely on agriculture for their food and income. Many small farmers cannot grow enough food to sell or even eat. Innovative solutions such as those Ashoka is seeking offer hundreds of millions of the people the opportunity to overcome hunger and poverty.
Over the next two months, you and others from around the world can nominate people who are coming up with innovative solutions in farming and rural communities. You can also submit your own project.
Changemakers has a unique, open-source model where members of the community comment on and evaluate the initiatives entered in the competition. Entrants and nominators both can network with each other, as well as with media, academics, and thought leaders.
An expert panel of judges will narrow the entry pool to 10 to 15 finalists. Then the global Changemakers community will vote for three winners, who will each receive a USD $5000 award from Changemakers to fund their initiatives.
The distinguished panel features Roy Steiner, Senior Program Officer for Agricultural Development at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, Gene Kahn, Global Sustainability Officer for General Mills, Beatrice Gakuba, CEO of Rwanda Flora, Suzana Padua, Founder of the Instituto de Pesquisas Ecológicas (Institute of Ecological Research), and Raj Patel, activist and author of Stuffed and Starved: Markets, Power and the Hidden Battle for the World Food System.
"The Changemakers community is an open, online forum for anyone who is passionate about social change to participate in a vibrant exchange of ideas and friendship," says Charlie Brown, Changemakers Executive Director. "This competition is the opportunity to expand our reach even further, into the rural areas of Africa and India, to work with those innovators who may or may not have online access."
Innovation can come from anywhere, according to Changemakers. They cite people like C.K. "Bablu" Ganguly, an Ashoka Fellow whose innovations have regenerated farmland and created jobs via organic farming and marketing cooperatives in southern India.
Or, people like Adrian Mukhebi, another Ashoka fellow who created a virtual trading floor via radio and SMS messaging to link thousands of farmers and buyers and sellers in Kenya. Ganguly and Mukhebi’s work not only helped to revitalize the local farming economies but also directly met many of their communities' education and health needs, in addition to empowering local women to actively participate in farming and business development.
The online competition will showcase innovative solutions, encouraging members to comment, network, and assist one another in making a difference. Nominations and submissions are welcomed until May 13.
For more information and to enter or nominate, check out: "Cultivating Innovation: Solutions for Rural Communities"
(Disclosure: The author was formerly VP of Global Development for Ashoka and part of the team that developed the partnership with Gates Foundation of which this competition is a part.)
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