sfrome

#IFAD President shares his expectations of #ifadgc

Roxanna Samii — Sun, 19 Feb 2012 17:45:00 +0000

We're 72 hours away from #ifadgc. There is a lot of buzz and excitement in the building. Over the weekend 30 young people came together to discuss the opportunities and challenges of agriculture and what it takes to make agriculture a profitable business.

Tomorrow, the Fourth global meeting of the Farmers' Forum will kick off. And on Wednesday our building will host world leaders, prominent guests, global movers and shakers.

As part of our "back story" and interview series, we had the opportunity to have a conversation with IFAD President and ask him what are his expectations for this session of #ifadgc.

In this interview, the President shared his excitement about having a first class international meeting focusing on the hot topic of climate change with renown panelists and prominent guests. He also mentioned he is looking forward to this event being an open one thanks to social media and webcasting.

You can imagine the smile on my face, when the President mentioned that #ifadgc is almost like what we experienced last September with the Share Fair! (The spirit of #sfrome is alive and kicking!)

The President, one of our best social media advocates, is looking forward to an interesting exchange of ideas and interaction on social media. Have a look at how, yesterday during the youth in agriculture session, he engaged in a conversation with WFP's Executive Director, Josette Sheeran.

This is your chance to interact with the renown panelists and guests. Send us your questions for Bill Gates and the other panellists. Join us in making #ifadgc a memorable event!

Help us show the world and the skeptics the power and potential of social media! We count on YOU and look forward to having an engaging and compelling conversation.

Mindmaps training sfrome2011 by Jasmin Suministrado

sharefair09@slideshare.net(sharefair09) — Thu, 17 Nov 2011 09:27:23 +0000

Innovation platforms as spaces for change and transformation in rural communities

ILRI@slideshare.net(ILRI) — Sat, 15 Oct 2011 14:03:46 +0000

Presented by Alan Duncan at the AgriKnowledge Share Fair, Rome, 28 September 2011

#sfrome: Knowledge management planning

Beate Stalsett — Mon, 10 Oct 2011 17:14:00 +0000

Written by Edgar Tan

Knowledge management projects typically require significant awareness raising, education and change management efforts to get buy-in and participation from operational level managers. Such managers are often impatient with theoretical KM frameworks and concepts or high level strategies, and they can easily dismiss KM as too fuzzy and impractical to be useful. Knowledge managers frequently find themselves preoccupied with fighting defensive actions around understanding and buy-in, instead of directly planning, orchestrating and executing knowledge management strategies and programmes.

In the KM Planning workshop Edgar Tan and Kim Martins took the participants through a facilitated and staged participatory planning process using a set of performance support tools to:

* diagnose specific pain points in the operations that can be supported through KM

* identify cultural factors that support or inhibit more effective knowledge sharing and use

* focus managers on the areas they believe are of highest priority to them

* help managers identify appropriate KM approaches, methods and tools to support their priority areas

The value of a participatory planning approach is that operational managers are themselves working with the KM team to identify the main components of a KM intervention, rather than having a KM team impose a solution from outside. This removes much of the burden of getting buy-in (because prioritisation and selection of approaches are done by the managers themselves), and the awareness and education process is focused on explaining the approaches and methods that managers themselves select as possible candidates.

If you wish to see how the process works, read this blog post and watch the embedded video:

http://www.greenchameleon.com/gc/blog_detail/conducting_a_km_planning_exercise/

Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation Agriculture Strategy presentation 26 Sept 2011 at IFAD

ifad@slideshare.net(ifad) — Tue, 04 Oct 2011 11:23:12 +0000

Research’s “missing link”: the communications budget

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 17:26:00 +0000

On Tuesday, at the Share Fair in Rome, Rob Burnet presented an inspiring keynote speech entitled “How can we make agriculture more attractive to young people in Africa”.

From the Share Fair blog:

“Rob Burnet leads Well Told Story, a multi-award-winning Kenyan communications company which pulls together comic books, syndicated FM radio, SMS, social media, web, video animation, strategy and science to help change the way people live, think, act and govern in East Africa.”

To the delight of the Share Fair audience Burnet offered that inadequate budgets for communication could be the missing link in research! Using Hollywood as an example, where 30% of budgets are spent on publicity, he lamented that agricultural research doesn’t always succeed in delivering great ideas that final step into the hands of beneficiaries. In an interview after the presentation (see clip posted below) he said:

“The reason we do this work is to change the life of poor people, if we stop short of making those brilliant ideas… accessible to those they are intended to benefit – let’s go home…”

This is a message that the communications community will no doubt welcome! However, in the meantime there are lots of ways to make sure CGIAR research outputs are Available, Accessible and Applicable. The Triple-A Framework developed by the ICT-KM Program seeks to help Centers, Programs and their scientists decide on the level of Availability, Accessibility and Applicability (AAA) they want for their research outputs, and also the pathways with which to turn these outputs into International Public Goods.

For a complete introduction to the Framework see “Availability, Accessibility and Applicability of the CGIAR Research Outputs”

Share Fair 2011 – day 2

Thu, 29 Sep 2011 06:52:15 +0000

Today inspiration came from the great intro by Rob Burnet who talked about the incredible experience of shujaaz in Kenya. This series, which is using comics, radio, internet mobile telephony and video, introduces agriculture to the Kenyan youth. Rob strongly … Continue reading →

Insights in Learning Communities - Share Fair

Maarten — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 13:19:00 +0000

This week the Share Fair is taking place in Rome. Many interesting presentations and discussions are taking place about a great number of issues of interest for ICCO’s work: Public-Private partnerships, access to markets, use of social media in development and many others.

On the first day Etienne Wenger gave a very interesting key-note speech about Communities of Practice (CoP’s). This was a really interesting presentation/discussion and I suppose that all those within the ICCO Alliance who are somehow involved in the Communities of Learning (which in fact also are CoP’s) would like to know what Etienne said. His main messages were that it is just impossible to start CoP’s from top-down because partnership (partners in learning from practice) among the members of the community is essential and. Furthermore CoP’s need ‘social artists’ who are able to establish and nourish these partnerships and also ‘transversal people’ who manage to relate well with all (management) layers within an organisation.

But as good summaries about Etienne Wengers’ talk are available on other blogs I will not repeat it all here, please have a look at the blogpost from Simone Staiger and the video interview of Pier Andrea Pirani.

And by the way on the Share Fair blog there are many other interesting posts to read!

New technologies and innovative approaches in rural family poultry

copppldsecretariat@slideshare.net(copppldsecretariat) — Wed, 28 Sep 2011 09:02:30 +0000

Presentation by Antonio Rota and Olaf Thieme, Share Fair Rome 2011

Share Fair 2011 – day 1

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 07:32:46 +0000

The first day of the Second Global AgriKnowledge Share Fair was really great. I follow Willem’s suggestion and I had lots of fun. In the morning, Etienne Wenger‘s words were really inspiring. His approach, which compared CoP and dating, was … Continue reading →

Live and direct from Rome – blogging & tweeting at the ShareFair and KM4Dev 2011

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 10:56:45 +0000

The second global Share Fair has started and some KM4Dev-related sessions are also unfolding as we speak.

The 2nd Global Share Fair has started!

I will be blogging here about the sessions I’ve been involved in and if I get a chance, on other sessions too.

An incredible amount of tweeting is happening already under the tag #sfrome – and for KM4Dev quite simply under the tag #KM4Dev.

Some sessions are webcasted – see the webcasting programme on: http://t.co/knk1CBxM

The first blogposts and blips (post here and blip here) are started and will be soon linked up with the official event blog.

Aggregated feeds: http://www.netvibes.com/agriknowledgesharefair

And finally, there is a daily Corriere to cover what has been presented or discussed every day: http://t.co/IsTeZJkP

So stay tuned and keep watching the incredible amount of social learning happening, this is most certainly one of the highlights of this year in terms of social learning and knowledge sharing for development work.

Related posts:

Live and direct from Almada: from KM4DEV to learning4change?
KM4DEV 2009, a few weeks later

The Spirit of the Share Fair 2011

Mon, 26 Sep 2011 08:16:11 +0000

Today the Second AgriKnowledge Share Fair starts. Before anything else, we, the Steering Committee, think the Spirit of the participation to this event to be crucial. I like very much Willem’s description of the spirit of the Share Fair 2011. The … Continue reading →

Dgroups at Share Fair 2011

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 18:46:14 +0000

From next Monday to 29 September 2011 IFAD in Rome will host the the second AgriKnowledge Share Fair.

After the previous Share Fairs in Addis Ababa (2010) and Rome (2009), also the programme and design for this year event looks impressive: more than 150 sharing and learning sessions on issues related to rural development and agriculture; talks by renowned practitioners in different fields; a vibrant market place; and a series of trainings on knowledge sharing methods and tools on Day0 of the Fair.

Dgroups will also be participating in the Share Fair. Here’s what we have on the menu for next week:

On Monday 26 September Hapee de Groot (Hivos) and Damir Simunic (WA Research) are hosting training session on Dgroups (14:00-15:30, room B500)
On Tuesday 27 September, Damir Simunic will lead a session on Dgroups going mobile (11:30-13:00, room B200)
Also on Tuesday 27 September, the Dgroups Partners Meeting will bring Dgroups members together to discuss present and future developments of Dgroups.

Follow this blog for Dgroups updates from the ShareFair, or subscribe to the ShareFair newsfeed for all news from Rome.

AgriKnowledge Share Fair 2011

Pier Andrea Pirani — Thu, 22 Sep 2011 22:50:00 +0000

The second AgriKnowledge Share Fair is about to kick off next week, hosted by IFAD in Rome (from 26 to 29 September).

It's going to be packed: "this four-day event will provide a forum to learn and share knowledge, experience and innovations on emerging trends relating to agriculture, food security, price volatility, climate change, changing demographics and other rural development related issues".

Having participated in two previous Share Fairs, in Rome in 2009 and Addis Ababa last year, I know this is going to be a very exciting gathering, with 160 presenters from across the planet, discussing their experiences and innovative ways to share knowledge in the agricultural and rural development sector - see the final agenda here.

We'll be in Rome for the whole week and we have a very exciting agenda ahead. More importantly, we look forward to meeting old and new friends.

To start with, on Day 0, Monday 26 September, we'll be facilitating several modules on knowledge sharing tools and methods:

Collaborative writing (1100-12:30, room B400)
Microblogging (14:00-1530, room C400)
Video production, storing and sharing (14:00-1530, room C200)
Open space (16:00-1730, room C500)
Dgroups (14:00 to 15:30, room B500)

From Tuesday to Thursday, we will provide support and facilitation to the following sessions:

On 27 September, Dgroups annual members meeting (14:00 room B100);
On 28 September, Sensemaking: The cognitive map of farms - Experiences of sharing agricultural knowledge in Southern Africa (171) (11:00, room C400);
On 29 Septembers, Helping farmers identify fake or genuine agro-inputs using SMS (138) (14:00 room C300)

We'll be also collaborating with the #sfrome social reporting team. We will focus on sourcing and aggregating the content that is produced during the event, so we can deliver it to users into a consolidated information product. Here's the link to the aggregated Share Fair newsfeed and email alerts. You can also take a look at the Netvibes dashboard we've been playing with: it still needs some work but we think it can be useful to keep track of the different "#sfrome" conversations in one single window - feedback and comments are most welcomed!

Finally, the week climaxes - for us at least - with the KM4DEV members meeting!

Follow the event remotely, comment on media and share your reactions with us.

Share Fair news and updates

Share Fair 2011

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 09:18:33 +0000

September 2011 is a very long and intense month. After the two events at FAO (the CSDI Stocktaking exercise and the ComDev Expert consultation), it is now time for an important event taking place at IFAD: the Share Fair 2011. … Continue reading →

You can be part of the #sfrome social reporting team. Here is how..

Gauri Salokhe — Tue, 20 Sep 2011 13:24:00 +0000

As you may already know, we are counting down days to the Second Global AgriKnowledge Share Fair which is scheduled to take place at IFAD from 26-29 September. This event, jointly organized by Bioversity International, Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD), Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), The Consultative Group on International Agricultural Research (CGIAR) and World Food Programme (WFP) brings together colleagues from Rome-based agencies as well as partner organizations to share projects, lessons learned and emerging trends in the areas of food security, price volatility, climate change, ICT4D, social media and green innovations.

The Share Fair promises to deliver a wealth of knowledge featuring over 160 presenters from all over the world who will share their creative and innovative experiences and knowledge. Participants will have an opportunity to learn, share, connect and influence future direction.

We encourage all participants to use social media channels and report live from the event. Here is how you can engage:

Tweet and Retweet content from Share Fair: http://sharefair2009.blogspot.com/search/label/sfrome
Share your own photos and images from the event by joining the Share Fair Group: http://www.flickr.com/groups/sharefair09/
Presentations will be shared via: http://www.slideshare.net/sharefair09/
Follow our tweets: http://twitter.com/sharefairs/
Videos: http://www.youtube.com/user/sharefairs
Blog from sessions you attend either through your personal blog or by sending your posts to share-fair@cgiar.org

When tweeting, please use the following hashtags:

#sfrome

The organizational tags are:

#ifad – Twitter account @ifadnews
#unfao – Twitter account @faonews
#wfp – Twitter account @wfp
#bioversity

The draft agenda for the event is available from: http://t.co/KYK73dqp

For more information, contact us at share-fair [at] cgiar.org.

Dgroups partners meeting 2011

Fri, 29 Jul 2011 04:58:28 +0000

The 2011 Dgroups partners meeting will take place in Rome on 27 September 2011 in the context of the Second Global AgriKnowledge Share Fair.

The Share Fair will be an exciting and “out-of-the-box” event, offering participants creative and innovative learning and sharing opportunities, and equipping them with tools to better influence future rural development activities. We are glad that the Dgroups partners meeting can be held during this international gathering as this will provide Dgroups members with excellent opportunities for networking and learning.

A draft agenda for the Dgroups partners meeting is available on the Dgroups wiki. The participation and active engagement of current Dgroups members – as well as potential partners and interested organisations – is key to the success of the partners meeting and the discussion on the future development of Dgroups.

Besides the partners meeting, Dgroups will also organise a technical session during Day 0 of the Share Fair on 26 September 2011, which is dedicated to collaboration technologies and knowledge sharing tools and methods. This will be a perfect occasion for Dgroups members and users to participate in a hands on, practical session on the new platform about to be released and already available in beta version at http://next.dgroups.org.

Dgroups members and users that plan to attend the training session and the 2011 Partners meeting should register using the Share Fair registration form.

More updates on the programme of the 2011 Dgroups Partners meeting will be available in the coming days and the final agenda for the meeting will be circulated by the end of August 2011.

Second Global Knowledge Share Fair 2011: submit a proposal

Fri, 27 May 2011 09:16:19 +0000

The Second Global Knowledge Share Fair will be held from 27-29 September 2011 at IFAD headquarters in Rome, Italy.

Building on the success of the First Global Knowledge Share Fair, this three-day event provides a forum for participants to learn and share their knowledge, experience and innovations on emerging trends relating to agriculture, food security, price volatility, climate change, changing demographics and other rural development related issues.

The organisers are now inviting proposals for sessions on the following specific themes:

new trends and thinking on coping with market access challenges and developing markets for small farmers
innovative use of mobile technology and/or social media in the agriculture sector to enhance food security and nutrition
the impact of migration and population growth to feed future population
new technologies and innovative agricultural and farming practices to increase productivity
opportunities for innovative partnerships including with private sector, farmer organizations, environment-friendly and green innovations

Download the submission form and send in your abstracts and proposals by latest 1 July 2011 by an email to: share-fair@fao.org. (Please write in the subject line “Abstract/Proposal”).