VeSeL: Village e-Science for Life Blog

French initiative has rural communities setting up their own wifi networks.

Beyond the technical aspects, this solution brings some interesting side effects. The RAN Group notes that its members became more involved in the social life of their areas. The network requires regular meetings to plan periodic maintenance operations. The decision to establish their own Internet service has required the RAN Group to contact municipalities, negotiate with local farmers to plant antennas in fields, calculate costs with potential new members, share technical information among the different RAN members of several regions, etc. In this way, the network generates social links instead of isolating people.

Labels: agriculture, eu, local, wireless Links to this post

Posted by Kevin Walker at 6/08/2007 01:45:00 PM 0 comments

Kenyan cut flowers make up 32% Of the EU market, 90% of cut roses to the UK market, according to this story. Kenya supplies all of the green beans bought by UK supermarket chain Marks & Spencer, and 75% of runner beans.

However, due to concern about 'air miles', UK retailers have begun labeling produce flown in with an airplane sticker (though have not reduced imports). A study is cited, however, that Kenyan produce produces less carbon than European, because of the year-round sunshine in the former, vs. greenhouse-grown produce in the latter.

An NGO charges big Kenyan flower produces of worker exploitation and exposure to poisonous chemicals.

Labels: agriculture, climate, eu, kenya Links to this post

Posted by Kevin Walker at 4/30/2007 08:43:00 AM 2 comments

...are one of Kenya's highest sources of foreign exchange. In July 2007 Kenya Flower Council launched a campaign in the UK called 'Grown under the sun' to inform UK customers that 'purchasing fresh Kenyan produce helps sustain livelihoods of hundreds of thousands of farming communities in Kenya who depend on trade with Britain' More details here.

An older article here.

Labels: agriculture, eu, kenya, market Links to this post

Posted by Kevin Walker at 4/11/2007 07:31:00 AM 0 comments

IST-Africa 2007 conference Advance Programme available

Framework Programme 7 Workshops - IST-Africa in collaboration with HAGRID is organising three FP7 Workshops in Tanzania (02 March), Mozambique (05 March) and Botswana (09 March) in relation to FP7-ICT-2007-1 - ICT Call 1, which closes on 08 May 2007.

More information

RELATED EVENTS
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2nd EuroAfrica-ICT Concertation Meeting 8 March 2007, Brussels, Belgium
http://www.euroafrica-ict.org/concertation.html

Europe – Africa Synergies on ICT - Strengthening Collaborative Networks 9 March 2007, http://www.hisp.info/confluence/display/BEANISH/BEANISH+workshop

EuroAfrica-ICT Awareness Workshops
21-22 March 2007, Dakar, Senegal
28 - 29 March 2007, Pretoria, South Africa
http://www.euroafrica-ict.org/awareness_workshops.html

Labels: conferences, eu, ict4d Links to this post

Posted by josh_u at 2/21/2007 02:47:00 PM 0 comments