1. 4.2 THE USER CENTERED APPROACH TO AGRICULTURAL INNOVATION
Workshop by icebauhaus & AhadooTec
Ethio-German Konnekt, Addis Ababa, November 2014
The two-hour workshop was attended by 15 participants of varying backgrounds, all in one way or the
other related to agricultural development, development cooperation and/or IT development. The work-
shop format was collaborative and participatory.
Main aims were to:
• Offer an opportunity to get acquainted with some aspects of User Centered Design methodology in IT
development, i.e. to focus on thorough problem-definition before designing solutions as well as exploring
the user’s perspective and context,
• Reflect on whether and in which cases IT implementation can provide (more) relevant solutions or not
always?
• Crowd source and map main current challenges to agricultural development in Ethiopia, as well as some
prototypical solution ideas.
Workshop process:
• A Short input presentation “ict4ag challenges & opportunities”
• Collaborative brainstorm: The participants as a group named different current challenges to agricultural
development, which were all added to a mind map and then collaboratively grouped into main categories.
• The participants were split into 2 Work groups. Each group selected one of the main topic-areas to
focus on, to discuss and describe a concrete challenge scenario, including contextual factors, stakeholders,
effects and related scientific knowledge and technologies.
• The participants were asked to draft and discuss potential solutions to the sketched challenges. Each of
the two groups was further separated into two sub-groups:
- Group 1A (knowledge / no ICT): Relied on the existing Agriculture Extension system as a basis for fur-
ther knowledge exchange and introduction of new methods.
- Group 1B (knowledge / ICT) imagined a mobile based platform that enables farmers themselves to
enter knowledge deficits based on their own contextual view and make corresponding requests
- Group 2A (climate change / no ICT): Imagined a peer-to-peer learning network for the introduction of
new climate resilient crops
- Group 2B (climate change / ICT): A multi-channel early warning system for disasters and dangers
• The proposed solutions were finally presented briefly in the large EGK round.
Main result:
• The collective of participants, in particular CIM returning experts represent a constructive collective knowl-
edge resource to be tapped for new projects