Comments on: Tradenet – how mobile phones might revolutionize agriculture in West Africa

By: Smartphones and Agriculture :: Conquering Innovation Fatigue: Helping Inventors, Entrepreneurs and Leaders Find Innovation Success

Thu, 22 Apr 2010 16:00:36 +0000

[...] “How mobile phones might revolutionize agriculture in West Africa“ [...]

By: …My heart’s in Accra » Delivering Ethiopian teff via Czech taxi?

Sat, 13 Oct 2007 12:27:59 +0000

[...] the room, but not on the panel, was my friend Mark Davies, who might have had the best answer to that question. He’s the instigator of TradeNet, a [...]

By: Lane

Lane — Sat, 14 Apr 2007 18:53:12 +0000

Ethan – nice to see that you are still in the fray. We hope to begin rolling that kinbd of approach out here in Afghanistan in the next few months.

By: Eric Osiakwan

Eric Osiakwan — Mon, 05 Feb 2007 09:19:28 +0000

The other interesting story in this, is, the whole platform was develop by Ghanaian trained programmers so to borrow the African phrase, this is a “tropically tolerant” platform which is going to help farmers and buyers do what they already do with technology.

By: wayneandwax.com » New Wine, Old Bottles

wayneandwax.com » New Wine, Old Bottles — Sun, 04 Feb 2007 05:41:46 +0000

[...] There were a couple things in this text that set off bells for me before even attending — in partic, the use of quotation marks around “talking” (b/c, y’know, it’s not as if the drums really talk or anything) and the use of the plural form of culture, which I tend to avoid myself due to the implication that there are various, stable, discrete cultures in this world rather than the kinds of interconnected, overlapping, porous, shifting fields of cultural practice that this exhibition actually, in spirit, seemed to want to emphasize. Even so, I recognize that we sometimes simplify our vocabularies in order to say something clearly or provocatively, so I wasn’t really too suspicious going in. Nonetheless, I did expect to encounter plenty of “ironic” examples of African uses of and riffs on technology — you know, ironic, because who would expect to find so many cellphones in Africa, never mind so many tricknological gizmos integrated into traditional art forms? To wit – [...]

By: Mobile Phones as Platform in Africa | White African

Mobile Phones as Platform in Africa | White African — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 14:29:30 +0000

[...] [Update: Ethan has a great write-up on this as well] [...]

By: beninmwangi

beninmwangi — Fri, 02 Feb 2007 03:58:39 +0000

Ethan:

You are right, this is indeed a great new development. The SMS aspect and the advertising model, to me, are the most exciting aspects of this project.

Also,the Africa blogosphere has been very keen on reporting the significance of the mobile platform across the African continent. This new venture along with numbers that you’ve provided in this post reinforce the notion that mobile technology is totally changing the way that business is done in Africa.

Also, Bill from Jewels In the Jungle told me a little bit about the IT work that you have done in Ghana, so
you too have played a vital part of this great technolgy movement that many businesses and farmers accross Africa are beginning to embrace.

Thanks for the great posts!

By: Global Voices Online » Blog Archive » Africa: TradeNet to revolutionize agriculture

Thu, 01 Feb 2007 19:27:05 +0000

[...] Ethan Zuckerman writes about a new project in West Africa, TradeNet, “TradeNet is designed to take advantage of the boom in mobile phones on the African continent, a boom that’s put mobile phones in the hands of 10% of Africans… an amazing growth over the number of people connected via wired telephony. TradeNet is designed to be an open marketplace for buyers and sellers of agricultural products throughout West Africa. The reason for this is simple: most farmers sell their goods to wholesalers located near to them.” Ndesanjo Macha [...]