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Call for applications: 3 year world-class Joint Doctoral Programme (AgTrain)- Deadline: Dec. 15, 2012
Award: Empowering people: Technologies for basic needs - Deadline: 31 December 2012
Applications to Attend GSBI Silicon Valley Training and Mentoring Program through Santa Clara University
Struggling Entrepreneurs in Rural Ghana Increase Business by Using Computers
In a video that talks specifically about Information and Communication Technology (ICT) for improved entrepreneurship, weaver Agatha and carpenter Michael from Northern Ghana talk about how they were trained in the use of computers and how they increased their business skills and their income. Agatha now uses computers to more easily create her designs and to keep track of what material she still has in stock and what she needs to reorder. Carpenter Michael was also trained by IICD and its Ghanaian partner PEPS-C in business skills through computers. He can now save time and money because he uses computers to communicate with his customers who often live far away. “It’s easier, time saving and actually improving my work.”
The stories of Agatha and Michael are examples of IICD’s work in entrepreneurship which benefits small business owners (including farmers) and students in Africa and Latin America. Since the start of its ICT for entrepreneurship programme, IICD has trained more than 250,000 farmers and entrepreneurs in the use of ICT to improve their businesses.
Introducing Access Agriculture: Facilitating agricultural training videos in developing countries
Funded by the crowd
Dan Kisauzi, managing consultant at the African Forum for Agricultural Advisory Services (AFAAS), explains how local rural development organisations can make use of crowd-funding.
Social media is a key advocacy tool
Hudson Wereh Shiraku is a project assistant at Biovision Farmer Communication Programme. He runs a blog about youth and agriculture and uses ICTs as advocacy tool to promote organic agriculture.
Collective Actions for Opening Access to Agricultural Information and Knowledge in the Asia-Pacific Region
Four Dutch Young Professionals Support Mobile Health Education Project in Ghana
IICD, Vodafone Foundation and dance4life picked the young professionals as winners out of a group of almost 500 applicants who registered for the World of Difference campaign. The winners were announced by Dutch television host Nikkie Plessen at Vodafone’s Dutch headquarters in Amsterdam.
Winners Lotte Bierhuizen, Gerhard Brink, Nieke Kempen and Kim Nooij will work as a project team at an IICD-supported project in Ghana, and are supported by IICD and dance4life. The project team consists of four specialists: a social media specialist, an IT specialist, a marketing communication specialist and a community specialist. Together, the winners will be developing a mobile application together with IICD’s local partner to educate 5000 adolescents in remote areas of Northern Ghana about HIV/aids, STD’s and pregnancies. In that region, teenage pregnancies, STD’s and HIV are a huge problem. Over 20 percent of all teenage girls in Northern Ghana is pregnant or has a baby. In particular, there is a lack of accurate information about and knowledge of sex and health. For these young people, their mobile phone can serve as a tool to receive the appropriate information.
Each year, the Vodafone Netherlands Foundation financially supports jobs at charities by paying for salaries, travel costs and expenses. Candidates were invited to apply on WorldofDifference.nl and by collecting online votes, were able to multiply their chances to deserve a place in the finals.



