Topic:              Applied Science

Place:               Zambia / Germany

Year:                 2016 – 2017

About:

As part of my current master program at the University of Media I´m involved in a Research project in Zambia.

Across the developing world, mobile communication and information technologies (ICTs) are increasingly used by smallholder farmers. The rise of smartphones creates new possibilities for using applications and visual tools, which are especially suited to overcome the challenges faced by illiterate users. Therefore, smartphones can be expected to strengthen the potential that ICTs offer for economic growth and social empowerment of small-scale farmers, including women. Smartphones applications also provide a new opportunity for researchers to better understand complex smallholder farming systems. We developed a smartphone app to analyse the effects of agricultural mechanization on intra-household time use and nutrition in smallholder farming systems. The app was successfully tested and applied for data collection among smallholder farmers in Zambia.