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ICAAP. Www-wds.worldbank.org/external/default/WDSContentServer/WDSP/IB/2012/04/25/000356161_20120425002131/Rendered/PDF/682550WP0P1247018B0Final0ICT0report.pdf. Building the capacity of agricultural facilitators and farmers in Ghana: Providing complementary training with Open Distance Learning and Information and Communications Technology. Building the capacity of agricultural facilitators and farmers in Ghana: Providing complementary training with Open Distance Learning and Information and Communications Technology Collins Kwabena Osei, CSIR-Crops Research Institute, Ghana Abstract The need for food security in Ghana requires continuing education of agricultural extension agents (AEAs) who work with farmers in rural settings.

The lack of continuing education opportunities is a drawback to AEAs performance. Increased access to quality education and training and new opportunities for learning and skill development in agriculture at the facilitator and farming community levels must be exploited to continually update the knowledge and skills of extension workers and farmers to better meet the challenge of sustaining and increasing agricultural productivity Agriculture is the mainstay of the Ghanaian economy and provides for the livelihood of 70% of the population. The print medium was used to target extension agents. Figures. How Can Information Technology Improve Productivity? Silent Herdsman aids oestrus detection - 1/25/2011. Modern communication technology enabling round-the-clock monitoring of individual animals was outlined by Ivan Andonovic of Embedded Technology Solutions, at the QMS R&D Conference, last week. About 6000 dairy cows and heifers in the UK wear collars with microchips, which transmit individual animal activity level information to the herdsman's computer.

Called The Silent Herdsman, this technology, launched in Spring 2010, is still evolving, said Prof Andonovic. Currently the system is focussed on oestrus detection in dairy herds. "When a cow or heifer comes into oestrus, her activity noticeably increases. This system constantly monitors and sends signals to the computer, charting the activity levels of each collar-wearing individual. Steve Brown, who runs the high yielding Highcroft Holstein herd at Burton Query, Leicestershire, has been using Silent Herdsman collars for oestrus detection since November. Ecommons.cornell.edu/bitstream/1813/10257/1/Munack Invited Paper.pdf. Technology Trends 2012 | Deloitte Consulting LLP. Download full report Select chapters to download Deloitte’s annual Technology Trends report examines technology put to practical business use. This year’s theme, Elevate IT for digital business, examines the broad impacts of five technology forces that have influenced our reports over the past several years – analytics, mobility, social, cloud and cyber security.

What makes Technology Trends unique from other trends reports? Each trend that we select must be actionable, that is, you can do something to the business to achieve improvement. It’s an uncommon, and perhaps even unique, time to have so many emerging forces – all rapidly evolving, technology-centric and each already impacting business so strongly. We invite you to view the brief three-minute overview video, and explore each of the ten trends by downloading the report below. Our 2012 trends are grouped into two categories: Each of these 2012 trends is relevant today. Sonic Notify: the inaudible QR codes only an app can hear.

A startup called Sonic Notify is working on a product that embeds inaudibly high-pitched signals into music and audio, which can be detected by your smartphone. When a compatible app hears the signal, it could be triggered to take an action -- linking you to a website, displaying text or an image, or bringing up a location on a map. That yields all sorts of possibilities -- you could vote on your favourite song of a performance, or be directed to a secret aftershow party, for example. The app is funded by the band MGMT's record label, Cantora Records, which recently opened a technology division. It's offering between £17,000 and £63,000 to startups with interesting ideas. Sonic Notify is one of the first. "[Sonic Notify] transmits a high-frequency sound wave through speakers -- we can't hear the frequency but smartphones can hear it, so we're able to unlock content at live events, TV shows, and through the web," Jesse Israel, co-founder of Cantora Records + Labs told Evolver.fm.

New technologies

Information and Communication Technologies for Agriculture. By: Ms. Cory Belden The Information and Communication Technologies for Agriculture e-Sourcebook is being designed as an e-publication to maximize its outreach, with the intent of maintaining it as a living updatable document following its release in Autumn 2011. The Information and Communication Technologies for Agriculture e-Sourcebook describes a wide variety of ICT innovations and discusses the potential they carry for stakeholders engaged in agricultural development. The overarching challenge for agriculture in the international development community is to make the sector fulfill its potential as an engine for a certain kind of economic growth—poverty-reducing economic growth.

The e-Sourcebook therefore focuses on support to poor smallholder farmers and the intermediate institutions that serve them, and within this classification of producers, on female farmers in addition to women who are otherwise employed in rural nonfarm economies. New Communication Technologies, Old Questions. The recent emergence of new media, or better, new communication technologies, has afforded substantial commentary regarding societal effects, the latest chapter in a decades-old trend that rises and falls with each new communication technology.

Whereas this article does not deny that the current generation of communication technologies differs from predecessors, it argues against the need for wholesale changes in theory to understand the effects of these technologies. New communication technologies do not fundamentally alter the theoretical bounds of human interaction; such interaction continues to be governed by basic human tendencies. What is perhaps most interesting about these new technologies is their ability to provide new or previously rare contexts for information expression and engagement.