RightMesh and IITA sign MOU to develop a
mesh-enabled mobile app tackle crop disease in Sub-Saharan Africa
Mesh-enabled app to improve crop
disease surveillance with remote field surveys and worker/farmer communications
without the need for Internet or data.
Zug, Switzerland & Ibadan, Nigeria, December 19, 2018—
RightMesh and the International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) have
signed an MoU for the design, development, and testing of a mobile application
that will allow smallholder farmers in sub-Saharan Africa to capture and share
data about crop disease without using Internet or mobile data.
In
Africa, an estimated 70% of the population depends directly on agriculture for its livelihood.
The sector is also under pressure to increase productivity to feed a rapidly
growing population in the face of climate change which among others is causing
the spread of new pests and diseases.
A
lack of tools for early and rapid reporting of emerging diseases have resulted
in rapidly-spreading outbreaks leading to epidemics and huge crop loss.
Web-based tools for data collection have proven to be effective, yet for many
farmers, connecting to the internet is cost-prohibitive.
This
co-created mesh-enabled mobile app will allow smallholder farmers to detect and
report new pests and diseases without incurring costs for internet or data.
When combined with the plant pathology expertise of IITA, the app will allow
farmers, community knowledge workers, researchers, and government agencies to
collaborate digitally for an innovative approach to address the early
detection, prevention, and intervention of crop disease.
“Working
with IITA on a solution that has the potential to lift whole communities out of
poverty by improving agricultural performance in East and Central Africa is an
excellent use case for the RightMesh platform,” said John Lyotier, Co-founder
and CEO of RightMesh,
“We are honored to contribute to the solution by enabling connectivity to reach
these smallholder farmers who will now have access to the benefits of online
community collaboration.”
"The
RightMesh mobile app takes early detection of pests and diseases to the next
level. It will help in increasing information flow between farmers, extension
agents, and researchers in the event of a breakout and this will help reduce
the vulnerability of smallholder farmers,” noted Dr. Kenton Dashiell, IITA
Deputy Director General Partnerships for Delivery. “This will help reduce the
vulnerability of smallholder farmers and contribute towards ensuring food
security.”
Protecting
smallholder farm crops with innovative technology and world leading plant
pathology research, the RightMesh - IITA collaboration addresses United Nations
Sustainable Development Goals of eradicating extreme poverty, ending hunger and
ensuring access to nutritious and sufficient food all year round, building
resilient infrastructure, and combating climate change and its impacts.
This
mobile application will be tested in Tanzania in late 2019.
###
About RightMesh Learn more
RightMesh
AG, a Swiss Company, is on a mission to bring connectivity to the next billion
users by multiplying the combined power of blockchain, mobile mesh networking,
and its own RMESH tokens. RightMesh wireless networks are self-forming,
self-healing, and self-regulating, using various technologies in existing
smartphones and IoT devices rather than relying on traditional infrastructure
and Internet Service Providers. RightMesh is a software-based mobile mesh
networking protocol that is ‘infrastructureless’ meaning it could be embedded
into existing applications or used to build new mesh-enabled applications that
do not require additional hardware or Internet connectivity to transmit data
between people, applications, or devices over short distances. Initially,
RightMesh was an internal project of Left, a Canadian-based multinational media
and technology company with holdings in mobile and Internet-based businesses.
Left is a certified B-Corp and RightMesh is governed by the same principles of
using business as a force for good.
RightMesh
AG is located at Gubelstrasse 11 CH-6300 Zug, Switzerland.
About IITA (International Institute of Tropical Agriculture):
The
International Institute of Tropical Agriculture (IITA) is a non-profit
institution
that
generates agricultural innovations to meet Africa’s most pressing challenges of
hunger, malnutrition, poverty, and natural resource degradation. Working with
various partners across sub-Saharan Africa, IITA improves livelihoods, enhances
food and nutrition security,
increases
employment and preserves natural resource integrity. IITA has a presence in 35
countries in Africa and is the 2018 Africa Food Prize Winner. IITA is a CGIAR
Research Center.
About CGIAR (Consultative Group on International
Agriculture Research):
CGIAR
is a global research partnership for a food-secure future. CGIAR science is
dedicated to reducing poverty, enhancing food and nutrition security, and
improving natural resources and ecosystem services. Its research is carried out
by 15 CGIAR Research Centers in close collaboration with hundreds of partners,
including national and regional research institutes, civil society
organizations, academia, development organizations and the private sector. The
CGIAR Fund was established as a Financial Intermediary Fund (FIF) in 2010. It
was subsequently closed and replaced by a new FIF in 2017, following the CGIAR
System governance reorganization
Media Contacts
Dana Harvey
CCO, RightMesh
+1–778–929–3262
Catherine Njuguna
IITA
Communications Office
+255
767 361 255
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