Measuring Empowerment to evaluate the impact of a Mobile Based Information System for Sri Lankan Farmers

We are investigating ways to empower Sri Lankan farmers through a technology-based intervention to enhance their livelihood activities. Using empowerment theory and related concepts, we have created a conceptual model of psychological empowerment and identified a person’s level of empowerment as a reflection of their sense of control, self-efficacy, competence and motivation. We interviewed 50 farmers and used content analysis to identify the empowerment concepts in our model and measure their current level of empowerment. This paper reports our method for determining empowerment levels and provides findings from our interviews. The results revealed that the majority of farmers have low sense of control, average levels of self-efficacy and high levels of farming knowledge but lack of access to timely information reduced their competency in dealing with new problems. The method will be used in follow-up interviews to determine whether levels of empowerment have increased as a result of technology intervention

Towards using ICT to enhance flow of information to aid farmer sustainability in Sri Lanka

Farmers need information at all stages of the farming life cycle to make optimal decisions. The required information includes not only prior knowledge but also real time (dynamic) information such as market prices and current production levels. Some valuable information needed by the farmers is produced by government organizations and is available in different locations in different formats. Although farmer is the most important stakeholder in agriculture, there has not been much effort to provide the essential information to farmers on a real time basis. This lack of information is creating many difficulties for farmers as they are not being able to make the correct decisions relating to their farming activities. Through field studies we have identified information required by farmers at various stages of the farming cycle and official sources where this information is available. Next we developed an information flow model that connects various information sources to farmers&rsquo; information needs. Based on these findings we are now developing a mobile phone based information system to deliver the required information to farmers in real time.<br /

A model for enhancing empowerment in farmers using mobile based information system

Farmers living in rural villages of Sri Lanka do not have proper access to information to make informed decisions about their livelihoods and as a result they face constant hardships in their lives. They use mobile phones to communicate but these are not currently connected to the Internet. We are investigating how to provide personalized information to farmers with the aim of empowering them to make informed decisions and take appropriate actions. In this paper we propose an empowerment model that has been designed to achieve their goals which have been identified using a scenario-based approach. The model examines several empowerment processes and supporting tools that would help them to achieve their goals with the hope that they would have an increased sense of control, self-efficacy, knowledge and competency. This empowerment model is applied to the development of a mobile based information system that is being developed by an international collaborative research group to address the issues of the farmers.<br /

Towards using ICT to Enhance Flow of Information to aid Farmer Sustainability in Sri Lanka

Farmers need information at all stages of the farming life cycle to make optimal decisions. The required information includes not only prior knowledge but also real time (dynamic) information such as market prices and current production levels. Some valuable information needed by the farmers is produced by government organizations and is available in different locations in different formats. Although farmer is the most important stakeholder in agriculture, there has not been much effort to provide the essential information to farmers on a real time basis. This lack of information is creating many difficulties for farmers as they are not being able to make the correct decisions relating to their farming activities. Through field studies we have identified information required by farmers at various stages of the farming cycle and official sources where this information is available. Next we developed an information flow model that connects various information sources to farmers’ information needs. Based on these findings we are now developing a mobile phone based information system to deliver the required information to farmers in real time

Design and Evaluation of a Mobile-based Cultivation Planning Application for empowering Sri Lankan Farmers

We have field tested a profit calculator for Sri Lankan farmers as a part of our investigation to develop mobile-based tools for empowerment. Lack of access to information to support livelihood activities is creating economic hardships for the farmers. Though the majority of the farmers use mobile phones there aren’t many useful mobile applications for them. In the field test we captured farmers’ experiences of using the profit calculator and a revised set of requirements. When reflecting on these observations we realised that instead of developing ICT applications just to provide information or perform tasks, we need to develop applications based on user goal-oriented empowerment processes. Based on this insight, we reviewed our original design of the profit calculator and designed a new Cultivation Planning Application

Context based content aggregation for Social Life Networks

Better decisions can be made in the profession of the users if they can filter out the relevant information from all the available information sources. The mass availability of the mobile devices has enabled the users to quickly access timely information from any location. The aim of this work is to identify a suitable way to provide timely information in context by capturing contextual information through the mobile device, to support the activities of the user. The context model tries to identify the context of the user by identifying the task being performed by the user. The system is aware of the information need and the information source for each task of the user and the relevant information is filtered out of the information source, by using the users context. The context model was designed and tested for the farming domain, to support the livelihood activities of the farmer, by extending the concepts of Social Life Networks. Social Life Networks aggregates information from various sensors on a mobile phone, other published data sources and micro blogs such as Twitter to detect evolving situations and make that information available to the users in real time. This initial prototype was evaluated with a sample of farmers to check usefulness of provided information and usability of the application in order to support their day to day decision making process. The sample group strongly endorsed the various aspects of the proto-type application and provided valuable insights for improvement. The current application is a specific instance of the SLN project and we plan to create more application for SLN to test and refine the context models

Architecture for social life network to empower people at the middle of the pyramid

We have designed an architecture for a mobile based information system to empower people in the middle of the pyramid (MOP). MOPs is now half of the world's population has only a mobile phone to get connected To the Internet. They need applications to enhance their livelihood activities. These applications need to provide information on rapidly changing dynamic situations such as fluctuations in market prices, prevailing supply and demand situation for their produce as well as more stable information such as information on seeds, pests, weather patterns, soil types etc. Our architecture is designed to provide dynamic information by aggregating micro-blogs, status updates and data from sensors. It also has connections to established data sources and websites to provide more stable information and tools for empowerment