mobile phone

COOPEUMO, a grassroots farmer’s cooperative with more than 350 small scale farmers as members provides a number of services to farmers such as technical assistance, credit and training.  Last year COOPEUMO started a pilot project called DatAgro to provide SMS based information to farmers. The service started in April, 2009 has been supported by DataDyne, Federation of Agrarian Innovation, UNESCO, Entel PCS and two Chilean newspapers- El Mostrador and El Mercurio.

By providing information related to supply and product prices, climate conditions, and international markets; the initiative allows small scale farmers to align with the market needs. Thanks to the proliferation of mobile phones, farmers today have access to such information. ‘Last week I received one (message) about the weather so I didn’t plant anything because of the information I received and I planted yesterday, after the rain had stopped’ says Hugo Tobar, a farmer. Ninety percent of adults in rural areas of Chile have mobile phones. Farmers today consider mobile phones as a necessity and not a luxury.

I received this by email recently:

"The Cherie Blair Foundation for Women and the GSMA Development Fund are pleased to announce the publication of Women & Mobile: A Global Opportunity, following it’s launch yesterday (Feb 16, 2010) at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona. The report is the first detailed study of its kind on the mobile phone gender gap in low and middle-income countries and showcases how using a mobile phone can improve the socio-economic status of women. We hope to use the report to launch a larger initiative to increase women’s access to the mobile market."

The document appears to appeal to shed light on issues about women and mobile technology, including hang-ups and market opportunities.  As I've heard more and more about mobile technology's ability to address gender equality, I thought it might be helpful to pass along.

This post contributed by Ashoka's Osman Ashai. The following is Part 2 in a case study series following Ashoka Fellow Hilmi Quraishi's collaboration with Microsoft to use mobile technology to educate the public and health care workers about Tuburculosis prevention and treatment.