Solutions for International Development
aWhere gives back!
Our commitment supports assistance programs in developing countries.aWhere’s roots lie in deployment of information systems in support of sustainable development. With a historical focus on agriculture, the lessons learned from building and deploying location intelligent information systems in resource constrained environments prove all the more valuable today. aWhere brings transparency and accountability to sustainable development projects as critical information is more easily utilized, shared – and acted upon – within and between partners.
aWhere, working with Tulane University’s Payson Center for International Development and Technology Transfer, won a Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation grant (in 2009) to deploy an instance of aWhere’s InSite platform over East and Southern Africa. Focused on the delivery of agriculture weather data (observed and forecast), the goal is to provide access to the driving variable behind agri-business: weather. With tools to predict harvest dates – and thus crop adaptation studies – and desktop software (aWhere) to enable integration with all mappable data (from market spot prices to soils to modeled outputs), the vision of support to key business decisions across the value chain of a company is being realized. From research and development and prioritization to targeting farmers for specific in-season strategies, location based information delivers actionable insight.
http://www2.awhere.com/aisea/homepage.aspx
Working in south Asia, aWhere is a partner in the USAID (United States Agency for International Development) and Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation supported CSISA (Cereal Strategy Initiative for South Asia) effort. The first 3 years of this December 2008 launched project targets the closing of the yield gap (the difference between on-farm and research plot yields) across South Asia through the adoption of known sustainable conservation agriculture practices. The longer term project then includes the generation of a second ‘green revolution’ package of sustainable agricultural practices targeting small-holder farming.
http://www2.awhere.com/CSISA/Homepage.aspx
aWhere principals began their international presence in 1990 with Dr. Corbett’s post-doctoral work at the International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) in Mexico. From this origin, lessons on the value of timely, location relevant information, were learned. The need for the right information at the right time in the hands of those making decisions became obvious. The applicability of the lessons from resource constrained environments acutely focus aWhere’s vision: actionable insight.