robert fitzgerald, phd

For the last three years I have been working with my colleague, John Spriggs, on agricultural development projects in Cambodia. John is an agricultural economist who has over the last few years been applying participatory action research methods to improving agricultural marketing systems in developing countries (Cambodia and Papua New Guinea). My background is in technology and education with an interest in the application of robust technologies to help users communicate and work together. Originally, John invited me to join him on his project to explore ways we could use communications technologies to the improve the marketing system for maize and soy bean farmers in western Cambodia. From our early workshops in Battambang, Cambodia, we identified poor communications as one of the key constraints to improving the marketing system. At that time I had been developing an interest in mobile communications particularly the application of sms and was following closely the work of the Pinoy Internet Famers project.

Today I met with Romdoul Kim and Channe Suy from InSTEDD's innovation Lab in Phnom Penh. InSTEDD (Innovative Support for Emergencies Diseases Disasters) is a NGO that was brought into being by Larry Brilliant (TED Prize 2006 winner) who wanted to build an early-warning system for pandemics and other disasters. Google.org funded InSTEDD to build a rapid-reporting system to help health teams stay connected in emergencies (Just as an aside, Larry Brilliant left Google recently after three years to work with Skoll Urgent Threats Fund setup by Ebay founder, Jeff Skoll).

(From L-R: Tola, Dara, Ratha, Mann, John, Rob, Romdoul, Channe, and Chhovy)

As part of the Knowledge Systems in Rural Areas series, GTZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft for Technische Zusammenarbeit) has recently published a report exploring the potential of Web 2.0 platforms for networking and knowledge exchange in agriculture and rural development. This publication documents latest developments in this area and our project using sms in Cambodia is featured in "Cambodian Farmers Turn to their Phones". Download the full report (pdf).

We are getting quite a bit of interest in our sms work in Cambodia using FrontlineSMS. Ken Banks has written about it in Cambodian farmers turn to their phone, MobileActive.org in Frontline SMS Review and Internet & Democracy Project at Harvard University in Frontline SMS Launches New Version, Continues to Foster Change. In late November 2008 we presented our ideas to the Northwest Agricutural Marketing Association (Battambang, Cambodia) for the development of a sms-based field communications and information system (full presentation). More.

Here is the current picture of our SMS project in Cambodia.