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NEWS AND EVENTS

GEOPOTATO SELECTED AS BEST NATIONAL DIGITAL SOLUTION FOR INTERNATIONAL WORLD SUMMIT AWARDS (WSA) September 23, 2018

mPower’s GEOPOTATO service was nominated as the best national digital solution from Bangladesh for international World Summit Awards (WSA) in the category Environment and Green Energy. The World Summit Awards are a global initiative selecting digital innovation making positive impact on society. With this nomination in the category Environment and Green Energy, GEOPOTATO qualifies for evaluation among over 400 international projects by the WSA Jury 2018.

GEOPOTATO is a predictive agro-advisory service that enables potato farmers to take preventive measures before their crops are hit by late blight disease, which destroys more than 25% of potato production in Bangladesh every year. GEOPOTATO service relies on a predictive model data that gets data from automated weather stations and satellite images.

The development of GEOPOTATO was funded by Netherlands Space Agency and the implementation partners consist of six public and private organizations, each with their own expertise. mPower, the lead for the project in Bangladesh, works on data integration, mobile communication, and service dissemination. Wageningen University and Research (WUR) works on developing algorithms for local weather forecasting, late blight risk model and crop growth model. Terrasphere processes satellite images of the project areas that serves as input to the model. Agriculture Information Service (AIS) manages farmer group formation, while the ICCO-Cooperation manages farm business groups’ development and demo for the project, and the Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies maintains the project’s Automated Weather Stations (AWS).

Each year, WSA nominees are selected by the WSA National Experts from more than 180 UN member states. The WSA National Experts nominate up to eight projects for each country – one for every WSA category.

About the WSA

The World Summit Award is a global initiative within the framework of the United Nations World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS). WSA is the only ICT event worldwide, that reaches the mobile community in over 180 countries. WSA highlights digital content improving society and focusses on local content with global relevance.

Visit www.worldsummitawards.org to learn more about the Summit.