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Showing posts with label open. Show all posts
Showing posts with label open. Show all posts

Sunday, November 26, 2017

Access Power, FMO open submission for $100,000 solar ‘Shark Tank’ Competition

The Dutch development bank, FMO and Access Power, a leading developer, owner and operator of power projects in emerging markets, have jointly launched the 2018 FMO Access Power Solar 'Shark Tank' Competition, seeking submissions for a solar projects, while dangling US$100,000 grant, reports NaijaAgroNet.

The call for 2018 submission follows the successful completion of the first installment in 2016 at the ‘Making Solar Bankable’ conference. The initiative is aimed at helping local solar power developers that require development support to make their innovative solar projects more impactful.

To be considered for the grant, NaijaAgroNet gathered that the proposed projects must be located in Asia, Africa or Latin America and be based on solar PV technology, in addition to meeting the capacity criterion of 10MW or more, and be at an advanced stage of development. Further, eligible projects should have an innovative or impactful angle to the project that could be developed with support of the grant.

Proposals, NaijaAgroNet also reports, will be screened and scored by a pre-selection committee assembled by FMO and Access Power, while the top four shortlisted will be invited to present their projects and answer questions from a panel of judges in front of a live audience on the 15th of February 2018 during the second edition of the 'Making Solar Bankable' conference, co-organized by FMO and Solarplaza in Amsterdam, Netherlands on 15 and 16 February.


“The winning project will be announced at the end of the session during the event,” the organisers disclosed, adding that the winner will receive a $100,000 grant towards the development costs of their project from FMO and Access Power.

Isaac Oyimah/ED, Ops 
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Saturday, August 20, 2016

Open data concept, application for agriculture according to Steve Nyumba

 NaijaAgroNet:

The co-founding director at the Local Development Research Institute (LDRI), Mr. Stephen Nyumba has offered some insights on how open data concept could be leveraged through application for the agriculture sector by African media, reports NaijaAgroNet.

Nyumba, in a presentation at the recently concluded week-long training for CAADP Journalists Network in Nairobi, capital of Kenya, dwelt on “Open Data for Agriculture” said that in being open connotes a lot for different people and media practitioners must ensure whatever definition they are using is seemingly holistic.

According to him, for a data to be open means that the “Open data and content can be freely used, modified, and shared by anyone for any purpose.”

On the concept and application overview to agriculture, Mr. Nyumba pointed out that open data and content is very often provided by the publisher with “explicit permission allowing for it’s use, re-use, re-distribution or re-purposing with little or no restriction.”

He canvassed that before reuse, it is important for the user which in this case could be a media outlet or practitioner, who wants to tell his or her story differently with infographics to check if the potential content is open or restricted.

This, Nyumba said, could be achieved by way of looking critically at the license of the publication, which very often comes as Creative Commons, otherwise, he advised that the publisher be asked for permission or clarification, so as to eschew any kind of legal bottleneck afterwards.

As said by him, taking most of these precautions would afford the user and precisely media practitioners the opportunity to make informed assumptions, citing for instance, the Gro Intelligence produces which was provided under an open license.

Remmy Nweke/ED, Ops

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Pix: Mr. Stephen Nyumba

Tuesday, June 21, 2016

Hammer prescribes open data-driven journalism for Africa media



The Lead Operations Officer, World Bank Institute’s Global Media Development programme, Mr. Craig Hammer has offered some prescription to drive African media on open data, reports NaijaAgroNet.
Speaking at a 3-day workshop on reporting agriculture put together by Africa Media Initiative (AMI) and World Bank in the city of Abidjan at the weekend, Mr. Hammer, said that data-driven journalism would drive good governance, accountability and global knowledge economy.
Hammer, who dwelt on ‘Data-Driven Journalism Media,’ defined data as information that has been translated into a form that is more convenient to analyze.
He also revealed that World Bank has over 9000 data that could be explored by any analysts including journalists in dissecting information for the simple understanding of ordinary citizens.
According to him, today’s world is ruled by three distinct paths, especially for media practitioners, which include having access to information and open data, finding agriculture data with today’s relevance and finally, using open data-driven journalism knowhow based on ideas to deliver their stories.
African media practitioners, Hammer said, must first decide which issues matter to them nowadays and what are ‘the right’ questions which will attract the right answers or responses either from the data base or potential respondents.
Earlier in his opening remark, the chief executive officer, Africa Media Initiative (AMI) Mr. Eric Chinje, noted that in majority of African countries, agriculture accounts for over 60 per cent of national economic activities and revenue, yet, the sector gets a disproportionately small amount of media coverage, thereby contributing less than 10 per cent to the national economic and political discourse.

As said by Chinje, recent AMI-sponsored survey of major media markets on the continent established that reporting on the sector remained largely uninformed and was limited to press releases, industry publications, and a growing number of blog posts as well as social media blurbs.

He, therefore, called for improved overall media coverage of the sector on the continent of Africa. 

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Pix: Mr. Craig Hammer