eKichabi v2: Designing and Scaling a Dual-Platform Agricultural Technology in Rural Tanzania

Fuente: arXiv
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Autori principali: Raghunath, Ananditha, Metzger, Alexander, Easton, Hans, Liu, XunMei, Wang, Fanchong, Wang, Yunqi, Zhao, Yunwei, Mpogole, Hosea, Anderson, Richard
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2024
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author Raghunath, Ananditha
Metzger, Alexander
Easton, Hans
Liu, XunMei
Wang, Fanchong
Wang, Yunqi
Zhao, Yunwei
Mpogole, Hosea
Anderson, Richard
author_facet Raghunath, Ananditha
Metzger, Alexander
Easton, Hans
Liu, XunMei
Wang, Fanchong
Wang, Yunqi
Zhao, Yunwei
Mpogole, Hosea
Anderson, Richard
contents Although farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa are accessing feature phones and smartphones at historically high rates, they face challenges finding a robust network of agricultural contacts. With collaborators, we conduct a quantitative survey of 1014 agricultural households in Kagera, Tanzania to characterize technology access, use, and comfort levels in the region. Recognizing the paucity of research on dual-platform technologies that cater to both feature phone and smartphone users, we develop and deploy eKichabi v2, a searchable directory of 9833 agriculture-related enterprises accessible via a USSD application and an Android application. To bridge the gap in affordances between the two applications, we conduct a mixed methods pilot leveraging mobile money agents as intermediators for our USSD application's users. Through our investigations, we identify the advantages, obstacles, and critical considerations in the design, implementation, and scalability of agricultural information systems tailored to both feature phone and smartphone users in Sub-Saharan Africa.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2403_09980
institution arXiv
publishDate 2024
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle eKichabi v2: Designing and Scaling a Dual-Platform Agricultural Technology in Rural Tanzania
Raghunath, Ananditha
Metzger, Alexander
Easton, Hans
Liu, XunMei
Wang, Fanchong
Wang, Yunqi
Zhao, Yunwei
Mpogole, Hosea
Anderson, Richard
Human-Computer Interaction
Although farmers in Sub-Saharan Africa are accessing feature phones and smartphones at historically high rates, they face challenges finding a robust network of agricultural contacts. With collaborators, we conduct a quantitative survey of 1014 agricultural households in Kagera, Tanzania to characterize technology access, use, and comfort levels in the region. Recognizing the paucity of research on dual-platform technologies that cater to both feature phone and smartphone users, we develop and deploy eKichabi v2, a searchable directory of 9833 agriculture-related enterprises accessible via a USSD application and an Android application. To bridge the gap in affordances between the two applications, we conduct a mixed methods pilot leveraging mobile money agents as intermediators for our USSD application's users. Through our investigations, we identify the advantages, obstacles, and critical considerations in the design, implementation, and scalability of agricultural information systems tailored to both feature phone and smartphone users in Sub-Saharan Africa.
title eKichabi v2: Designing and Scaling a Dual-Platform Agricultural Technology in Rural Tanzania
topic Human-Computer Interaction
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2403.09980