e-Krishok Initiative: Smart farming on the way

Bangladesh Institute of ICT in Development (BIID), Grameenphone and Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE), together have awarded the most innovative ideas on 'How to use ICT in Agriculture which is part of the 'Smart Farmer, Smart Future' campaign on Tuesday, 7th April 2015 at the Krishibid Institution Bangladesh, Khamarbari, Farmgate. Mr. Hasanul Haq Inu, MP Honorable Minister, Ministry of Information, Government of the Peoples Republic of Bangladesh was present as Chief Guest at this ceremony. In this grand event, top three idea winners were awarded, together with three best SAAO's. Moreover, three special ICT entrepreneurs were given special recognition for their contribution in ICT in Agriculture, as well as in this campaign.

'Smart Farmer, Smart Future' was an awareness building campaign as well as innovative idea hunting initiative to promote ICT enabled e-Krishok services in agricultural sector. The wide spread use of mobile phones, availability of shared access points and the constantly growing pace of high speed internet, provides a huge opportunity to provide the much required services and smart solutions for empowering our farmers and relevant stakeholders.

BIID has been working in the field of ICT4D since 2008 and launched the e-Krishok campaign in 2009 in 10 locations and transformed it into a service proposition in 2010. Later it was spread in 350 Upazilla's in collaboration with Grameenphone, Katalyst and ACI Limited. In 2012, BIID signed MoU with the Department of Agricultural Extension (DAE) to foster the effort to integrate ICT enabled services in extension service more efficiently. "Smart Farmer, Smart Future" is another initiative of BIID as its continuous effort to promote e-Krishok services, mainly 16250, the short code based solution.