Internet and ICT for Coffee Growers in Colombia

Alo&Partners and MAKAIA continue to work with a main purpose: strengthen the capacities of coffee growers and transform their lives thanks the use and adoption of ICT tools that can be incorporated in their daily activities to improve their productivity and value chain.

In the last months we were working in constituted a new team of professional that help us develop the trainings and get the information we need to be able to measure some of the changes that the projects have had in the life of coffee growers, their families and the community. It’s been a long process, but we were able to find a local professional with knowledge of the area that will be working in the update of the content and methodology of the new trainings and the search of data we´ll use to take the next step. 

We continue to provide connectivity in 5 farms and 2 schools. In the continued interaction with the community, we identified some reparations that the structure of La Guajira School needed in order to keep provide their services and work as a point of encounter to the community, (as well as being a key element in the sustainability of the project), and for this reason we were able to provide help to make the reparations of the ceiling and provide the materials to that end. 

In the months of September and October, MAKAIA was invited to present the project and their work in general in numerous events (national and international) and we used these opportunities to keep showing the project and enrolled new allies that find value in this initiative.

What comes next?

The project will improve farmes productivity by implementing an information and data plataform in order to train coffee growers in topics such as agricultural information, health and education, among others. Besides, the platform will provide real-time information on market prices, weather, temperature, among others. Where no connectivity is available SMS will be used. The 5 farmers that also implement the IoT devices, will have additional information, for instance from sensor that measures and reports in real time the humidity of the coffee crop and that based on this information the coffee grower can make decisions, and if possible related to Coffee Traceability.

“Innovation Labs” will be created in the schools, farms and 4 local public libraries to foster activities of co-creation, resolution and test Tech ideas. Youth will have a key role in these labs and will support rural coffee growers in adopting technology.

Thank you for being part of this project and helping us to provide development, life quality and opportunities to more coffee growers families.