Adidas Wilson's Blog, page 137
June 9, 2017
How Digital Technology Is Changing Farming in Africa
According to the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations, the world population will reach 9.1 billion by 2050, and to feed that number of people, global food production will need to grow by 70%. For Africa, which is projected to be home to about 2 billion people by then, farm productivity must accelerate at a faster rate than the global average to avoid continued mass hunger.
The food challenges in Africa are multipronged: The population is growing, but it is threatened by low farm productivity exacerbated by weather changes, shorter fallow periods, and rural-urban migration that deprives farming communities of young people. In Northern Nigeria, herdsmen are moving south looking for pasture as their ancestral lands face severe deforestation. In Somalia, the Shebelle River, which supports many farmers, is drying up, causing additional pains in the war-torn country. The combination of higher food demand, stunted yield potential, and increasingly worse farmland must stimulate a redesigned agro-sector for assured food security. Agriculture accounts for more than 30% of the continent’s GDP and employs more than 60% of its working population.
For decades, African governments have used many policy instruments to improve farm productivity. But most farmers are still only marginally improving yields. Some continue to use traditional processes that depend heavily on historical norms, or use tools like hoes and cutlasses that have not evolved for centuries. In some Igbo communities in Nigeria, where I live, it’s common for farmers to plant according to the phases of the moon and attribute variability in their harvests to gods rather than to their own methods.
Those that do look to leverage new technologies run into financial issues. Foreign-made farm technologies remain unappealing to farmers in Africa because they are cumbersome for those who control, on average, 1.6 hectares of farmland. What’s more, less than 1% of commercial lending goes into agriculture (usually to the few large-scale farmers), so smaller farms cannot acquire such expensive tools.
But this is about to change. African entrepreneurs are now interested in how farmers work and how they can help improve yields. The barrier of entry into farming technology has dropped, as cloud computing, computing systems, connectivity, open-source software, and other digital tools have become increasingly affordable and accessible. Entrepreneurs can now deliver solutions to small-size African farms at cost models that farmers can afford.
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For example, aerial images from satellites or drones, weather forecasts, and soil sensors are making it possible to manage crop growth in real time. Automated systems provide early warnings if there are deviations from normal growth or other factors. Zenvus, a Nigerian precision farming startup (which I own), measures and analyzes soil data like temperature, nutrients, and vegetative health to help farmers apply the right fertilizer and optimally irrigate their farms. The process improves farm productivity and reduces input waste by using analytics to facilitate data-driven farming practices for small-scale farmers. UjuziKilimo, a Kenyan startup, uses big data and analytic capabilities to transform farmers into a knowledge-based community, with the goal of improving productivity through precision insights. This helps to adjust irrigation and determine the needs of individual plants. And SunCulture, which sells drip irrigation kits that use solar energy to pump water from any source, has made irrigation affordable.
Beyond precision farming, financial solutions designed for farmers are blossoming. FarmDrive, a Kenyan enterprise, connects unbanked and underserved smallholder farmers to credit, while helping financial institutions cost-effectively increase their agricultural loan portfolios. Kenyan startup M-Farm and Cameroon’s AgroSpaces provide pricing data to remove price asymmetry between farmers and buyers, making it possible for farmers to earn more.
Ghana-based Farmerline and AgroCenta deploy mobile and web technologies that bring farming advice, weather forecasts, market information, and financial tips to farmers, who are traditionally out of reach, due to barriers in connectivity, literacy, or language. Sokopepe uses SMS and web tools to offer market information and farm record management services to farmers.
Source:
https://hbr.org/2017/05/how-digital-technology-is-changing-farming-in-africa
India’s electric vehicle revolution will begin with auto-rickshaws running on swappable batteries
India has floated an audacious plan to turn every car, bus, truck, and everything in between, into an electric vehicle (EV) by 2030.
To get there, according to a recent report (PDF) by India’s NITI Aayog and the Rocky Mountain Institute in the US, between six and seven million EVs will have to ply on Indian roads by 2020. But that’s a tall order considering that a mere 22,000 such units were sold in the country in the 2016 financial year.
So, to build scale, which’ll be essential to jumpstart EV adoption, the Narendra Modi government plans to roll out an EV-based public transport system with auto-rickshaws and buses running on batteries that can be swapped after a certain distance.
“We’re looking at some time towards end of this year (for the) launch,” said Ashok Jhunjhunwala, a principal advisor to the ministry of new and renewable energy who is helping with the project. He declined to provide details of the possible size of this proposed EV fleet or the cities where it could be piloted.
Jhunjhunwala, on a sabbatical from his professorship at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT)-Madras, explained that the government asked him to scale up EVs within 2017, and without any subsidy. “It looked impossible. I was almost ready to pack my bags and go back,” he said, speaking at a Shell Lubricants global lecture series event at IIT-Delhi on June 07.
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The primary roadblock was the high cost of batteries for EVs, which could not be offset without subsidies, he explained. But interacting with the automotive and EV industry, Jhunjhunwala realised that there was an opportunity to build volumes if EVs could be separated from the single most expensive component: batteries. “We said we’ll start buying vehicles without battery,” he said. “For example, if I want to buy a bus or a three-wheeler, I’ll buy it without (the) battery but with enhanced (vehicle) efficiency.”
This arrangement, Jhunjhunwala said, brings the cost of EVs (without battery) at par with conventional vehicles. By focusing on higher efficiency vehicles and batteries that can be swapped at regular intervals, the cost per kilometre can be brought down to levels comparable with diesel, petrol or CNG vehicles. Compared to larger batteries used in EVs, which typically aren’t interchangeable, these swappable batteries are smaller, cheaper, and take less time to charge. “Suddenly the whole economics was working. And once the economics work, one can scale,” he said.
With the hardware sorted out, these systems can be integrated into an urban transport system to create an EV-based network. Auto-rickshaws, for instance, travel between 80km and 130km daily, which meant that batteries could be swapped at around the 40km-mark.
When Jhunjhunwala took the idea to auto-rickshaw drivers in Delhi, the first question was how long will it take to swap batteries. “The next question they asked, how many stations will be there where I can swap? I said about 100 station in Delhi,” he said. So, the drivers figured that the blueprint could work if the infrastructure is in place.
Already there are over two dozen manufacturers ready to supply these electric auto-rickshaws and batteries, Jhunjhunwala said. Some 10 other firms can build charging units at under Rs1.5 lakh. “Everything other can than battery cells, we can make in India,” he said.
Similarly, a swappable battery-based system is being designed for city buses. Jhunjhunwala’s research found that some 95% of these buses in the country travel less than 30km per trip, which allows batteries to be swapped at the terminal point where the bus turns around for the return journey. “In 10 minutes, we can swap the battery,” he said.
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Taylor Swift Returns To Spotify, Amends Her Relationship To Streaming
Judging by the headlines Friday morning, Taylor Swift’s music has finally returned to streaming services. But that’s not exactly the case.
Taylor Nation, an official arm of the Swift machine, posted mid-evening on Thursday that, in celebration of her 2014 album 1989 selling 10 million albums globally and a 100-million song “certification” from the Recording Industry Association of America, Swift and her management would make her entire back catalog available on streaming services. As of this morning, a Spotify playlist of her greatest hits had drawn nearly 30,000 subscribers.
In truth, her back catalog was available in piecemeal or in full on various services well before early this morning. Subscription-only services all had her previous pre-2014 albums, and Apple Music, in a very public coup for the company following a very public act of contrition, also had 1989. And because of the legal structure of song licensing in the states, listeners on Pandora’s radio service also could hear tracks from her catalog. The one conspicuous place you couldn’t hear Swift’s work was Spotify.
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That was because of Spotify’s industry-polarizing dedication to its “free tier,” which lets listeners hear music without a subscription in exchange for regular interruptions from ads. “It’s my opinion that music should not be free,” Swift wrote in an op-ed for The Wall Street Journal in 2014. Adding to the acrimony, Spotify had also maintained a no-exceptions policy on “windowing,” wherein certain albums would be available to paid subscribers for a certain period of time. (“Windowing” should not to be confused with “exclusives,” where an artist makes their work available only on a specific service, a strategy Apple Music has prolifically chased.) Both policies were taken as affronts by Swift and her team — on the latter point, as robbing artists and their labels of control. That’s in large part why Swift pulled her entire catalog from Spotify in 2014.
So the question this morning is, why are Taylor Swift’s albums now on Spotify? A request for clarification on that question by Swift’s management and record label was not immediately returned. But it’s worth noting that Spotify recently softened its stance on windowing — in return for paying lowered fees to labels — according to a report from the Financial Times in March. Streaming has also become the dominant revenue driver for the recording industry since the release of 1989. Spotify’s anodyne statement on the news simply confirms “that Taylor Swift’s entire back catalogue is now available on Spotify for her millions of fans to enjoy.”
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Picture Shows Dad Moments Before He Died Trying to Save Son From Drowning: ‘He’s a Hero’
An Illinois father, believed to have lost his life while trying to save his 6-year-old son from drowning, was pictured doing what he loved most just before tragedy struck — fishing and spending time with family.
In the picture taken at sunset Tuesday, Malik Williams can be seen sitting on a green bucket as he fishes in the Mississippi River at Ben Butterworth Park in Moline, his little boy to his left looking at the camera.
The heartwarming image was captured by Riley Gomez, a 16-year-old passerby who was touched by the picturesque moment.
“I was on the dock taking pictures of the sunset and I saw them,” she said of Williams and his son.
But that fun family-filled day took a tragic turn when Williams’ son fell into the water, officials said.
“When I was going home, I turned around to see the sunset one last time and the little boy wasn’t on the dock anymore,” Gomez said. “Then I saw his father jump in.”
Williams, 25, didn’t know how to swim, but that was not about to stop him from rescuing his little boy.
“Malik’s first instinct was to save his baby, so he jumped in not knowing how to swim trying to do everything he could to save Jaden,” a GoFundMe page created to help the family noted.
Quickly realizing the desperate situation at hand, his fiancée and the mother of his children began screaming for help, Gomez said.
“She was yelling, ‘Help me, help me! They can’t swim! They can’t swim!'” Gomez recalled.
She and another passerby, identified by authorities as Von Thang, jumped into the water and Thang was able to bring the boy to safety, but the current pulled Williams out of reach.
“I tried everything… I keep having dreams that I actually did save [Williams],” Gomez said. “It still seems unreal to me.”
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Ice Cube on Bill Maher N-word controversy: ‘You gotta know when to shut up’
On the June 2 episode of HBO’s Real Time With Bill Maher, the host at one point joked that he was a “house n—-r” during an interview with Republican Sen. Ben Sasse. The network later called Maher’s use of the racial slur “completely inexcusable and tasteless,” and Maher apologized shortly after — and now Ice Cube, who will appear as a guest on the show when Maher returns to air Friday, is questioning why the comic thought it was okay to say the word in the first place.
“He knows that’s a bad word to a lot of people,” the rapper told Rolling Stone. “Now, the question is: Why did he think he could be that comfortable with saying that? What makes you think you can say that? Why did you think you could get away with that?”
“It’s just not funny to diss at least the ones who got it f—ed up,” he went on. “And it’s like rich, white guys are the reason why black people are in the position they’re in. You’re supposed to be a champion, or you’re supposed to be a liberal, but racism lives in both parties. It does. So let’s throw away the facade and the bulls—. Let’s be real.”
Ice Cube’s appearance on the show was booked before Maher said the word on last Friday’s broadcast, and he said he’ll “say what I gotta say” when he’s there this week.
“And he wants to talk about ‘house n—s,’ like they had it so much better?” he said. “It’s like, please. It wasn’t a cakewalk for a so-called ‘house n—-,’ either, unless you like being raped. Sometimes, you gotta know when to shut up. Check yourself before you wreck yourself.”
HBO previously confirmed to EW that although Maher will return to the show Friday, his long-term future at the network remains unclear.
Read Ice Cube’s full remarks over at Rolling Stone.
Source:
http://ew.com/tv/2017/06/08/real-time-bill-maher-ice-cube/
Marvel drops first poster for ‘Black Panther,’ teases NBA Finals trailer
There are still two more Marvel movies hitting theaters this year, but the studio got an early start on promoting its 2018 releases this week by unveiling the first poster for Black Panther.
The poster features star Chadwick Boseman as T’Challa, the new king of the African nation of Wakanda, seated on his kingdom’s throne while clad in his Black Panther costume. Along with releasing the poster image, Marvel announced plans to reveal the first teaser trailer for the film during Game 4 of the NBA Finals on Friday.
Directed by Creed filmmaker Ryan Coogler from a script penned by Coogler and Joe Robert Cole (American Crime Story: The People v. O.J. Simpson), Black Panther has T’Challa returning home to Wakanda after the events of Captain America: Civil War to take his place on the powerful nation’s throne. His return is met with trouble, however, in the form of competing factions challenging his rule and a dangerous enemy from his past. He must prove that he has the wisdom and strength to serve as both the king of Wakanda and its protector, the Black Panther.
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Boseman reprises his role from Civil War, along with Florence Kasumba as Ayo, a member of the Wakandan special forces unit known as the Dora Milaje; and Martin Freeman as Everett K. Ross, the deputy task force commander of the Joint Counterterrorism Center.
New additions to Marvel’s cinematic universe making their debut in Black Panther include Michael B. Jordan (Creed) as Erik Killmonger (one of the film’s main villains), Oscar winner Lupita Nyong’o (12 Years a Slave) as Dora Milaje member Nakia, Danai Gurira (The Walking Dead) as Dora Milaje leader Okoye, Angela Bassett (How Stella Got Her Groove Back) as T’Challa’s mother, Forest Whitaker (Rogue One: A Star Wars Story) as a Wakandan statesman, and Andy Serkis (The Lord of the Rings trilogy) as the smuggler Ulysses Klaue.
Black Panther is scheduled to hit theaters February 16, 2018.
Source:
https://www.digitaltrends.com/movies/black-panther-movie-news-trailer-rumors-cast/
