Social Space for Smart Agriculture in Africa

With the increase of big data in smart farming, it is more essential than ever to focus on the ethical and legal aspects of data governance (access, control, consent) and practices. This will provide valuable insights into how data is being collected and used, and for what purposes, how to bridge the digital divide, and how to create transparency in order to build trust between stakeholders.

To ensure that the benefits of the digital revolution in agriculture reach everyone involved, especially farmers, there is a need to identify sustainable ways to support data sharing among various stakeholders. Codes of conduct, voluntary guidelines, and principles on how to transparently govern farm data constitute an important first step to put some of the basic issues such as data ownership, data rights, data privacy, data security into an ethical framework and engage all stakeholders involved especially farmers.

In this Webinar an “ideal” code of conduct should look like from a general perspective, attempting to balance, if possible, the interests of all actors involved, focusing specifically on the farmers’ perspective and needs were discussed.

This webinar is also an excellent complement to Challenge 9 of the Kampala INSPIRE Hackathon!

Moderated by: Foteini Zampati, Data Rights Research Specialist, GODAN Secretariat.

Panelists:

Alice Namuli Blazevic is a tech lawyer and partner Tech & Innovation at Katende, Ssempebwa & Co Advocates. She is an award winning lawyer, international speaker and author. Alice specializes in Technology and the law with a keen interest in Artificial Intelligence, Blockchain, Crypto currencies, Cyberlaw and Data Protection.

Stephen Kalyesubula is a certified computer engineer and is currently a Strategic Information Systems Officer at USAID – Regional Health Integration to Enhance Services (RHITES-N, Acholi Project). He also works as a project manager at Youths in Technology and Development Uganda (YITEDEV-Uganda) focusing on Data for Agriculture. He has worked on a number of digital agriculture related projects and is one the GODAN champions and part of the GODAN Action Network of trainers.

Dr R. Andres Ferreyra works as the Data Asset Manager for Syngenta’s Global Digital Agriculture team. His responsibilities in Syngenta include leading development of Syngenta’s global machine data integration platform and the semantic infrastructure that supports it; and leading Syngenta’s participation in the Robert Bosch GmbH-organized Nevonex consortium, which won an AgriTechnica silver medal in 2019, and which enables novel interactions between users, knowledge-based systems, real-time IoT, and agricultural machinery.

Hamlus Owoyesiga is a farmer, youth, ICT Head and Drone Operator at IGTF-Uganda. He has worked with smallholder farmers Agribusinesses for over 7 years implementing Data4Ag, ICT4Ag and UAV4Ag (Drones) projects with support from CTA-ACP-EU aiming at achieving SDGs goals through digitization of agriculture.