Grameen reports on its community knowledge worker pilot project in Uganda

In early 2009, Grameen Foundation went to Uganda with the idea of creating a fluid and effective two way communication channel between rural farmers and the world of agricultural experts, development agencies, traders and commercial players.

Grameen Foundation’s technology center had a plan – harness the power of the mobile phone, a technology that is oblivious to such bottlenecks and combine it with a network of human intermediaries that can be trained to fully leverage its capabilities for the benefit of the farmer. The Community Knowledge Worker concept was thus born but would it work?

In this report, the foundation shares some of the lessons learned on what it takes to sustainably build and expand such a network of information intermediaries.