Iowa State University Extension warmly welcomed Adhiguru Poovaragavalu; Senior Scientist from the National Centre for Agricultural Economics and Policy Research (NCAP), India to Ames in Nov 2009. Poovaragavalu’s four-week visit was fully funded by the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR) and the training focus was on Information and Communication Technology (ICT) mediated agricultural knowledge management under the guidance of Eddie Loo who has used ICT to build capacity of public health workers in Rwanda. The areas of Poovaragavalu's training included (a) exposure to innovative ICT-mediated agricultural knowledge management processes used in the U.S., (b) exposure to selected ICT tools for decision making, (c) quick data analysis and case studies, and (d) discussions with Extension personnel in Iowa.
In addition, Poovaragavalu had the opportunity to understudy Loo's design and implementation of the 2009 bioeconomy conference. This virtual conference was participated by 12 US universities in which each institution broadcasted and/or received live feeds thereby connecting the collective bioeconomy knowledge base of the 12 universities to a dispersed audience throughout the 12 states. Lessons learned from this observation and design can be used to address the "last mile" issue in the Indian extension system. Currently there are parallels that exist between both countries with Extension county offices in the US and the Krishi Vigyan Kendras (KVK) in India.
In a Connect session with K.D. Kokate, Deputy Director General of the Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), Vice President Jack Payne expressed an interest in helping ICAR establish an e-Extension Institute in India. Kokate extended an invitation to Payne to participate in an international seminar on multi-agency Extension in November 2011. Both leaders agree to jointly conduct online seminars and training programs, and encourage staff exchanges between ISU Extension and ICAR. Both organizations are looking forward to sign a Memorandum of Understanding that will allow Iowa State University to be included in the ICAR panel, and this will further create more opportunities for staff exchanges to take place.
For more information please contact Sok-Leng Tan at sokleng@iastate.edu.