GEOPOTATO at WSA GLOBAL CHAMPIONS 2019 – A PURPOSE DRIVEN DIGITAL INNOVATION March 25, 2019

GEOPOTATO is proud to have named as one of the winners of the best digital solution for international World Summit Awards (WSA). From Bangladesh GEOPOTATO was the only selectee not only in the category Environment and Green Energy, but also in other twelve categories. Like every year, in 2019 the esteemed World Summit Awards (WSA) seek out the digital innovation with high social impact worldwide through a strictly democratic and transparent system. These awards recognize and honor the most impactful digital innovation consists of 5 technical criteria- Content, Functionality, Design, Technology, Innovation and 2 strategic criteria- Impact and Global/UN value.

World Summit Awards (WSA) were introduced to acknowledge and reward exceptional work in local digital innovation to improve society. With this nomination in the category Environment and Green Energy, GEOPOTATO qualifies for evaluation among over 400 international projects by the WSA Jury 2019.

GEOPOTATO is a decision support system (DSS) for the control strategy of Late Blight disease that provides targeted preventive late blight spray advice to potato growers using SMS and Voice message. These alerts allow potato farmers to apply preventive fungicide sprays just prior to predicted infection events. Thus, farmers only spray when necessary using the most effective, economically optimal and least environmentally damaging spray strategy. In the last season, GEOPOTATO service was provided to more than 41,000 potato growers in Bangladesh.

Seven public and private organizations, each with their own expertise, formed the GEOPOTATO consortium. The consortium partners are Agriculture Information Service (AIS) for creating farmer awareness about the service, Bangladesh Centre for Advanced Studies and TerraSphere (Netherlands) for Remote sensing and GIS, ICCO-Cooperation for demo plot management, mPower for Data integration and mobile communication, and Wageningen University (Netherlands) for weather forecasting, late blight risk model and crop growth model.

WSA leveraged a worldwide network of ICT experts in over 180 countries. This remarkable participation of WSA nominees 2019 has proved the impact scale of applied digital solutions and how it can improve the quality of life regardless of the socio-economic condition of a nation.

About the WSA

The World Summit Awards are a unique awards system, selecting and promoting local digital innovation to improve society. Combining an ongoing series of international events and activities with a global network of start-ups, social entrepreneurs, mentors, jurors, speakers, experts, government leaders, academia and civil society, WSA is an international platform for cutting edge examples of how ICTs can impact society in a positive way.