Giacomo Rambaldi
Sr Programme Coordinator, ICT4Ag, CTA
Biography
Giacomo Rambaldi has 34 years of professional experience in Africa, Latin America, Asia, the Pacific and the Caribbean where he worked for various international organisations including FAO and the Asian Development Bank and on projects funded by the Italian Aid to Development and the European Commission. He holds a degree in agricultural sciences from the State University of Milan, Italy. He has been leading Web2.0 and social media capacity building activities at CTA and earned worldwide recognition for his work as the recipient of the 2013 WSIS Project Prize in the category e-agriculture. He also leads activities in the domain of participatory GIS. One of his projects earned CTA the 2007 World Summit Award in the category e-culture. In collaboration with other members of the ICT4Ag team, Giacomo animates large thematic Communities of Practice which underpin CTA work on ICT4Ag.
Articles
Malagasy trained in the use of UAS towards national development
by Ismail Lawani , Giacomo Rambaldi , Enock Dossou-Yovo and Raïssath Lawani
Recognising the opportunities drones provide for agriculture, CTA launched the project Transforming African Agriculture: Eyes in the Sky, Smart Techs on the Ground in 2016 to provide technical assistance to start-ups across Africa.
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Drone-based services taking off to transform Africa’s agriculture
Africa’s agriculture sector is being progressively transformed into a high-tech industry through digital services. Decisions are being based on real-time gathering and processing of data, feeding into increasingly effective decision support systems. Unmanned aerial systems (UAS) are an integral part of this digital revolution.
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Profiling and drones for precise farming practices
by Didier Muyiramye , Athanase Birba , Chris Addison and Giacomo Rambaldi
CTA supports agricultural cooperatives and rural organisations in ACP countries, in conjunction with the Data4Ag project, in order to improve agricultural services by collecting and managing farming data. The AgriTIC project, along with the FEPA/B organisation in Burkina Faso, began in 2017 and has already profiled 2,000 farms.
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Harmonising Africa’s drone regulations
With decision EX.CL/Dec. 986-1007 (XXXII), the African Union (AU) has established one of the most important incentives for its member states – to use drones to boost Africa’s development and accelerate transformation on the continent. Indeed, drones have been used to solve many development problems in the fields of agriculture, health, infrastructure monitoring, surveying and soil mapping, among others, and have the potential to find further application.
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Publications
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Drones in agriculture in Africa and other ACP countries
In October 2017, the Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation ACP-EU (CTA) in partnership with the NEPAD Agency, conducted a survey to understand the perceptions surrounding the use of drones for agriculture. Approximately 13,000 individuals (mainly English and French-speaking readers of CTA e-publications or members of CTA-managed communities of practice) received an invitation to participate in the survey.
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Getting drones off the ground in Africa
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), popularly known as drones, have flown out of the pages of science fiction and arrived in Africa. A rush of recent research, pilot and exploratory activities have evaluated the technology and identified sectors where it can best benefit the people of the continent. Now it is questions of national policy that will determine how far drones will go.
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Drone governance
Unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) or drones open up a new technological frontier and offer a range of exciting opportunities for the management of crops, livestock, fisheries, forests and other natural resource-based activities. UAVs also offer opportunities, at the grassroots’ level, for communities to monitor use of and access to the resources that their livelihoods depend upon.
events
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Apr 6
African Drone Forum 2020 - Transforming mobility through technology
The 2020 African Drone Forum comprises a symposium, an exposition and a flying competition. The symposium and the exposition take place in Kigali from February 5 to 7, 2020. Competitive flights start on February 8, 2020.
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Apr 6
2019 Grand Challenges Annual Meeting
The 2019 Grand Challenges Annual Meeting is co-hosted by the African Union, Ethiopia’s Ministry of Health, Grand Challenges Canada, the United States Agency for International Development and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. The meeting includes scientific tracks, with sessions running in parallel, and a series of complementary plenary sessions and side meetings.
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Apr 6
African Green Revolution Forum 2019
Africa is on the move, with signs of progress and growing prosperity for millions of its people. The continent has witnessed sustained economic growth and a modernisation of its economy for more than two decades powered by an increasingly inclusive agricultural transformation and by rapid growth in digital innovations.
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Apr 6
UAS for agriculture capacity building in Ethiopia
Training of Ministry of Agriculture (MoA), Agricultural Transformation Agency (ATA) and Ethiopian Institute for Agricultural Research (EIAR) staff in the use of drones and related software applications in the framework of the project "Transforming Africa’s Agriculture: Eyes in the Sky Smart Techs on the…
Projects
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Apr 6
Transforming Africa’s agriculture: Eyes in the sky, smart techs on the ground
Recognising the opportunities offered by the drone-based systems, in 2016 CTA partnered with leading private sector operators, and assisted African ICT start-ups in acquiring the capacity to d…
