Using technology to combat poverty

We’re very pleased to announce that Scriptoria has been awarded more than a million dollars in contracts to deliver data and programme management systems for two different Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation (BMGF) funded projects. Both projects are working to improve crop production across Africa and are, ultimately, helping to improve the quality of life of millions of people.

ACES: Combating crop pests and diseases in Africa

The ambitious African Crop Epidemiology System (ACES) project is working to build an integrated system to track and respond to the spread of pests and diseases that affect major crops in Africa.

Insect pests, viruses and fungi that attack food and cash crops cost Africa billions of dollars every year and cause unquantifiable amounts of suffering. Any work to address these problems has important anti-poverty impacts.

For ACES, Scriptoria is leading the work to build a modern cloud-based data architecture that will bring together information from a range of different sources – so that scientists can model and explore it efficiently, and governments and producers can act on it in a timely manner.

We are working with the world-famous Epidemiology and Modelling team from the University of Cambridge’s Department of Plant Sciences (who are leading on ACES’ mathematical modelling work) and CABI UK (who are leading the work to put data-sharing agreements in place that are critical to the success of ACES).

AVISA: Boosting the production of key crops

The Accelerated Varietal Improvement and Seed Delivery of Legumes and Cereals in Africa (AVISA) project is working to improve the production of five key crops – sorghum, pearl millet, groundnut, common bean and cowpea. AVISA is building on 12 years of investment by the BMGF in a series of Tropical Legumes projects, which themselves evolved to meet the many challenges faced in getting better varieties of these nutritious crops into the hands of farmers.

Scriptoria’s Data team is working with AVISA’s lead research organisation, the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), to build a modern data management platform that will bring together almost a decade of key research data. We’re simultaneously putting high-level management support software in place to ensure that busy researchers can continue to deliver work efficiently. Our Communications team is also working with ICRISAT to ensure that impacts and results from the legume projects that AVISA builds on are widely and clearly communicated to stakeholders worldwide.

If you would like to find out more about Scriptoria’s data services, please contact data@scriptoria.co.uk