Farm Radio International, a nonprofit that uses Telerivet, was recently featured in a New York Times article about Tanzanian farmers gaining important farming information and techniques through local radio. Farm Radio has partner radio stations in 38 radio stations throughout Africa to “deliver effective programs to serve smallholder farmers through radio.”
Farm Radio uses Telerivet to help these local radio stations boost the interactivity of radio programs by engaging directly with listeners via SMS messages, polls, and subscription services.
The picture above is from the first ever live Beep2vote poll at Radio Nkotakhota in Malawi earlier this year. Using Telerivet, two Android phones were set up to correspond to two different responses to a poll. Listeners simply called the number that corresponded to their response and hung up to register their vote. This system makes it easy for listeners to share their opinions free of charge. For example, a radio station could ask listeners to answer a poll about how they store their maize.
Farm Radio has an open session next week at the 6th annual Information and Communication Technologies and Development International Conference (ICTD2013) in Cape Town. The December 10th session is a hands-on demonstration showcasing how Farm Radio and our Android App can make radio more interactive for listeners. More information about ICTD 2013 and Farm Radio’s open session can be found here.
-Elizabeth