VESEL: Village e-science for Life

在英国，信息和通信技术（ICT）是我们日常生活的一部分，从用手机聊天和拍照到写大学论文，再到能够在商店或网上购物。非洲农村社区的情况则大不相同。那里的人们依靠耕种土地来提供吃和卖的食物，但他们缺乏有价值的信息，例如他们的土壤、天气预报或他们商品的最佳市场的位置。他们还缺乏基本的读写技能，对信息通信技术知之甚少或一无所知。技术应该能够在很大程度上帮助这些社区改善食品和水安全、教育和健康。但什么是正确的技术，我们如何帮助这些社区有效地使用它？这是这个项目的核心问题。一个由电信、可再生能源、传感器技术、教育和设计方面的英国专家组成的团队将与内罗毕大学的当地专家、aidworld等组织、农业信息提供者和肯尼亚的教师培训组织合作。这种合作将使我们能够确定农村农业社区最迫切的信息需求，并设计适当的技术来满足这些需求。这可能意味着提供传感器来提供有关土壤质量的信息，提供相机来拍摄农作物的照片，或者提供互联网来获取最新的天气信息，并与其他村庄和外部世界进行通信。我们将与实习教师合作，帮助他们在社区内使用技术，并将学校建设成为信息和通信技术中心。我们将与孩子们合作，看看他们如何帮助家人使用和维护这项技术，以达到最佳效果。我们的目标是融合教育和环境目标，以增强当地社区的能力。

In the United Kingdom Information and Communication Technology (ICT) is part of our everyday life from chatting and taking pictures on a mobile phone to writing an essay for college and being able to buy goods in the shops or on-line. The situation for rural communities in Africa is very different. People there rely upon farming the land to provide food to eat and sell and yet they lack valuable information, for example about their soil, the weather forecast or the location of the best market for their goods. They also lack basic literacy skills and have little or no knowledge about ICT. Technology ought to be able to do a great deal to help these communities to improve food and water security, education and health. But what is the right technology and how can we help these communities to use it effectively? This is the question at the heart of this project. A team of UK experts in telecommunications, renewable energy sources, sensor technology, education and design will work with local experts at Nairobi University, organizations such as aidworld, agricultural information providers and teacher training organizations in Kenya. This collaboration will enable us to define the most urgent information requirements for a rural farming community and to design the appropriate technologies to meet these needs. This may mean providing sensors to give information about soil quality, cameras to take pictures of crops or the internet for up-to-date weather information and communication with other villages and the world beyond. We will work with trainee teachers to help them to use technology within the community and set up the school as an ICT hub. We will work with children to see how they can help their families to use and maintain the technology to best effect. Our aim is to fuse educational and environmental objectives to empower local communities.