TomorrowNow.org

#WhyWeatherMatters TomorrowNow.org participated in the “Generative AI for Agriculture in Africa Working Session”  hosted by Microsoft Research Africa to examine the transformative potential of Generative AI for small-scale agricultural workers and other stakeholders across Africa The workshop participants, including representatives from Microsoft Research (India & USA) ,TomorrowNow.org, Mastercard Foundation, Jagannath Growers, Digital Green and Government of Kenya, took a deep dive into the opportunities, use cases, and practical applications of Generative AI tools within the agricultural sector Our Regional Programme Coordinator Ronald Diang’a made a presentation about TomorrowNow.org's Theory of Change that’s focused on empowering the ecosystem of farmer-facing organizations & research institutions to accelerate the adoption of next-gen weather tech for increased farmer prosperity & climate resilience TomorrowNow.org’s innovation testbed is powered by partnership with weather data providers, data localization partners & program use cases (Salient TAHMO World Arable Tomorrow.io Rhiza Research Predictia Intelligent Data Solutions Regrow Ag CGIAR International Rice Research Institute (IRRI) Regen Organics, CABI/Assimila Kartoza (Pty) Ltd) to operationalize weather & climate data in support of agricultural decision making across Africa Our current R&D work includes an ongoing partnership with Microsoft to test out an AI Agriadvisor tool that combines highly localized weather data with generative AI capable of translating the best available agronomic practices into actionable advice to help extension agents better serve smallholder farmers In our current learning process, we believe that we can leverage AI to efficiently provide access to both high-quality localized weather data and the expertise needed to translate that data into more optimal decisions farmers can make on their farms We look forward to learning more & sharing our findings along the way! Beryl Agengo Brian Miranda Janet Smith Georgina Campbell Flatter Asiedua Amoah John Corbett Boniface Akuku Jacki O'Neill Stewart Collis Ari D. Sieka Gatabaki Ani Vallabhaneni Isabella Akpabla Philip Frost Lydiah Karanja John Macharia KALRO FARMING Ady Mor-Biran

We were THRILLED to connect with so many climate innovators attending the Kenya Space Expo & Conference 2024 #KSEC2024 held in Nairobi🇰🇪 by Kenya Space Agency to bring together representatives from government, academia, industry, professionals, international organizations, start-ups and the wider public to a multi-stakeholder dialogue on the use of space applications in addressing societal needs TomorrowNow.org’s Regional Programme Coordinator Ronald Diang’a moderated a panel discussion focused on the opportunity to incorporate Artificial Intelligence & Machine Learning in Earth Observation applications for agriculture leading to community-level food security & climate resilience Very insightful points from the panelists Dr. Girmaw Abebe Tadesse (Microsoft's AI for Good Research Lab), Alex Fortescue (Maxar Technologies), Monica Nthiga (HOTOSM), Prakhar Rathi(SatSure Analytics India), Titus Kiragu (STAR.VISION)! Their unified message was that stakeholders must identify pathways of working together to address the current technology pain points of affordability & accessibility of earth observation data & its corresponding tools to better accelerate the adoption of technologies aimed at solving societal problems such as food insecurity At TomorrowNow.org, we believe that through multi stakeholder partnerships, we will operationalize ML & AI-powered weather & climate solutions to localize current interventions and drive prosperity at the community-level where impact matters most! #WhyWeatherMatters Kenneth Mubea Charles Mwangi Digital Earth Africa Kartoza (Pty) Ltd Gavin Fleming Kenya National Innovation Agency (KeNIA) AfriLabs Adanian Labs iLab Brian Miranda Janet Smith Georgina Campbell Flatter Asiedua Amoah John Macharia Pevy Ouko Philip Frost John Macharia Rei Goffer Ari D. Dan Slagen

We’re working with TomorrowNow.org, Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation and a few other organizations in Kenya to pilot how weather data, pest/disease predictions, and the right seed + fertilizer recommendations impact small-holder farming outcomes. The thought is less so “is this information valuable?” We know it is. It’s much more: what's the best way to communicate this info effectively and at scale? I.e. Call center, IVR, SMS, WhatsApp, physical print-out We’d love to short circuit these pilots by gleaning insights from the crowd. If you or anyone you know would be keen to share said insights, I would be a very happy listener. Please send me an email at dan.klemmer@regenorganics.co and/or tag the person in this post.

Climate change disproportionally affects rainfed smallholders in Kenya. We are working with TomorrowNow.org and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation to realise the potential of using next generation weather and climate data for pest and disease advisories on the OSIRIS II project. With a goal of reaching 100 million farmers by 2030 to ensure the communities most affected by climate change have access to information that allows them to take action to protect their crops. Henry Mibei, Boniface Akuku, Judith Oyoo and Morris Akiri provided valuable insights supported by their expertise, experience and local knowledge. Thank you Georgina Campbell Flatter, Philip Frost, Brian Miranda and Neil Hausmann for inviting us on this journey. Josephine Mahony, Charlotte Day, Bryony Taylor, Andy Shaw

After some post-workshop adventures, that’s a wrap! The Salient team, including Brian Zimmerman, Karl Critz, Janet Lee, and myself, enjoyed meeting project partners at TomorrowNow.org's workshop in Nairobi. Productive in-person conversations between FFOs, researchers, weather data providers, and tech partners moved us all towards our shared goal of connecting smallholder farmers to weather intelligence. And expertise across organizations and use cases brought clarity to the dynamic and exciting challenge to develop, as Neil Hausmann put it, “the most cutting edge technologies for the people who need them the most.”  Many thanks to Brian Miranda, Philip Frost, Georgina Campbell Flatter and others for making this fantastic workshop happen. 🌱 Tag Laura Fieselman

#WhyWeatherMatters We are providing a Recap of TomorrowNow.org’s recent technical workshop in Nairobi that convened key partners & stakeholders who have joined us in our audacious northstar goal of reaching 100M smallholder farmers with weather intelligence by the year 2030 Today’s partner spotlight🚨 is on The Trans-African Hydro-Meteorological Observatory (TAHMO World) who recently celebrated their 10-year anniversary building a network of weather stations across Africa. Space tech and #AI hold exciting promise for driving step change improvements in weather forecasting and early warnings in Africa. Strategically positioned weather stations are key for unlocking the potential of these transformational technologies. For example, they will provide the ground validation necessary for localization of satellite-based rainfall data in Africa. As next gen tech comes online, together with TAHMO World TomorrowNow are making next gen data relevant and localized in Africa. TAHMO World has been working in Africa for over a decade and were instrumental in the deployment of TomorrowNow’s strategically positioned Osiris laser disdrometers, which will provide important validation for next generation rainfall forecasts in East Africa. “Our role in TomorrowNow.org's Global Access Platform will be to set up the Gold Standard Validation Network to enable data calibration and validation in ensuring that the data provided by partners becomes high quality and useful” - Frank Annor, CEO, The Trans-African Hydro-Meteorological Observatory (TAHMO World) Salient Arable Predictia Intelligent Data Solutions IRRI Education Tomorrow.io CABI One Acre Fund KALRO FARMING Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Pascale Bodevin Henry Kinyua Boniface Akuku Brian Zimmerman Janet Smith Georgina Campbell Flatter Philip Frost Asiedua Amoah Brian Miranda Dan Slagen Kelly Peters Ronald Diang’a Neil Hausmann Sieka Gatabaki John Macharia Ari D. Craig von Hagen Kartoza (Pty) Ltd Regen Organics Ani Vallabhaneni SGS Charles Mwangi CGIAR Excellence in Agronomy Initiative Rei Goffer

TomorrowNow.org hosted a technical workshop in Nairobi to convene key partners & stakeholders who are collaborating with us to operationalize weather & climate services to empower food security applications Participants at the workshop were drawn from Data Providers Salient, TAHMO World, Arable & Tomorrow.io who are going to avail weather & climate data to our model in helping us support agricultural decision making in East Africa, Our Data Optimization & Localization partners Rhiza Research & Predictia Intelligent Data Solutions enlightened workshop participants about their role in improving the quality of our weather data through activities such as bias adjustment leveraging our partner TAHMO’s ground observation infrastructure In addition, our partners involved in Program Use Cases Regrow Ag, CGIAR, International Rice Research Institute (IRRI), Regen Organics, CABI/Assimila shared insights about how they are going to help us with on-the-ground testing and application of improved weather data & climate data to power activities such as pest & disease modelling to feed into smallholder farmer advisories We also learnt from Kartoza (Pty) Ltd about the technical aspects of how they are going to build TomorrowNow.org’s proposed Global Access Platform (GAP) that’s going to help various stakeholders, including National Agricultural Research and Extension Services (NARES) like KALRO FARMING, better serve their users at the community level We were honored to also have the participation, input & feedback from our partners & colleagues at One Acre Fund, KALRO FARMING and Kenya Meteorological Department We are committed to delivering on northstar goal of reaching 100M smallholder farmers with weather intelligence by the year 2030, and wish to THANK the ecosystem as well as our funders Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Foundation for their continued guidance and support along the way #WhyWeatherMatters Brian Miranda Janet Lee Karl Critz Rekha Sharma Georgina Campbell Flatter Asiedua Amoah John Macharia Ronald Diang’a Isabella Akpabla Pevy Ouko Philip Frost Pascale Bodevin Neil Hausmann Janet Smith Lydiah Karanja John Mundy Darcy Gray Rei Goffer Ari D. Dan Slagen Andre Pattantyus Kauê de Sousa, Ph.D.

#WhyWeatherMatters TomorrowNow.org was honored to host a team from Mastercard Foundation & Caribou Digital at a farm in Nairobi, Kenya🇰🇪, where we are testing the deployment of the all-in-one weather station and crop monitor supplied by our innovation partner Arable and funded by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation The visiting team was also keen to learn more about our ongoing partnership with Microsoft that’s working to test & learn about how we are going to best combine high quality weather data and generative AI to improve on-farm decision making for smallholder farmers and turn around agricultural outcomes At TomorrowNow.org, we work at the junction of R&D (seasonal forecasts, on farm crop planning, improved and targeted agronomy etc.) and operational extension because we see an enormous need for tools and training to utilize weather data to optimize agricultural business processes We have a particular focus on LOCALIZATION to offer precision, on-demand advisory that small scale farmers and extension agents will use, and multistakeholder PARTNERSHIPS to ensure that weather data becomes accurate, operational and useful at scale In your view, how can generative AI transform the lives of smallscale farmers?We’d like to hear in the comments section!😀 Lydiah Karanja Georgina Campbell Flatter Asiedua Amoah Brian Miranda John Corbett Philip Frost John Mundy Ronald Diang’a Jonathan Donner Renita Nabisubi Neil Hausmann ADENIKE MODUKPE M. BANCOLE Fernanda Matsinhe Ari D. Sieka Gatabaki Dan Slagen Rei Goffer Boniface Akuku

#WhyWeatherMatters Why does TomorrowNow.org care about improving ground observation infrastructure to advance weather forecasting? Read our PRESS RELEASE to learn more about our latest collaboration with Kenya Meteorological Department, Tomorrow.io  & TAHMO world (through support from the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation) to improve rainfall forecasting in East Africa At TomorrowNow.org, we are harnessing cutting-edge weather technologies for communities at the frontlines of climate change by: 📣Connecting transformative philanthropy to local climate resilience efforts 📣Partnering with breakthrough technology companies to amplify the reach of weather intelligence 📣Building capacity for rapid deployment and sustained resilience “Our mandate at the Kenya Meteorological Department is to support the densification of meteorological stations and equipment to benefit early warning against weather and climate-related events.The laser disdrometers provided by TomorrowNow and partners are one such example.” - Mr. Frederick Abisae Sedah, Assistant Director of Meteorological Services -Observation & Network at the Kenya Meteorological Department https://lnkd.in/dHRaFKs8 Georgina Campbell Flatter Philip Frost Asiedua Amoah Dan Slagen Kelly Peters Ronald Diang’a Neil Hausmann Sieka Gatabaki John Macharia Ari D. Craig von Hagen Kartoza (Pty) Ltd Regen Organics Ani Vallabhaneni SGS Charles Mwangi CGIAR Excellence in Agronomy Initiative Rei Goffer

#WhyWeatherMatters RECOMMENDED READ by our private sector partner Tomorrow.io about the opportunity of leveraging weather tech to power early warning systems and provide decision support thus helping communities achieve local resilience in the face of extreme weather events like East Africa’s Cyclone Hidaya The laser rain gauges that we recently launched in partnership with Tomorrow.io, TAHMO world & Kenya Meteorological Department will help calibrate Tomorrow.io weather satellites & feed the data into predictive models to improve the quality of rainfall forecasting in East Africa At TomorrowNow.org, we are a strategic enabler of next generation weather and climate technologies in Africa - through partnerships, we catalyse awareness and utilization of high quality weather data leading to more integrated processes from early warning to risk analysis targeting various use cases including small scale producer applications (SSPs) https://lnkd.in/gvzpUs78 Georgina Campbell Flatter Asiedua Amoah Dan Slagen Kelly Peters Rei Goffer John Corbett Ronald Diang’a Philip Frost Philip Thigo, MBS CGIAR Excellence in Agronomy Initiative Charles Mwangi John Macharia Sieka Gatabaki