Designed for young people working in the agriculture sectors of 34 countries in the Americas, the course starts on 28 June and registration is now open.
San Jose, 25 May 2021 (IICA) – Rural youth in the Americas will have the opportunity to make effective use of the concepts related to the Internet of Things (IoT), identify technological needs and generate solutions based on IoT in agriculture, thanks to the online program developed by the Inter-American Institute for Cooperation on Agriculture (IICA) and Cenfotec University.
The initiative aims to develop skills that involve the use of the basic concepts of electricity, electronics and instrumentation, embedded systems, sensors and actuators, and hardware and software concepts and their application in the agriculture sector.
Through the use of the IoT in agricultural activities, the objective is to integrate tasks performed on farms with software and equipment connected to the Internet, in order to streamline productive processes and make them more efficient and sustainable, facilitating decision-making in real time.
Available only in Spanish at present, the virtual training course lasts 17 months and offers 50% fee reduction scholarships for young people working in the agriculture sector. The only requirement is that applicants have a high school diploma or equivalent.
“Training of this kind is vital so that the productive sector makes the new technologies part of its daily work, which is a mainstay of food security in the Americas and the rest of the world. We see digital agriculture as an enormous opportunity to bridge the gaps in productivity and, especially, to achieve the inclusion of youth and rural women,” remarked the Director General of IICA, Manuel Otero.
“Production must be linked to consumption, and we need to inject much more life into rural areas so they are places of progress that create employment. That is where the concept of digital agriculture comes in. I expect great things of this program, because it can make a very big contribution to the positive transformation of the situation in the agriculture sector and our rurality,” added the Director General of the hemispheric agency specializing in agriculture.
“The disruption and incorporation of new technologies into agriculture has played a very important role in the development of rurality and social inclusion in the region. We are convinced that our partnership with IICA will contribute a great deal of value and help many people,” commented the general manager of Cenfotec University, Daniel Samper.
He added that agriculture and its contribution to sustainable development are crucial in the countries of the Americas. “Our aim with this program is to bring about a disruption and make a significant contribution to the work carried out in our communities on a daily basis,” the senior university official noted.
According to studies conducted by IICA in partnership with organizations such as Oxford University, Microsoft, the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB) and the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), only 17% of people living in the countryside possess the skills needed to tap the opportunities offered by digital agriculture.
Participants who successfully complete the online technical training will receive a certificate with an international blockchain-based digital identity.
This course will be offered twice in 2021; the starting dates are 28 June and 6 September.
The program addresses many areas of the IoT, enabling participants to keep up to speed and in sync with the latest innovations in this market.
Further information and the registration form can be found at the following link: https://bit.ly/3wui3SP.
The English language version of the training program will be available in the medium term.
Emmanuel Picado, IICA Manager of Information and Communication Technologies and Digital Agriculture
