September 2022

National Institute of Agricultural Extension Management (MANAGE) Hyderabad organized a 15-day international training program with ITEC on ‘Computer applications in agricultural extension’ for 25 participants from 14 countries – Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Sudan, Eritrea, Mozambique, Colombia, Kenya, Iraq, Tajikistan, Jordan, Niger, Ethiopia, Morocco and Uganda. The team visited IIITH on 21 September and saw the IT and digital applications being developed in the institute in the field of agricultural research and development. 

Participants had a campus tour and saw the usage of emerging technologies at IIITH such as 3D modelling, laser cutter etc in Maker’s lab, drone-based startup working in CIE etc. Prof. Ramesh Loganathan interacted and motivated the participants with some great examples of the agriculture-based research projects happening in IIITH. Narendra, a Ph.D student working with Prof. Krishna Reddy demonstrated a multilingual crop disease diagnostic tool, Crop Darpan that works for both cotton and paddy crops. He also provided agricultural information and explained about communication technologies such as Plantix.

The participants were overwhelmed with the hospitality and research work happening at IIIT Hyderabad and were inspired to work with the new ideas on digital innovations in agriculture for their country too.