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| Dr. Ataharul Chowdhury |
Ataharul Chowdhury is a social scientist and rural development expert by training. He completed inter-disciplinary studies that focus on communication, sustainable agricultural and rural development process. He has worked as a faculty member in the Bangladesh Agricultural University, and a research fellow in the University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences, Vienna. Over the last seven years, he facilitated and coordinated several rural development projects, curriculum development events, workshops, presentations and teaching materials development in Bangladesh, and Austria. In his doctoral study, he developed innovative video-enabled learning approaches for the capacity development of small farmers in Bangladesh. The study has helped development of linkages among stakeholders of agricultural & rural development sectors and improving livelihoods of about 600 women farmers through a development project in Bangladesh (http://www.digitalbangladesh.gov.bd/blog.php?ID=83 http://www.karlkahanefoundation.org/index.php?id=72).
Dr. Chowdhury is working as a SSHRC post-doc fellow in the School of Environmental Design and Rural Development of the University of Guelph since July, 2012.
He has chosen 'social media' as a topic for his post-doc work. Social media has been discussed as an important means of multi-stakeholder collaboration processes in various development sectors. However, the research evidence of social media-enabled collaboration process is anecdotal or largely absent in agriculture and rural development sectors. This urges him for investigating social media that have potential for integrated application of different media, including video for strengthening interaction, network, and learning among stakeholders of agriculture and rural development at local, regional and global scale.
For further info about his work and publications see http://achowdhu.wix.com/achowdhury
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| Dr. Helen Hambly Odame |
Dr. Helen Hambly Odame is a social scientist and has worked on agricultural and environmental issues for more than 20 years. She became interested in the area of information and communication technologies in agriculture and rural development in the mid-1990s. Since then she has been involved in several major initiatives to build effective linkages among multiple stakeholders of agricultural innovation. International projects include Genardis, rural radio, participatory video, and intellectual assets management. In Canada she has been collaborating with the Province of Ontario as well as communities of practice initiated by CIRNet, Rural Ontario Institute and Monieson Centre (Queen's University}.
Social media is a topic that currently interests Dr. Helen Hambly Odame because of the potential for convergence among the technologies for strengthening multi-stakeholder learning and interaction which are essential processes for innovation and advancement of agriculture and rural development worldwide.
For further info about her work and publications see www.uoguelph.ca/~hhambly
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| Christian Stewart |
Christian Stewart is a research assistant for the project. He is currently enrolled in the Bachelor of Landscape Architecture program and is expected to graduate in 2014. With respect to the project his role is to assist in the development of a survey, collect data, and manage the content of the blog.
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| Farah Ahmed |
Farah Ahmed is a research assistant for the project from April to August, 2012. She is a fourth-year student studying International Development with a specialization in Agriculture and Rural Development at the University of Guelph, and expects to graduate in April 2013. Her responsibilities as a research assistant include data collection for the inventory, a literature review, and managing the study’s blog.
