America Idol for Indian Farmers: Rikin Gandhi at TEDxASB

The American Idol phenomenon and its reality TV spin-offs inspire thousands to shoot for stardom in music, dance, cooking, and more. At Digital Green, we're using a similar approach to improve agricultural development in India and Africa. We use participatory video as a medium to create star farmers in village communities. The approach bootstraps on the existing social networks that farmers use to share information with one another and uses the thrill of appearing "on video" to amplify its reach. Over 2,800 short videos that are of farmers, by farmers, and for farmers have been produced and shared among 150,000 farmers across 2,000 villages in India, Ethiopia, Ghana, and Tanzania. Using off-the-shelf tools, like pocket video cameras and pico projectors, Digital Green cultivates an ecosystem of educational, entrepreneurial, and entertaining content in some of the most tribal and remote parts of the country. And like the viewers of Idol TV who send in their votes via text message, Digital Green viewers vote for farmers, and the better agricultural practices and technologies that they showcase, with their hands and feet. This approach has been found to be ten times more cost effective, per dollar spent, than conventional approaches to training farmers.

In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience. At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized events are branded TEDx, where x = independently organized TED event. The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but individual TEDx events are self-organized.* (*Subject to certain rules and regulations)