In hierarchical order, here are the 15 finalists for the individual category:
- Sourou Hervé Appolinaire NANKPAN (http://www.agrobenin.com/) [FR]
- Hudson Wereh (http://wwwinfonet-biovision-wereh.blogspot.com/) [EN]
- Anne Matho Motsou (http://annematho.wordpress.com/) [FR]
- Grace Wanene (http://yagrein.blogspot.com/) [EN]
- Nawsheen Hosenally (http://nawsheenh.blogspot.com/) [EN]
- Gaston Kwa (http://cornerstonesfordevelopment.blogspot.com/) [EN]
- Hasina Patrick RAKOTOARISOA (http://www.agrijeune.freeiz.com/) [FR]
- Jean-paul Luesso Amuri (http://bujajeunesseagri.wordpress.com/) [FR]
- Inoussa TRAORE (http://traoreinoussa.blogspot.com/) [FR] [this blog is no more in competition]
- Itodo Samuel Anthony (http://poeticfarmer.wordpress.com/) [EN]
- Wend Yam Saturnin ZOETYANDE (http://blog.fasoferme.net/) [EN]
- Kwesi Acquah (http://landghana.blogspot.com/) [EN]
- Michael Boampong (http://www.michaelboampong.com/) [EN]
- Anthony Mwangi (http://youngagropreneur.wordpress.com/) [EN]
- Tarirai Mpofu (http://tarirai.blogspot.com/) [EN]
- Seyoum Ayalew (http://foodsecuritysm.wordpress.com/) [EN]
Our warmest congratulations to the finalists.
The votes were carefully checked by a committee composed of representatives of CTA and of ARDYIS project’s Advisory Committee (Yam-Pukri and the Secretariat of the Pacific Community).
The YoBloCo Awards goes on!
An independent jury composed of experts in agriculture and ICTs will now have the role of evaluating the quality of the finalists’ blogs and decide who will be the winners, both for the individual and the institutional categories. In addition to the three winners to be selected, two runners-up will be awarded a special CTA recognition. Winners will be announced in March.
The competition has been very tight for every participant, but we are glad that recent feedback confirms how the competition really benefited most people. As a participant commented on the official YoBloCo blog:
“We observed a significant increase of visitors [to our blog], with more than 40% of incoming links from the website ardyis.cta.int”.
And another entrant to the institutional category also noted that:
“We had more than 465 visits to our blog after the beginning of the evaluation process, and most of them came from the ARDYIS website, Facebook and Google. This contest permitted to highlight our work on agriculture”. (...) We too have demands from students preparing their theses (…) and we have even been asked by someone to conduct a feasibility study for the implementation of an agro-pastoral project”.
Moreover, in the period of the votes (05 to 31 December 2011), the YoBloCo official blog (Wordpress-based) and the individual vote page (Joomla-based) received 1899 and 3774 visits, respectively.
So we hope that even those who have not been selected as finalists have seen their blogs promoted more.
We are very encouraged by these facts and feedback and we look forward to receiving more.
Congratulations again to the finalists and to all who submitted their blogs, and good luck for the rest of the process.
The Youth in Agriculture Blog Competition (YoBloCo Awards) has been launched by the ACP-EU Technical Centre for Agricultural and Rural Cooperation (CTA), in collaboration with FARA, Yam-Pukri, CAFAN, AYF, ANAFE, SPC/PAFPNET. It aims notably to bring into the limelight issues, successes and challenges faced by youth engaged in agriculture and to encourage the production of information and the use of new ICTs by young farmers’ groups and organizations interested in the “youth in agriculture” question. For more information please visit http://ardyis.cta.int/yobloco/.
