September 1, 2022・1 min read

TomorrowNow Conducts Needs Assessment Study With Seed Breeders in East Africa

TomorrowNow kicked off Osiris Needs Assessment 3 with a workshop involving trial managers from One Acre Fund, KALRO, Bayer, CGIAR, & CIMMYT to map out the trial management ecosystem involving seed scientists and trial officers.

Nairobi, Kenya – TomorrowNow joined seed breeders at an International Maize and Wheat Improvement Center (CIMMYT) training at World Agroforestry – ICRAF, Nairobi.

The aim of the workshop was to map out the seed trial management ecosystem and understand the weather data needs of seed breeders who are working to develop climate-ready varieties leveraging the CGIAR CIAT ClimMob tool to manage seed breeding sites.

We made presentations about the opportunity & value of next-gen weather & climate solutions in crop management & learned from the participants about #WhyWeatherMatters to their work. A key takeaway from the workshop – there’s an urgent need for augmented weather solutions to complement ClimMob implementation across East Africa. Seed breeders require improved weather data and tools to be able to run crop modeling simulations that accurately reflect expected crop yields by farmers.

Georgina Campbell Flatter

Georgina is the co-founder and Executive Director of TomorrowNow.org - a global non profit leveraging transformative philanthropy to connect next generation weather and climate technologies with communities in need. Prior to TomorrowNow.org, Georgina spent a decade at MIT where she was a senior lecturer and led global initiatives designed to bridge technology and social impact. Georgina has worked on many innovation initiatives for organisations including: the MIT Legatum Center, MIT REAP, the XPRIZE Foundation, the World Bank, USA Dept of Energy, MIT, Harvard and Oxford University. Georgina is mother of two, passionate about empowering the next generation of STEM leaders, with a focus on women and youth, and is an active member of her local community. She acts as trustee and advisory board member for several charities (The Darwin Centre, Mama Foundation, FOSPs) and is a local Parish Councillor. She read Material Science at Trinity College Oxford and Technology and Policy at MIT.