ICRISAT and Stanford University joined hands for collaborative research study to find out the suitable design for shared communication technology for developing countries. The main focus of the experiments was to analyze the delivery of the information via mediator or technology or their combination. The key questions which lead to the development of these experiments were:

    1. Who is the perceived source (the technology or the mediator)?
    2. How can we integrate technology and tradition for the benefit of developing countries?
The experiments were conducted in three villages of Addakal mandal namely Jaanampet, Komireddypalli and Vemula that have well established information kiosks with active village network assistants (mediator in this experiment).

The experiment focused on the technology prominence, mediator prominence and a balanced state where both technology and mediator played an active part in the experiment. After discussions with the farmers it was found that’s soil sampling is the most useful content that can be used for this experiment. PowerPoint slides and soil sampling videos all in local language ‘Telugu’ were prepared for experiment. The Village Network Assistants (VNAs) of all the three villages were trained on the content and presentation style.
From the experiments conducted in three villages with different prominence set up it was concluded that mediator is a necessary asset for any ICT enabled rural services as technology alone is incapable of delivering information to the farmers. It is also observed that farmers find the information credible only if the mediator is able to answer their doubts. A trained mediator can deliver information effectively. The presentation style and confidence of mediator on the topic holds much importance for the information flow. The most important lesson learned from this experiment is that content should contain pictures, photographs and video clips to support the information especially when the content is used in the rural milieu.

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