Future Sense: Bridging tech and agriculture in emerging markets

Project Future Sense was a collaboration between IDEO.org, Autodesk and the Wasserman Foundation. It started with the optimistic view that the cost of technology and hardware was dropping and the world is becoming increasingly connected.

The team initially focused on human needs within the water and sanitation, agriculture, health and energy sectors of emerging markets. Through research we found a lot of opportunity in agriculture, and specifically how knowledge was shared by smallholder farmers growing local crops in East Africa and Southeast Asia.

Because of the project’s blue sky nature, we designed our own lens or metrics to aid in decision making. We judged ideas against a clear and actionable value proposition, whether or not we had a partner to execute, potential for scalability, and the viability of the technology.