CERES - Building and Visualizing a Commodity Pricing Tool

Last month I attended the NASA-sponsored International Space Apps challenge here in NYC, and collaborated with a team to produce CERES, a commodities pricing tool for rural communities in the developing world. From the brief for the challenge we chose to work on:

[B]etter understanding of market prices could help improve the incomes of smallholder farmers if resources are put in place to assist with responses to demand and price sensitivity ... In order to achieve large returns, rural growers therefore need to be able to contribute to and access evolving price indexes that can accurately reflect sale prices and reveal where demand is greatest.

Over the course of the weekend we developed a working solution for a regional commodities price index that could be populated and downloaded by local farmers using SMS and text messaging, in order to cope with the data restrictions in rural areas lacking internet or smartphone access. In addition, a front-end dashboard is able to quickly display pricing information online for locals, governments or bureaucrats who may have a vested interest in information regarding agricultural production.

There is also some very good empirical evidence that demonstrates how price transparency derived from increased mobile coverage in rural areas can lead to more efficient markets with higher profits for producers and lower prices overall for consumers, suggesting that a tool like CERES can have dramatic effects on local economies.

Our team was one of the two winning solutions from the New York event, putting us in the global judging along with teams from twenty-four other cities. See our video about CERES and the write-up for our project here. Since the challenge, we've been working with Opportunity International - Nicaragua, who are interested in deploying the solution on the ground.

This 2.5D isometric map was rendered in Blender, with the interactivity built in Processing.

A new pricing data visualization I have been working on is above, and you can play with a live version here (may take a minute to load).

Comments

[Anon]

That is really cool.

[Zane]

Significant reductions are typically offered by these vendors due to various motives. The cheap fake watches was possessed by some of the sellers and just tend not to desire or need the view anymore. On the other-hand, some individuals may have acquired the watch as a present and need to cash out it. Whereas, some might have bought or upgraded a brand new watch and need to subsidize the price with their old view. Whatever the reason, you should have the ability to save a lot of cash on an used, or brand new view.

[Rolande Stenquist]

Its great. It should be useful to me while am taking charge. Thank you! replica watches

[gsniper]

cool article man

[kim]

thanks for information and article
tamparpisang
resepsederhana
cakalangmurah

[Demian]

very nice article. Thank you
otomotor
nexmotor
ensiklopediamotor

[jameshenry]

Thank you for this wonderful Appalseed in your blog, this is an encouragement heart of one of the most enjoyable and interesting to read.

Life Experience Degrees

[Dhaval]

wow.Thanks for sharing.Watch live Cricket on cricketworldcup2015online.com

[Julie M. Brock]

Thanks for sharing your article. I enjoyed reading it.

[http://www.123afvalcontainer.nl/puin]

This is very good comment you shared.Thank you so much that for you shared those things with us.I am wishing you to carry on with your achievement.All the best..Thanks for sharing.

[Vanessa Hill]

Thanks for this wonderful article. Keep sharing good content.
High School Diploma