When Intelligence Reaches the Last Mile

Tawanda Hove

Senior Program Officer-Digital Agronomy, Gates Foundation

Tue 3rd Mar, 2026 12:20 AM CAT

What changes when intelligence no longer stops at dashboards and headquarters — but reaches farmers directly? This talk explores how AI advisory, agile data, and digital public infrastructure can shift decision-making closer to the field. Drawing on real-world experience, it looks at what it takes to deliver timely, trusted guidance at scale — and how systems must be designed differently when farmers are treated not as data sources, but as end users of intelligence.