The Nomadic Livestock Management Project started with the aim to develop ICT solutions for the Kazakh nomadic farmers who have been left behind from the benefits of ICT development.
These farmers still use their old ways to take care of livestock even if it’s time-consuming and labor intensive. They spend an average of 4.7 hours per day searching for their wandering livestock in the open pastures; if livestock are lost, the searching time extends to days or even weeks.
Our main objectives were developing a technology that fits their need and their living environment and helping them who are not used to using the ICT technology to use it. With the help of Samsung, we have developed Livestock Wearable Device (LWD) that works in rural areas of poor communication and power infrastructure to help easily track their livestock. We donated 700 devices to the local nomadic farmers and ran a pilot project for two months. The average searching hours were reduced from 4.7 to 1.6 hours, potential livestock loss and theft were prevented throughout the pilot period, and the farmers gained confidence in utilizing ICT in their daily works and lives.

http://lives-talk.com

• Almaty Region, Kegen District, 5 areas (Tasashi, Sarikol, Iranbak, Ereyul, Mengzhulki) , Kazakhstan

• Indigenous and nomadic peoples
• The poor
• Remote and rural communities

The Kazakhstan Ministry of Agriculture affiliated Horse Association: The Republican Chamber of Local Breeds of Horses of Meat and Dairy Directions of Productivity has requested collaboration to the Lives’Talk Company to expand and scale-up the livestock management project to a national level starting from 2020. The pilot project can be replicated to other parts of Kazakhstan and countries where nomadic farmers still reside. Besides Kazakhstan, countries like Mongolia, Kyrgyzstan, and Kenya have shown interest to the project. Moreover, the project can be replicated and applied to countries where livestock sector needs development in terms of ICT.

We believe that business is one of the ways to sustain the project. There are talks of selling our products to the Republican Chamber of Local Breeds of Horse of Meat and Dairy in Kazakhstan in 2020. The organization has shown interest to purchase fifty-thousand devices for the governmental pilot project in 2020. Also, we are seeking for opportunities to expand this project to other regions through the CSR funding and ODA funding. In the long run we pursue the B2B or B2C model. We strive to lower the product costs through mass-production so that even small and medium sized nomadic farmers can purchase the devices. Our prime aim is to increase the nomadic farmers’ accessibility and usage of ICT as they were outside the mainstream of modern technology and improve their quality of life.

This has been a great opportunity to realize ICT4D for the Kazakh nomadic farmers who have been excluded from the technical development over the past hundreds of years. Although some nomadic farmers use technical appliances people use in cities, there has been less or no technical developments solely that meet their demands and their living environments where there are poor communication and power infrastructure. While city dwellers’ lives have become more convenient and faster thanks to ICT development, the lives of the nomadic farmers and their methods for managing their livestock (their livelihood and main asset) are not much different from hundreds of years ago. To borrow Richard Heek's words, "saving a few minutes in the life of a busy citizen pales in ethical importance compared to applying new technology to the mega-problems of the planet." We seek to develop ICT solution for those who have been neglected from technological development and its benefits.