Open Day dell'Innovazione è un evento organizzato da Innovazione per lo Sviluppo, programma di Fondazione Cariplo e Fondazione Compagnia di San Paolo, che ha riunito Italia e Africa attraverso storie di innovazione e buone pratiche nel campo della cooperazione internazionale allo sviluppo.

Abstract: In our experience, lecture and demo-based capacity building is ineffective for lasting impact. Our prior lecture and demo-based training sessions over-valued the latest and greatest tech and under-valued actual practice. We showcase our latest Project-Driven capacity building effort with the Centre de Suivi Écologique (CSE) in Senegal as an effective alternative to lecture and demo-based capacity building. We organized the training session around crop mapping projects where each group mapped cropland extent in pre-specified agro-ecological zones. We provided each group with the appropriate resources to research their region of interest, qualitatively and quantitatively assess existing cropland maps, and map cropland using accessible remote sensing data. To ensure accessibility, we shared all resources for the training session on a website: https://nasaharvest.github.io/senegal.... This website has already allowed other groups outside CSE to transpose the training to their area of interest with minimum guidance. To foster lasting impact with CSE we set up office hours to support their cropland mapping work following the training. This collaboration has already resulted in the production of a 2022 cropland extent map in key agro-ecological zones in Senegal.