Ignitia: Tropical weather forecasts
MLC Vanguard | Created by IGNITIA
Revolutionary Tropical Weather Forecasts providing highly accurate weather forecasts to small scale farmers in West Africa.
1,000,620 Lives Impacted
Ignitia is providing reliable, specific, and actionable weather information to smallholder farmers which allows them to make informed decisions during the farming cycle and reduce risk for weather-related crop and input loss, increase their resilience through the adaptation of farming practices, and enhance their productivity through the better timing and use of critical resources. Our product reduces uncertainty around the weather and enables small-scale farmers to adapt better farming practices.
Currently there are 100,000 farmers in West Africa who are using our product, most of whom are small-scale farmers, and many of whom survive on less than $2/day.Ignitia’s forecasts have shown an 84% accuracy rate over 3 rainy seasons 2013 – 2015, compared with global model forecasts (seen on BBC, CNN etc) that only reach 39% in West Africa. Our current M&E efforts are already showing that we are having a profound impact on behavioral change in our customers, indicating both trust in our forecasts and a huge potential for positive social impact. Several studies show that the farmers understand the positive effects of iska weather forecasts when linking it to both activity planning and optimization of their input effectiveness.
Our innovation has helped other farmers through their adoption of practices from the farmers who are subscribed to our services.
Our impact is measured through the increase in farmers yields, the increase in their spending habits as well as behavioural change in the culture of these smallholder farmers . The number of clients impacted is measured by the number of subscribers using our products at any given times.
The Innovation
Ignitia has developed a proprietary technology that reliably predicts tropical weather. The forecasting which is twice as accurate as the s based on a probabilistic rather than a single deterministic numerical model simulation, which relies on algorithms that consider a range of both ensemble members and convective indices’ thresholds, along with geographical/statistical modifications to forecast rainfall. We have also installed a dual polarization Doppler radar to obtain data that is used to calibrate the thunderstorm climatology from a model perspective regarding characteristics such as rainfall intensity, squall strength, etc. Ignitia provides accessible and affordable tropical weather forecasting solutions for the last-mile user and has designed its SMS products to function effectively in low-income, low-connectivity, and low-literacy environments through simple text formatting and use of SMS, which does not require access to a smartphone or internet. Our product (iska) has been designed with its target population (small-scale farmers) in mind, ensuring forecasts remain simple, inexpensive, accessible, and highly-trusted. We currently provide weather forecasts to farmers in Ghana, Burkina Faso, Mali and Nigeria.
The forecasts produced by Ignitia’s model have over 84% accuracy down to a 9km (3x3km) grid, more than twice that of forecasts produced by global models in the tropics. To more accurately predict the timing and location of rainfall, Ignitia has incorporated datasets and developed algorithms that overcome global models’ deficiencies and account for the unique science governing the tropics. Ignitia’s forecast model captures a more accurate representation of the spatiotemporal distribution of rainfall in the tropics and with much more granularity. Ignitia’s model relies almost entirely on remote sensing techniques which overcomes deficient ground-based observation infrastructure.
About Ignitia
Ignitia began as a research project to understand the differences in tropical weather events and create a model to more accurately predict them. With an accuracy of 84%, our forecasts are more than twice as accurate as global producers.
Since 2015, we have worked closely with small-scale farmers to provide them with reliable forecasts to reduce risk and loss.
With the ability to scale quickly, we can work with industries across the globe that are affected by weather variability in the tropics.
