My internship with e-Agriculture

After recently earning my master’s degree, completing an internship with the e-Agriculture Community of Practice was a great opportunity for me to put some of the theoretical skills that I learned into practice. Now, as my internship is ending, I am looking forward to finding a career opportunity that enables me to utilize the new skills and interests I have developed during my internship.

So, what did I learn from my daily work as an intern? Here are just a few things:

• Contributing recent news and events to the platform allowed me to improve my internet research skills and become familiar with new sources of information about ICTs and agriculture.
• Promoting e-Agriculture news and forums gave me an opportunity to work with Facebook, LinkedIn, and Twitter and learn about how organizations utilize social media to share (and gather) information.
• Working on the e-Agriculture platform enabled me to learn the basics of Drupal (content management system) and how it can be customized to meet the needs of a particular project.
• Reading forum discussions, news, and publications helped me to better understand relevant development terminology and concepts and how to use them in context.

What about the “bigger picture”?

• Overall, this experience has helped me to better understand the many benefits and challenges of working with information and communication technology for development.
• With the support of the e-Agriculture team, I gained experience in managing a large, active online community. Moreover, being a part of this Community of Practice allowed me to observe how practitioners use an online community to increase their own effectiveness by learning from the successes and failures of others.
• By being based in FAO headquarters in Rome, Italy, I was able to experience working in a large, multilateral organization. Through participation in special conferences and events, I became more familiar with the breadth and depth of the work of FAO and the many opportunities for collaboration (between member countries, organizations, individuals, etc.).

Although my time in Italy is ending, I plan to remain connected to the e-Agriculture Community. I look forward to continuing to learn from other members and perhaps contributing via my own experiences in the future.

My LinkedIn Profile