ICRISAT launches new portal to share agricultural information

HYDERABAD: City-based International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics ( ICRISAT) has launched today EXPLOREit@ICRISAT (exploreit.icrisat.org), which makes large volumes of agricultural scientific knowledge and information easily accessible to the public.

"We are doubly excited - not only have we given easier access to all of ICRISAT's 40 years of scientific research through EXPLOREit, but we have achieved this through the MultiProfiler concept, a revolutionary way of making information accessible," ICRISAT Director General William D Dar said.

"We found that typical websites are too restrictive in giving access to information, and do not present the information in ways that are easy for people to view the detail of the content.

ICRISAT's new MultiProfiler concept provides information through multiple navigations and creates easy to view profiles on the subject areas," explained Joanna Kane-Potaka, ICRISAT Director of Strategic Marketing and Communication.

"Sharing publicly-funded agricultural information in the most accessible way is critically important to achieve our agricultural development goals of reducing rural poverty, increasing food security, improving human health and nutrition, and ensuring more sustainable management of natural resources," Dar said.

EXPLOREit is now to become the main source of ICRISAT's scientific information with profiles of all topics, systems, crops, locations and resources where it works.

"It sets a new standard for sharing of information, and therefore promotes collaboration. To achieve this, ICRISAT has made a momentous leap in its use of technology with EXPLOREit- a dynamic site that feeds information from databases using tags and harvests information from other websites," an ICRISAT release said.