Novo Dia Group partners with WorldPay to offer complete payment solution to Farmers Market community
The Mobile Market+ and AprivaPay solution enables farmers markets to accept credit, debit, and electronic benefit cards (EBT), making fresh, nutritious, local produce accessible to families receiving food assistance all on single device.
Austin, TX – November 5, 2012 -Novo Dia Group, Inc., a software development firm specialized in the health and human services industry, today announced an agreement with WorldPay Inc. that will allow its Mobile Market+ product to be available to Farmers Markets and small retailers nationwide beginning early 2013. A combined offering of AprivaPay and Mobile Market+ will offer merchants the most complete payment coverage available. Now on a single device, merchants will be allowed to process Credit, Debit, and all EBT transactions. In addition to a combined offering, NDG and WorldPay have agreed to service merchants seeking EBT only services. Pricing for the combination and EBT only solution is expected in early December, and will offer a flexible combination of connectivity, device, and services.
“We’re pleased to partner with Novo Dia to bring a full service smartphone offering to Farmer’s Markets and non-traditional retailers nationwide. We believe the combination of NDG’s innovation and our best of breed processing capabilities brings a full service solution to a market that is quickly expanding, and also serves a vital role in the retail community.” Steve Eyring director of sales WorldPay
The Mobile Market+ application, which was recently recognized as a finalist in the Verizon Innovation Awards, is a solution specifically developed to service merchants seeking a mobile POS solution or ones with no access to phone lines, networks or electricity. The handheld device is battery operated and communicates wirelessly via Wi-Fi or the cellular network. The Mobile Market+ application is approved by Apple and USDA. Approved vendors can download the app directly from the App Store.
Novo Dia Group is a full-service software development and consulting firm based in Austin, Texas. It specializes in the Health and Human Services industry with focus on processing benefit delivery systems for the Women, Infants and Children (WIC) program, the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and debit transactions.
Please visit http://www.novodiagroup.com for more information.
PR Contacts:
Josh Wiles, Novo Dia Group, Inc T: 512-371-4134, mail to: josh@novodiagroup.com
Steve Eyring, WorldPay T: 801-302-9924, mail to: steve.eyring@worldpay.us
Good language in here for project proposals that involve taking student groups to farms and gardens. That the number of children involved in creative outdoor activities fell so quickly is shocking and can be addressed by activities that markets organize. Also, how access to nature can be a creative stimulant for later learning could also be the basis of your project for your targeted market day activities.
The remarkable collapse of children’s engagement with nature – which is even faster than the collapse of the natural world – is recorded in Richard Louv’s book Last Child in the Woods, and in a report published recently by the National Trust. Since the 1970s the area in which children may roam without supervision has decreased by almost 90%. In one generation the proportion of children regularly playing in wild places in the UK has fallen from more than half to fewer than one in 10. In the US, in just six years (1997-2003) children with particular outdoor hobbies fell by half. Eleven- to 15-year-olds in Britain now spend, on average, half their waking day in front of a screen.
In her famous essay the Ecology of Imagination in Childhood, Edith Cobb proposed that contact with nature stimulates creativity. Reviewing the biographies of 300 “geniuses”, she exposed a common theme: intense experiences of the natural world in the middle age of childhood (between five and 12). Animals and plants, she contended, are among “the figures of speech in the rhetoric of play … which the genius in particular of later life seems to recall”.
Studies in several nations show that children’s games are more creative in green places than in concrete playgrounds. Natural spaces encourage fantasy and roleplay, reasoning and observation. The social standing of children there depends less on physical dominance, more on inventiveness and language skills. Perhaps forcing children to study so much, rather than running wild in the woods and fields, is counter-productive.
UTNE Altwire – If children lose contact with nature they won't fight for it.
It is true that we still await a major city seriously investing in community food systems as their economic bridge to a new renaissance – sure, it could be Chicago. It would be great if it was Chicago.
Chicago Urban Farms Initiative: Englewood Could Become Major Agribusiness Hub.
Another great idea from my hometown market, Crescent City Farmers Market. They have come to the realization that their annual fundraiser takes so much energy and time away from their markets and in a very busy holiday event season, has a limited return. Truly, for an non-profit of their size to do these type of events and make less than 20 grand means it’s not usually worth the wear and tear on the market community. Some markets see their event as their educational event each year, and if it’s used to expand the reach of the market as well, then the return can be less. But for a market like CCFM, which is well-known already, going another way to raise unrestricted income seems appropriate.
Instead, they have worked with some of their close supporters and vendors to offer skills and experience for a price. The list is great and should shake out some good cash for the markets.
Always innovating over there at Market Umbrella…
For markets looking for a good deal on online database management should check out salsa labs. In their own words:
These are a few of our best qualities:
Experts at helping you build your base of support with a seamless, online platform to fundraise, advocate, communicate and organize
Enterprise-ready infrastructure for greater insight and engagement with your community, no matter what numbers of supporters, chapters, campaigns or programs you may have – from 100 to 100 million
A Network of more than 40,000 peers and partners all supportive of your mission and ready to help in our online community Salsa Commons, in our virtual seminars, at our community events and at our annual conference
98% Average Client Support Satisfaction Rating – really, what more is there to say? Our top-notch services, support and training team is downright obsessive about making certain you are as happy as possible with Salsa.
This is a good overview of the work Wholesome Wave does and how it came to be. Their impact is certainly being felt and the partnerships that they have created with markets and market networks are crucial to the goal of building the community food system.
For-profit and non-profit incorporations are still hot topics among markets. Recently, there has been a flurry of comments on the FMC Listserve about 501(c)3s, which shows how this is still an emerging field.
The B Corp is another layer for corporations to consider. It allows for some parallel benefits to exist side by side, and Ben and Jerry’s has joined their ranks it seems:
Ben And Jerry’s Becomes A B Corporation | Co.Exist: World changing ideas and innovation.
Since the Community Food Project RFP is out and proposals are due November 28, this handy new guide should be very useful. As someone who has written one and had it funded, I will say that this grant program is a very useful way to pull off an in-depth pilot for extending and expanding food systems. Good luck to anyone that is working on one.
As a massively populated area with some of the most fertile farmland prepares for some very bad weather, maybe their markets can use this time to help expand the idea of product choices as a way to assist their farmers.
The Case For Eating Ugly Fruits and Vegetables | Care2 Causes.
The link below is an earlier post on extending market shoppers with “kits”:
Market Kits
A few years back, a group of market managers and market farmers were formed into a Farmers Market Working Group by the Wallace Center to create some best practices and resources. We worked hard to offer useful tips and pictures that would actually assist market vendors with marketing their products. The resources also include some videos and all are available on the FMC Resource Library.
Helping Farmers Markets Grow 