October 7th, 2009 by Yaw Anokwa
The Center for Information & Society (CIS) has changed its name to the Technology & Social Change (TASCHA) group.
In a blog post, Christine Prefontaine explains that, “Over the last 10 years we have grown from a three-person team to more than a dozen researchers and program staff, with affiliated faculty from across the University of Washington and a global network of research partners. This year we came together to reflect, take stock of our strengths and emerging trends, and examine who we are, how we work, and how we can affect change. Our new name is the result of this process — and in the coming months you’ll witness a number of changes.”
We wish our friends at TASCHA continued success!
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September 30th, 2009 by Yaw Anokwa
Classes have started and so have weekly Change meetings. As always, we’ll be in Room 403 of the Paul Allen Center every Thursday at noon.
We have a number of exciting speakers and topics ready for this year, so stay tuned to our calendar, twitter or mailing list.
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September 20th, 2009 by Yaw Anokwa
OpenMRS is an open-source framework for building electronic medical record systems in developing countries. It enables organizations to build and manage health care systems where AIDS, tuberculosis, and malaria afflict the lives of millions.
While the framework is quite powerful, it can be difficult for non-expert users to install. Change member, Yaw Anokwa, has developed the OpenMRS Appliance to simplify the process.
The virtual appliance (also known as a virtual machine) is a fully pre-installed and pre-configured application and operating system environment. All users do is double click it to start using OpenMRS. Uninstalling is even easier, simply delete the virtual appliance folder.
If you wanted to try the newest OpenMRS 1.5 release, it is now only a few clicks away.
Tags: health, openmrs, projects | No Comments »
September 19th, 2009 by Yaw Anokwa
UW CSE is offering a one-time course offering this fall. The course is aimed at creating modules for Open Data Kit for immediate application in projects around the world ranging from public health to deforestation monitoring.
Undergraduate students should view the course as a way to learn about programming on Android and AppEngine platforms while having the ability to quickly field test their work. Graduate students will find quals project candidates that could lead to longer-term research projects in HCI, networking, vision, embedded systems, software engineering, etc.
Credits: 4 credits for undergraduate students as CSE490Y(SLN 20583), 3 credits for graduate students as CSE599Y(SLN 20584).
Pre-Requisites: CSE326 or extensive experience with Java programming.
Caveats: 5th year Masters students can choose either 490Y or 599Y but must keep in mind that the course will not count toward their 5 course requirement at the 500-level. The course does not count as a “capstone” course for undergraduate CompE majors. It can be used to meet the CSE Senior Elective requirement for undergraduates.
Syllabus/Schedule: MW 5:00-6:20 (note time schedule may say 6:00, it is 6:20) in CSE403.
- Week 1: Goals, Objectives, Projects, Intro to ICTD
- Week 2: Android overview – tutorial assignment with extension
- Week 3: AppEngine overview – tutorial assignment with extension
- Week 4: Tying mobile and cloud together – challenging assignment to demonstrate how the clients/cloud communicate
- Week 5: Project selection
- Weeks 6-10: Project meetings with instructors, get feedback from collaborators, design documentation – project group size up to 2, possibly 3, not 4
- Week 11: Final demos
Grading: based on Week 2-4 assignments and project (including documentation, design rationale, interaction in group meetings, and demonstration)
Instructors: Yaw Anokwa and Carl Hartung, CSE graduate students and ODK developers (supervised by Gaetano Borriello).
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September 11th, 2009 by Yaw Anokwa
Work on the use of multiple input devices for computing within the broader ICTD field has grown significantly since the iterations of the multiple mice for children’s learning in the mid-2000s. The area of work is rapidly becoming one of the important threads in research on education in the developing world, as it becomes clearer that creating scenarios where equitable access to personal computers seems unlikely in the short run.
In reviewing some of the research in this space, Joyojeet Pal has examined some of the new perspectives on computer aided learning for children raised by shared input computing and discusses some of the important ways of thinking ahead in this Multiple Inputs for Shared Computer Use paper.
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August 28th, 2009 by Yaw Anokwa
Two and a half years ago, Tapan Parikh gave his “job talk” at the University of Washington. In that talk, Tap described his experiences developing CAM — a toolkit for mobile phone data collection in the rural developing world. Drawing from the results of an work in rural India, he outlined a set of guidelines for delivering mobile information services to such regions.
Tap went on to win the TR35’s Humanitarian of the Year a few months later, and in the article written about his work, he said, “I think often times with formal and well-established disciplines like computer science, you run into the problem of inertia, a kind of hesitancy to accept new ideas about what should count as important…I’m cautiously optimistic that within academia as a whole, there’s a broad sense that the real-world impact of someone’s work is an important criterion by which to judge it.”
In the time that has passed, the ideas behind CAM have sparked similar and successful projects. From open source frameworks (Open Data Kit, OpenRosa) to applications for clinicians (CommCare, e-IMCI) and farmers (Digital ICS), phone based tools for rural regions has become an active area of research. Given this, it does seem that academia’s inertia can be overcome…
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June 23rd, 2009 by Yaw Anokwa
Change members Chris Coward and Yaw Anokwa will be speaking at an event organized by the Young Professional’s International Network, the World Affairs Council and co-sponsored by CIS entitled: “The Cell Phone Revolution in the Developing World”.
What: There are 4.1 billion cell phones in the world (2/3 of the world’s population has one) and their use is transforming lives in the developing world. The foremost authorities in the Puget Sound region have been assembled to discuss how these devices – that are taken for granted – are having a radical effect on people’s finances, health, education, businesses and politics.
When: Monday, June 29th, 2009. Doors open at 7, talk starts at 7:30 and goes till 9:30.
Where: Google Offices in Fremont
651 N 34th St
Seattle, WA 98102
(206) 234-5678
If you’re interested you must pre-register at http://www.world-affairs.org/calendar.cfm to reserve a spot. If you’re a member of the Young Professional’s International Network, the cost is $10, non-members pay $15 and students $10. The venue has a capacity of 50 people so please pre-register so as not to be disappointed night of…
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June 9th, 2009 by Yaw Anokwa
We will be discussing a semester-long effort that took the Starbus work as the foundation for a marketing plan project at Foster Business School. The takeaways will include “What happens when research projects are vetted for profitability?”, “What’s the difference between ethnographic research and market research?”, and “Which is harder: Talking to Kyrgyz marshrutka drivers or MBA students?”
Time: June 11th at 12.00
Place: UW Paul Allen Center, Room 303
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June 2nd, 2009 by Yaw Anokwa
There is a mounting interest in the field of mHealth – the provision of health-related services via mobile communications. mHealth projects are operating in a wide variety of developing countries and providing demonstrable impacts. Documented results – in both the developed and developing world – reveal that mobile technology improves the efficiency of healthcare delivery. Due to its nascent stage, mHealth presents a tremendous opportunity to create a global facilitation body, enabling maximum innovation and impact on global health.
In his talk on Thursday, June 4th, Dr. Walter Curioso will describe and present initial results of Cell-POS, a mHealth project that is currently being conducted in Peru. Innovative approaches using information technologies such as cell phones are needed to increase adherence to antiretroviral treatment for people with HIV/AIDS. Cell-POS, funded by the NIH grant R01TW007896, will develop and evaluate a computer-based intervention using cell phones to enhance adherence to antiretroviral therapy and support of HIV transmission risk-reduction among adult HIV- positive patients in Peru. The specific aims of Cell-POS are to: 1) Conduct focus groups to assess culturally-specific behavioral messages to be included in the computer-based system; 2) Develop and test an interactive computer-based system using cell phones to enhance adherence to antiretroviral treatment and to deliver HIV transmission risk reduction messages; 3) Evaluate the impact of the system on antiretroviral adherence and sexual risk behaviors.
Time: June 4th at 12.00
Place: UW Paul Allen Center, Room 303
Tags: mhealth, talks | No Comments »
June 1st, 2009 by Yaw Anokwa
This year, UW’s CSE 477 capstone course focused on technologies for low resource environments. Four teams worked on projects related to improving agriculture and education in the developing world. The final presentations and demo session will take place 3:30-5:30 pm, Wednesday, June 3, in CSE 691.
For more information, please contact Richard Anderson, anderson@cs.washington.edu.
Low-cost digital controller for managing recharging of Lead-Acid batteries
The goal of the project is to design a low-cost digital controller that can manage the recharging of batteries by multiple types of sources, while providing “clean”, efficient power to other devices. The primary use of this device is for areas with little to no consistent electrical power where Lead-Acid type car batteries are used at temporary sources of power. An example application would be in video based education where a television and DVD is set up to allow a facilitator to present educational content. The device will be able to use a Car Battery to power a range of Audio, Video, or other equipment, giving the user information on how much time the load can be powered.
DG Navigator
Digital Green (DG) is a research project started by Microsoft Research India that uses facilitated video instruction to teach and encourage sustainable farming practices in rural India. The DG Navigator is a “smart” remote control that assists the facilitator who is showing the video by providing prompts synchronized with the DVD and recording basic data about the show. The DG Navigator is a custom device that replaces the DVD remote control. The device has 12 dedicated buttons to control the DVD player, an SD card reader/writer, an LCD screen, and a vibrating motor to alert the facilitator when a message is on the LCD. During the video screening, questions are written to the LCD screen prompting the facilitator to pause the video and interact with the audience. The device records every button press and writes this data to a log file on the SD card. This log file allows the researchers to track which videos have been played and when the videos were paused by the facilitator to interact with the audience.
MultiLearn
MultiLearn builds upon prior research in shared computing by using multiple numeric keypads as input devices for educational games and dividing a single computer screen into sections corresponding to each student. This setup, individual USB keypads and corresponding split screen display provides equal access to the technology, allows students to access personalized and adaptively calibrated content, and lets students simultaneously participate at their own skill level.
Automated Community Radio
Much of the developing world is plagued by poverty and a lack of infrastructure which acts to perpetuate the poverty by restricting the peoples’ ability to trade. Most farmers have no means of advertisement for their goods on a macroscopic level, and hence they must advertise via word of mouth. This generally restricts trading to a local level. To this end we have devised an automated community radio system utilizing radios, cellphones, and a laptop. The content of this station comes from users who call via cell phones. Users interact with a touch-tone interface to place advertisements to a specific cell phone which connects with the laptop via bluetooth connectivity. The laptop stores the messages and uses a queuing algorithm to create a radio stream. This stream is sent to the FM transmitter, the amplifier circuit, and is then finally broadcasted. There is an administrative touch-tone interface as well to support added features such as immediate emergency broadcasts. A graphical user interface has been developed to allow the administrator to setup a prioritized category system and play schedule for increased functionality.
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