developmental informatics lab krithi ramamritham iit bombay ict for empowering emerging regions

Developmental Informatics Lab

Krithi Ramamritham

IIT Bombay

ICTfor empowering

Emerging Regions


The Big Question

How do we give the rural populationthe same access to Information that you and I take for granted?

"How to face the challenges in serving under-served segments of the population through science & technology based solutions”


Knowledge Revolution

Limited to less than 15% population of the world.– Most research and products are for people in highly developed countries.

Touches less than 2% of population in developing countries.


ICT for Socio-Economic Development-- has come of age

Research in Indian academia/industry labs IITs - Madras, KGP, Kanpur,…. IIITs – Hyderabad, Bangalore,…MSRI, Intel, Nokia, Motorola, TCS,….

Publication avenues ICTD, WWW DR track, CHI, (VLDB),… journals

Lots of challenging issues….


Internet service provider

Cable TV provider

Basic telephony (VoIP)

E-governance

Land records

Price info (mandi bhav)

Digital photography

Astrology (jyotish kendra)

Village kiosk services

Indian Institute of Technology Bombay


Internet –a repository of knowledge?

Perhaps, but divides exist…

The Connectivity Divide– No connectivity– Low bandwidth

connectivity– Intermittent

connectivity


Communication Technologies

DialUP VSATs Wired Wireless 802.11 Cable Modem DSL Cell Phones WiMaX


corDECT

corDect is a wireless access system developed by IIT,Madras , Midas Communication Technologies, and Analog Communications , USA.

It provides voice telephony services and 35/70 kbps internet services with a wireless interface that supports a 10km line of sight connectivity.


DakNet

ad hoc network that uses wireless technology and existing communications and transportation infrastructure to distribute digital connectivity.


Internet –a repository of knowledge?

Perhaps, but divides exist…

The Connectivity Divide– No connectivity– Low bandwidth

connectivity– Intermittent

connectivity

The Content Divide– No relevant content– Not accessible/useful

to the semi/illiterate population

Language divideInterface divideUsability divide


How does Web Content come into being?

Individuals / institutions / governments place content on the Web

– Web pages– Blogs

Collaborative content creation– Wiki– Discussion (Q&A) fora

Relevant? Topical? Localized?Personalized?


AQUA Ecosystem

Initially, kiosks operated by

Vigyan Ashram, Pabal village

Initially, Krishi Vigyan Kendra, Baramati

(an agri-extension center)


Village kiosk services

Developmental Informatics Lab (DIL)Indian Institute of Technology Bombay

Field Observations and Studies are fed back into

AQUA research & development

AQUA --> aAQUA


Images from aAQUA


Users of aAQUA

questions from half the districts in India

questions on farming, animal husbandry, employment (BPO), vocational education,…


Challenges…

How can we scale, if each question needs to be answered by an expert?

How can we make aAQUA usable for naïve users?

How can we ensure availability in spite of resource constraints (e.g., connectivity problems)?


How to improve…

Scalability– After several seasons, questions repeat => archive previous Q&A => search archive for answer– Data integration & consolidation– Multilingual semantics-driven search

“insurers cheating farmers” vs. “farmers cheating insurers”

Usability

Availability


Consolidating Content: e-Library

collection of edited aAQUA Q&A in English, Hindi and Marathi

Photos of crop pests and diseases lead to solutions

-- without going to experts

recommendations from Agri-Universities and KVKs


Multi Lingual Search over archive

Query in Hindi

English Document

Result in Hindi

searchEnglish

Document

Marathi Document

E-library

Indian Institute of Technology Bombay


How to improve…

Scalability– Exploit repetition of questions => consolidate, archive previous Q&A => Support Multilingual semantics-based search

of archive

Usability– Better interfaces, better I/O devices => iconic, easy to visualize, easy to use

Availability


Enhancing Usability

Keyboard: easy input in Devanagari

Use of local language Organizing content by

category and keywords

Multimedia support, image zoom


Bhav Puchiye – Ask for the price

Interface for Bhav Puchiye

Most such interfaces are text-based


Bhav Puchiye

DEMO


User Interest needs to be sustained

If a farmer comes to a kiosk to ask a question and is told

“network is down, come back later”

HE WILL NEVER COME BACK


How to improve…

Scalability

Usability

Availability – Exploit the “read-mostly” situation– Exploit the “delay-tolerance” aspect of Q&As => Make off-line access the default

– Exploit spread of Cell phones


Dealing with connectivity constraints

Lighter pages deliveredMirror sites that synchronize Web Caching and query cachingPrefetching

– through prediction of future needs and update times


Improving Availability: Offline Access

Standalone application employing

store-and-forward protocols– Offline Search and Posting, Authentication. – Complete aAQUA can be navigated and searched in

disconnected mode. – Offline post also possible.

Fast searching and browsing experienceDelta of updates transferred between

client and serverHeterogeneous database synchronization


Offline aAQUA

aAQUA on internet

aAQUA on internet

Light Db

Client Application

RepositoryIndexing engine

Browser

Light Web Server (lighttpd)Update database

for new threads

Store threads

Post messages and fetch new or updated threads

Read threads

Build index

Search

Read

Write

Query optimization for handhelds

with varying memory sizes

"Best Poster" at WWW 2007: International Conference on the World Wide Web, Banff, Canada.


Poll on aAQUA -- on use of mobile phones


SMS Question & Answer


Popular SMS based apps

Weather (push or pull) Sports/Entertainment services Transportation services News Innovative personal services: e.g., Market Price information for agricultural goods Personal services: e.g., Using SMS to inform

customers in a quasi-real time when the money is transferred to their families, booking movie tickets etc.

GIS based content delivery services Weather / temperature sensing capabilities (some high-end phones do have temp sensors)


aAQUA

aAqua Server

Crop Doctor

Crop Recommendation

KeywordBrowser

BhavPuchiye

aAqua

Internet

Internet

HTTP

aAquaOffline

Mobilenetwor

k

Mobilenetwor

kaAquaMobile

Gateway

SMS

Enabling technologies1. Internet crawling, searching, browsing,

indexing of multilingual data on the Internet.

2. Data exploration on Heterogenous Data Sources.

3. Improving the performance of information extraction/caching/dissemination algorithms for resource constrained environments.

4. Support for building Databases on handhelds (e.g., Simputer, a low cost hand held developed in India).


Status and Plans

Questions from half the districts of India KVK Baramati – primary expert group

Scale-up ICAR via NAIP

– Agri Universities Pant NagarDharwad

– KVKs Maharashtra ArgiNet

Spin-off Agrocom – operating the Akashdoot weather station network


Preventive Agri-Medicine:Climate sensors for crop disease forecasts

wind speed

wind direction

air temperature

relative humidity

solar radiation

evaporation rate

leaf wetness


Summary

aAQUA takes Agri-extension services to people wherever they are

– New ways of providing expert help to redress

farmer problems in a timely fashion Users formulate questions in a natural manner Internet + Mobile phones – prices, aAQUA posts & feeds – push + pull

Incorporating innovations from research

– Query processing and caching

– Seamless offline access

– Cross-lingual archive and retrieval

– Human-computer Interactions

– Heterogeneous Data Integration

+ semantics driven multilingual search


ICT for Socio-Economic Development-- has come of age

Research in Indian academia/industry labs IITs - Madras, KGP, Kanpur,…. IIITs – Hyderabad, Bangalore,…MSRI, Intel, Nokia, Motorola, TCS,….

Publication avenues ICTD, WWW DR track, CHI, (VLDB),… journals

Lots of challenging issues….

developmental informatics lab krithi ramamritham iit bombay ict for empowering emerging regions

Documents