*What*: Melissa Densmore and Alex Densmore: Employer-Issued Mobile
Devices and Pay-As-You-Go Solar Energy
*When:* Tuesday, Oct 7 at 12pm
*Where:* The Allen Center, CSE 203
Please join us this week for two mini talks by Melissa and Alex Densmore
about their work in ICTD. Melissa will be talking about her recent work
exploring how frontline workers use employer provided mobile devices for
personal use. Alex will be sharing his experiences trying to provide
affordable solar energy with Simpa Energy.
*Abstract:*
Part 1: Mobile devices are increasingly powerful and flexible tools for
computing and communication. When ICTD workers are given a mobile phone
“for work”, what else do they do? And to what extent can or should an
employer shape that use? This talk will examine rules that development
projects impose to govern use of mobile devices. This work maps these
rules against actual instrumental (work-related, non-prescribed) and
non-instrumental (personal) device use, and enforcement of these rules,
in eight projects using a popular mobile-based job aid, CommCare. We
present early insights from qualitative analysis of two such deployments
in India identifying a range of often conflicting policy choices that
affect device use for project mission and/or professional and personal
empowerment. We explore tradeoffs for morale, work quality, mission, and
device integrity. We identify user remote availability, soft
intimidation, and validation as mechanisms to shift authority and
credibility of information sources. The implications of our findings are
increasingly important as governments and NGOs arm frontline workers
with mobile devices as tools to improve service delivery.
Part 2: Simpa Energy is a market leader in providing affordable solar
energy in rural areas. This talk will include a brief overview of
Simpa's business model, its technology, and some of the unique
challenges of working in rural India.
*About the speakers:*
_Melissa Densmore_ is a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Computer
Science at University of Cape Town. Prior to joining UCT, she completed
a postdoc at Microsoft Research in Bangalore, India as part of the
Technology for Emerging Markets group, where she has been conducting a
trial comparing the effectiveness of community health workers using
interactive mobile health education materials to health workers using
paper flipbooks. Other work includes a delay-tolerant tele-consultation
system for doctors in Ghana and contributions to infrastructure enabling
village health centers to consult with doctors at the Aravind Eye
Hospitals. Her research interests include human computer interaction
for development (HCI4D), mobile health, and last-mile networking.
Recipient of the 2008 Yamashita Foundations for Change Prize, she has
been doing ethnographic fieldwork, systems design, and deployments in
Ghana, India, Mexico, Rwanda, Democratic Republic of Congo and Uganda
since 2004. Melissa completed her PhD at University of California,
Berkeley in Information Management and Systems, a 3 year ethnographic
study of the use of Internet and mobile technologies by health
practitioners and NGO staff in a health financing program in Uganda, has
an MSc in Data Communications, Networks and Distributed Systems from
University College London, and holds a BA in Computer Science from
Cornell University.
_Alex Densmore_ is an energy-access professional and formerly the Lead
Hardware Engineer at Simpa Energy, where he designed the electronic
controls for Simpa's pay-as-you-go electric metering system. His past
work includes a wide range of engineering projects in developing
contexts, including an internet-enabled solar charge controller, gravity
flow water systems, and various solar power installations. Previously,
he worked as a building energy modeler for The Integral Group,
evaluating designs for low-energy HVAC systems. He received his BS in
Mechanical Engineering from the University of California, Berkeley.