November 2016 - change - Mailing Lists

Fwd: Another way to give this holiday: Hacked Toys
by Trevor Perrier 29 Nov '16

29 Nov '16

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Anat Caspi <caspian(a)cs.washington.edu> Date: Tue, Nov 29, 2016 at 12:23 AM Subject: Another way to give this holiday: Hacked Toys To: postdocs(a)cs.washington.edu, cs-staff - Mailing List < cs-staff(a)cs.washington.edu>, cs-grads - Mailing List < cs-grads(a)cs.washington.edu>, faculty - Mailing List < faculty(a)cs.washington.edu>, professional-staff(a)cs.washington.edu Hello! Jumping on the GivingTuesday bandwagon, here's another opportunity to give this season: FAQ: *Q: Where will you be hacking toys? * A: The Toy Hack will be at the UW Commotion MakerSpace 11/12 10-1pm. Since space for participants is limited, please be sure to sign up only if you truly intend to participate. *Q: Do I need to know how to solder in order to volunteer for the toy hack? * A: No. While soldering skills are helpful, there is quite a bit else to do. This could certainly be an opportunity for volunteers to learn how to solder. We will have several 'trainers' at the event and you can work in teams. *Q: What does it really mean to 'switch-adapt' toys?* A: We basically open each toy and splice in a mono-jack in parallel with the toy's activation switch, then sew or screw the toy back together. *Q: If I choose to donate, where is my $30 going and is it tax deductible?* A: $30 roughly covers the cost of the toy and shipping. The donation is tax deductible. *Q: Can I sponsor a toy for a specific child or institution?* A: Yes. Please contact uwtcat(a)uw.edu directly. *Q: If I know a family or child that can benefit from these kinds of toys, can they sign up for a toy?* A: While we cannot guarantee a toy to each family, with a successful campaign we would love to offer a toy to every child that is referred to us. Please ask caregivers/family to contact uwtcat(a)uw.edu directly. If the family does not have access to internet or is experiencing other access barriers, please feel free to contact uwtcat(a)uw.edu directly. *Q: Who is this helping?* A: The toys are headed to private homes and developmental preschools mostly in the Puget Sound area. The toys are adapted to allow kids with motor or developmental disabilities access the toys. By adding a mono-jack to the toy, you are opening a whole world of possible switches that could activate the toy. Please don't hesitate to address any remaining questions to uwtcat(a)uw.edu Happy Giving! -- Anat Caspi, PhD Director, Taskar Center for Accessible Technology Computer Science & Engineering, University of Washington caspian(a)cs.washington.edu _______________________________________________ Cs-grads mailing list Cs-grads(a)cs.washington.edu https://mailman.cs.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/cs-grads

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Today At Change: DEV Recap
by Trevor Perrier 29 Nov '16

29 Nov '16

Please join us today at the Change Seminar for a recap of some recent papers published at the ACM DEV <http://acmdev.org/> conference last week in Nairobi. Samia, Fahad, and Sam will be leading a high level discussion on a few of the papers. This is an opportunity to get an overview of C4D from around the world. *What: *DEV Recap *When: *Tuesday, Nov 29 *Where: *The Allen Center, CSE 203 - Trevor

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Ideas for pediatric screening tools
by Lilian de Greef 28 Nov '16

28 Nov '16

Hello Change community, I'm a computer science PhD student looking to talk with people who have experience with pediatrics in low-resource settings, for applications or insights to develop pediatric screening tools for this context. If you or someone you knows has that experience and are willing to chat, I'd love to hear from you! To give you more context on who I am, I'm part of a lab that works on a number of projects to harness mobile phone sensors for medical applications (you can find an overview here <https://ubicomplab.cs.washington.edu/pdfs/lab/ubicomplab-health.pdf>). I've specifically been working on screening newborns for dangerous levels of jaundice (you can find more information about it here <https://ubicomplab.cs.washington.edu/publications/bilicam/>, including a link to a PDF should you want more detail). I'm interested in uncovering other challenges or needs in pediatrics and exploring whether we can leverage phone sensors to make them more accessible -- especially for low resource environments. The example that came to mind was screening infants or young children for nutrition, which to my understanding entails measuring their height or arm circumference. For these diagnostics, or any of the other challenges in the pediatric space, I'd be interested in aspects like what specifically makes them challenging and how people screen/diagnose (i.e. what and when people measure). I would be very grateful for any pointers you could offer be it relevant literature, thoughts, a change to meet or call if you have relevant expertise, or recommendations of other people to contact. Thank you, Lilian de Greef ldegreef(a)uw.edu

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Fwd: [TIER] Fwd: Professional Exchange Opportunity with TechWomen
by Yaw Anokwa 23 Nov '16

23 Nov '16

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: George Scharffenberger <gscharffenberger(a)berkeley.edu> Date: Tue, Nov 22, 2016 at 11:39 PM Subject: [TIER] Fwd: Professional Exchange Opportunity with TechWomen To: tier(a)tier.cs.berkeley.edu ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Pyle, Molly <MPyle(a)iie.org> Date: Tue, Nov 22, 2016 at 11:28 AM Subject: Professional Exchange Opportunity with TechWomen To: "gscharffenberger(a)berkeley.edu" <gscharffenberger(a)berkeley.edu> Dear George Scharffenberger, I am writing on behalf of the TechWomen program in hopes that you can help us spread the word about this exciting opportunity. I have contacted you in years past, and I am hopeful that you may once again be willing to share this opportunity widely among your individual and organizational contacts, especially women in your country and community. TechWomen, an initiative of the U.S. Department of State, brings emerging women leaders in science, technology, engineering and mathematics (STEM) from Africa, South and Central Asia, and the Middle East together with their professional counterparts in the United States for a mentorship and exchange program based in San Francisco. During the five-week program, participants engage in project-based mentorships at leading companies in the San Francisco Bay Area and Silicon Valley. The 2017 program will include 100 women from the following countries: Algeria, Cameroon, Egypt, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kenya, Kyrgyzstan, Lebanon, Morocco, Nigeria, Pakistan, Palestinian Territories, Rwanda, Sierra Leone, South Africa, Tajikistan, Tunisia, Turkmenistan, Uzbekistan and Zimbabwe. We are accepting applications for the 2017 program until January 17, 2017. We are looking for women who have demonstrated themselves as emerging leaders in their chosen profession, through their work experience, volunteer experience, community activities and education. Please consider forwarding this message to your pertinent networks. Flyers in multiple languages, as well as suggested tweets and social media posts, are available here. TechWomen’s mission is centered on empowering and supporting change agents around the world. I deeply appreciate your help in sharing this opportunity. Please let me know if you have any questions, and thank you for your support of global women leaders! All the best, Molly Pyle Molly Pyle Program Officer, TechWomen Institute of International Education (IIE) 530 Bush St. Suite 1000; San Francisco, CA 94108 Tel +1.415.362.6520 x231 | Mobile +1.904.501.8422 www.techwomen.org | www.iie.org/women TechWomen is an initiative of the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs and is administered by IIE. Twitter | Facebook | LinkedIn | Blog Opening Minds to the World® Addis Ababa | Bangkok | Beijing | Budapest | Cairo | Chicago | Denver| Hanoi | Hong Kong | Houston | Jakarta | Kyiv | Mexico City | Moscow | New Delhi | New York | San Francisco | Washington -- ------------------------------ George Scharffenberger Program Director Master of Development Practice University of California Berkeley Office: 311B Wellman Hall Berkeley, CA 94720-3100 landline: +1.510.642.0262 mobile: +1.510.473.5530 Web: http://mdp.berkeley.edu "Like" the BerkeleyMDP on Facebook Follow the BerkeleyMDP on Twitter Support the BerkeleyMDP by clicking here _______________________________________________ TIER mailing list Website: http://tier.cs.berkeley.edu TIER(a)tier.cs.berkeley.edu https://www.millennium.berkeley.edu/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/tier

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No Change Tomorrow
by Trevor Perrier 21 Nov '16

21 Nov '16

Hi Everyone, Just a quick reminder that due to ACM DEV and the short week there will be no Change Seminar tomorrow. Thanks, Trevor

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CommunityCellularManager Open Source Release
by Kurtis Heimerl 18 Nov '16

18 Nov '16

Apologizes for cross posting. CommunityCellularManager, Facebook's open source suite for distributed management of community-led cellular networks (using their OpenCellular platform) was released recently. The general idea is to provide a cloud suite of tools and technologies to simplify the deployment, distribution, and management of these new types of networks. Take a look: https://code.facebook.com/posts/1025486087598101/introducing-community-cell…

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Global Health Fellowships in Peru
by Sam Sudar 15 Nov '16

15 Nov '16

Hello Change, Here are two great opportunities for doing global health work in Peru with open applications: - Kuskaya Fellowship <http://www.kuskaya.org/> - Fogarty Global Health Fellows <http://fogartyfellows.org/> The Fogarty has several location options beyond Peru, while the Kuskaya is specific to Peru and places you on teams with Peruvian researchers. As a Computer Science PhD student working in ICTD I did the Kuskaya Fellowship in 2014. Both are great opportunities to explore if you do global health research or collaborate with global health researchers. I'd be happy to provide more information if people have questions. Sam

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Umar Saif - Distinguished Lecture, Today 3:30 pm (Tuesday, November 15)
by Richard Anderson 15 Nov '16

15 Nov '16

One last reminder - Umar Saif is giving a Distinguished Lecture in the Computer Science and Engineering Department at 3:30 pm. Designing Technology for the "Other" 5 Billion Umar Saif (Information Technology University, Lahore, Pakistan) Host: Anderson CSE Distinguished Lecture Tuesday, November 15, 2016, 3:30pm EEB-105 Maps and directions<https://www.cs.washington.edu/visitors/getting_here> Abstract With the advent of $50 smartphones, we can finally design software applications to fight poverty, disease and illiteracy for the "other" 5 billion in the developing world. In this talk, I will share a series of systems we designed for the 120 million citizens in the province of Punjab in Pakistan. These systems have been used for targeting 13 million Dengue containment activities, monitoring 53,000 schools in Punjab, tracking 3,700 vaccinators and collecting feedback from 11 Million citizens. Each system highlights a unique set of challenges and opportunities for designing systems for the developing world. I will conclude by explaining the challenge of measuring socio-economic impact of projects in the developing world and present a new smartphone-based platform aimed at democratizing data collection, surveys and randomized controlled trails at a large scale. [Umar Saif] Bio Prof. Umar Saif works as the Chairman of the Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB), heading all public-sector IT projects in Punjab. He is also the founding Vice Chancellor of ITU-P, a newly setup research university in Lahore. Prof. Saif received his PhD in 2001 at University of Cambridge and worked at MIT for several years before returning to Pakistan. He was named as one of the top 35 young innovators by the MIT Technology Review (TR35) in 2011 and a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2010. He has received a Google Faculty Research Award, MIT Technovator Award, IEEE Percom Mark Weiser Award, IDG Technology Pioneer Award and ACM CHI Best Paper Award. In 2014, Prof. Saif was awarded Sitara-i-Imtiaz, one of the highest civil awards by government of Pakistan. He was named among the 500 most influential Muslims in the world in 2015 and 2016.

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Tomorrow at Change: Anat Caspi - Equitable pedestrian wayfinding
by Trevor Perrier 14 Nov '16

14 Nov '16

Please join us tomorrow at the Change Seminar. Anat Caspi from the Taskar Center for Accessible Technology (TCAT) will be joining us to talk about equitable pedestrian wayfinding. *What: *Equitable pedestrian wayfinding *When: *Tuesday, Nov 15 *Where: *The Allen Center, CSE 203 *Abstract:* As pedestrians, we each experience the built environment differently. Our physical abilities greatly impact our access to the world and resources around us. Equitable pedestrian wayfinding is crucial for a barrier-free city, where people with different abilities can independently access customized, relevant, and up-to-date routing information. Pedestrians present heterogeneous information requirements consisting of static and transient information ranging from elevation changes to curb ramps to transient sidewalk surface conditions. However, such data, including the location of sidewalks, are generally unavailable in a user-consumable format. Moreover, existing routing solutions primarily optimize for distance, for instance, offering inappropriate routes with steep inclines that are unusable by many manual wheelchair users. A data model for equitable pedestrian wayfinding must flexibly support an annotated pedestrian network: a connected graph model that can be visualized and populated with data to parametrize a personalizable cost function. In this talk, we will present the current AccessMap capabilities (and discuss those in progress) that enable ability-based pedestrian routing. *About TCAT* The Taskar Center for Accessible Technology <https://tcat.cs.washington.edu/> (TCAT) at the University of Washington Department of Computer Science & Engineering develops and deploys technologies that increase independence and improve quality of life for individuals with motor and speech impairments. Anat Caspi is director of TCAT.

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Distinguished Lecture: Umar Saif November 15
by Kevin Johnson 14 Nov '16

14 Nov '16

Please join us next week for a Distinguished Lecture by Prof. Umar Saif, Chairman of the Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) in Pakistan. Distinguished Lecture: Designing Technology for the "Other" 5 Billion Date: Tuesday, November 15, 2016 Time: 3:30 PM Location: EEB-105 Abstract attached.

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