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CSE 477 Project Demos, Wednesday, June 3, 3:30 - 5:20 pm
by Richard Anderson 21 May '09

21 May '09

CSE 477 Capstone Presentations This year, the 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(a)cs.washington.edu Projects: 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. http://change.washington.edu/projects/multilearn 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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Ubicomp 2009 - Globicomp Workshop
by Yaw Anokwa 20 May '09

20 May '09

Abstract The community's work to date has been focused on the so-called 'developed' world – contexts where there are already well-established technical infrastructures and digital resources. These contexts have users who are relatively highly computer literate, typically have high degrees of textual literacy and have undergone a formal education. Examples include sophisticated 'smart' homes with digital notice boards and even interactive fridge doors (Taylor et al, 2007); embedded technologies for amusement parks (Schnädelbach et al, 2008); and, cities and urban dwellers with time to, "marvel at mundane everyday experiences and objects that evoke mystery, doubt, and uncertainty. How many newspapers has that person sold today? When was that bus last repaired? How far have I walked today? How many people have ever sat on that bench? Does that woman own a cat? Did a child or adult spit that gum onto the sidewalk?" (Paulos & Beckmann 2006). This workshop is about the billions of people who do not fit these sorts of context. There are hundreds of millions of users, and billions to come in the next 5 years, in places like India, China and Africa, whose first, and perhaps only, experience of computing will be in the form of mobile and other ubicomp technologies. Many of these users will never live in the sorts of home, or work in the types of office, or daydream in the parks, or take a day-off for the sorts of amusement park envisaged by earlier research. Website http://www.cs.swan.ac.uk/globicomp2009/

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CACM article of Dev World research
by Gaetano Borriello 20 May '09

20 May '09

By Dias and Brewer: http://mags.acm.org/communications/200906/?CFID=669198&CFTOKEN=78697787 ----- Gaetano Borriello Jerre D. Noe Professor Department of Computer Science & Engineering 572 Allen Center, Box 352350 University of Washington Seattle, WA 98195-2350 +1.206.685.9432 gaetano(a)cse.washington.edu<mailto:gaetano@cse.washington.edu> http://www.cse.washington.edu/homes/gaetano

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Evite invitation from jmich@u.washington.edu
by jmich＠u.washington.edu 18 May '09

18 May '09

You have been invited by jmich(a)u.washington.edu to You are invited to "Year-End Social" by jmich(a)u.washington.edu, hosted by UW Net Impact. Come join the UW Foster chapter of Net Impact! Click below to visit Evite for more information about the event and also to RSVP. http://www.evite.com/pages/invite/viewInvite.jsp?inviteId=NPBUTOVWTVENEGQHA… **If you are having trouble viewing the above web address, copy & paste the entire URL into the address bar of your browser. This invitation was sent to you by jmich(a)u.washington.edu using Evite. To remove yourself from this guest list please click on the link above. This Evite Invite is covered by Evite's privacy policy*. To view this privacy policy, click here: http://www.evite.com/privacy ********************************* Did this email go to your junk/bulk folder? Add info(a)evite.com to your address book to ensure that you receive future Evite Invitations in your Inbox. Don't want to receive Evite emails from this person? Update your email preferences. Replies to this email will go directly to the sender, not to Evite. Your email address will be displayed in your reply. Having trouble opening this Evite Invitation? Try pasting this URL into your browser: http://www.evite.com/r?iid=NPBUTOVWTVENEGQHAZNU&li=iq&src=email Evite respects your privacy. To see how we treat your information, please review our Privacy Policy. *********************************

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UW Foster Business School - Net Impact End of Year Social Event
by joe michiels 18 May '09

18 May '09

Hi Change, I'm forwarding along an invitation from Foster School of Business's group for Net Impact. Some of you may have already heard me mention Net Impact. It is an international nonprofit organization, primarily driven by business schools and private chapters, whose mission is to make a positive impact on society by growing and strengthening a community of leaders who use business to improve the world. I'll also forward the evite. We would love to have some folks from Change attend to get some cross-campus juices flowing. And by juices we mean beer.... ------------------------------------------------------------------- You're invited for drinks and appetizers to celebrate the end of the year with UW Net Impact. We've had an exciting year with great leadership, guest speakers, and field trips, so let's toast to the graduating class of 2009, as well as welcome guests from the Net Impact Professional Chapter and Bainbridge Graduate Institute. Hope to see you there! Host: UW Net Impact Location: Shultzy's 4114 University Way NE Seattle, WA 98105 US When: Wednesday, May 27, 6:30PM Phone: (206) 548-9461 http://www.shultzys.com/

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Change meeting at CIS this week
by Natalie Linnell 18 May '09

18 May '09

Hi everyone, This week, Thursday May 21, the Change meeting will be over at CIS, the MultiPurpose Room, Suite 400, 4311 11th Ave NE, from noon to 1:00. We're going to be asking people in CIS to give brief descriptions of projects they're working on or beginning, and then do some brainstorming on the technology aspects. Nothing formal, so if you have a project you want to discuss, just show up ready to talk about it. Directly beforehand, from 11:20-12:00, in the same room, we'll have the ICTD reading group. This week we'll be looking at "Evaluating the Accuracy of Data Collection on Mobile Phones: A Study of Forms, SMS, and Voice." http://www.cs.washington.edu/education/courses/590f/09sp/ictd09/ Hope to see you at one or both. Natalie

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percentage of income spent on ict
by Yaw Anokwa 14 May '09

14 May '09

we discussed this today and i found the numbers. you can see the relevant table at http://twitpic.com/567s4. the full pdf is at http://is.gd/rqUo

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Change meeting this week: ICTD reading group
by Natalie Linnell 11 May '09

11 May '09

Hi everyone, Since we don't have a speaker this week, we've decided to usurp the Change meeting time slot for the ICTD reading group. It'd be great if you could join us! We'll meet from 12:00-1:00 in CSE 303 and discuss "A Review of the Research on Mobile Use by Micro and Small Enterprises (MSEs)" http://www.cs.washington.edu/education/courses/cse590f/09sp/ictd09/ Thanks, Natalie

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Change Speaker this Thursday
by Natalie Linnell 06 May '09

06 May '09

Change is a group at the University of Washington exploring how technology can improve the lives of underserved populations, especially in the developing world. Every week, we hold an open meeting. This week, we will have Cliff Schmidt presenting on Literacy Bridge and the Talking Book Device (description below). Please join us in CSE 303 this Thursday from 12-1pm. Find out more at http://change.washington.edu ----------------------------------------------------------------- Agriculture, health, and education are three areas being improved by local people and organizations through the use of Literacy Bridge's Talking Book Device. The device is a $10 rugged audio computer that uses locally available batteries, is accessible to the visually impaired, allows each message to be copied from one device to another, and supports interactive educational lessons and games. Talking Book Project is enabling the creation, distribution, and accessibility of audio knowledge libraries in the most remote and underserved regions of the world.

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Change Speaker this Thursday
by Natalie Linnell 05 May '09

05 May '09

Change is a group at the University of Washington exploring how technology can improve the lives of underserved populations, especially in the developing world. Every week, we hold an open meeting. This week, we will have Cliff Schmidt presenting on Literacy Bridge and the Talking Book Device (description below). Please join us in CSE 303 this Thursday from 12-1pm. Find out more at http://change.washington.edu ----------------------------------------------------------------- Agriculture, health, and education are three areas being improved by local people and organizations through the use of Literacy Bridge's Talking Book Device. The device is a $10 rugged audio computer that uses locally available batteries, is accessible to the visually impaired, allows each message to be copied from one device to another, and supports interactive educational lessons and games. Talking Book Project is enabling the creation, distribution, and accessibility of audio knowledge libraries in the most remote and underserved regions of the world.

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