CSE 590f, Computing and the Developing World Seminar February 25th, 4pm, CSE 403 The CATER initiative: Sustainable Networks and Systems for the Developing World Laksminarayanan Subramanian NYU Computer science, as a field, has largely focused on problems that occur in the developed world. The Internet and the World Wide Web have largely remained urban phenomena and a significant fraction of the developing world, especially in rural and underdeveloped regions, remains disconnected from the rest of the world. Bridging this digital divide requires us to address several important and challenging computer science research problems whose solutions could ultimately have significant impact in the developing world. In this talk, I will describe our current efforts in Cost-Effective Appropriate Technologies for Emerging Regions (CATER) (http://cater.cs.nyu.edu), a multidisciplinary research initiative that focuses on the development of appropriate Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) solutions for pressing problems in developing regions. I will discuss our current research efforts in addressing three grand challenges in this space: (a) developing low-cost connectivity solutions; (b) extending the Web to developing regions; (c) building new distributed mobile applications for enhancing healthcare and financial services. Bio Prof. Lakshminarayanan Subramanian is an Assistant Professor in the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at NYU. His research interests are in the space of networks, distributed systems, security and technologies for developing regions. He received his MS in 2002 and PhD in 2005 from UC Berkeley.