Information and Communication Technologies for Development

Hello everyone. I too (like Rich below) consider it a great privilege to be of help to you all as you do your projects for this class. I'm very excited at the potential of this class, with all you great students working on all these great projects from our partners. So I'm looking forward to the results!
As for my background ... I'm originally from the Philippines, and came to MIT for grad studies in 1993. I finished my Ph.D. in 2001, and went back to the Philippines to teach at Ateneo de Manila University. It was there that I had the experience of starting an R&D center working with a mobile operator and doing a wide variety of J2ME, SMS, and MMS applications. I've seen the power of even "simple" services and technologies to make a difference, and I hope that's one thing that you will appreciate in this class too.
If you have any questions, especially about but not limited to, technical software questions, feel free to let me know or schedule to meet with me. Here is my webpage: http://people.csail.mit.edu/lfgs/

Hi Everyone,

I am a Hubert Humphrey Fellow here at MIT, in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning. I am a development economist from Malawi, the warm heart of Africa, with a first degree in economics and computing science from the University of Malawi, and a masters degree in development economics from the University of Manchester - UK. I am delighted to be part of a vibrant and dynamic team - Beehive team in ICT4D, and the overall ICT4D development class.

My names are Edison Achelengwa and I am a sophomore studying Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. I am from Cameroon and I am also a member of International House at MIT which is a community which studies and develops projects geared towards international development. I am a member of the Mosoko team whose objective is to create a cell phone application which will provide market information to Kenyans about available jobs and avaliable goods.

My name is Oyebanke, but most people call me Banke. I am a Masters student in the Department of Urban Studies and Planning (DUSP), focusing mainly in International Development. My background is in Economics, and I am currently writing my thesis, which seeks to address the questions: why are prices still high and quality of service low, in many African countries, given competition and regulation in the industry. Kenya and Nigeria are my case studies.

Given my sparse background in IT, I hope ICT4D will continue to expose me to different ways in which ICT impacts development. Outside of academia, some of my passions include singing, dancing and learning other languages.

Hello Everyone,

It's a pleasure to be part of this class and be one of the instructors. Born to Colombian parents, I've been participating in a number of ICT4D projects in the past 10 years, and I hope to offer my experience to the class. My main area of expertise is hardware design and radio engineering. In the past, I have created a number of devices and peripherals that connect to cell phones, and I believe that the cell phone can be a very powerful user interface to all kinds of specialized peripherals ranging from medical sensors to payment terminals. Aside from cell phones, I believe that other ICT technologies will also help to revolutionize information access and services in the developing world. These include: portable medical sensors, environmental sensors, printers, low-cost displays, and solar-power generation to name a few. I also feel very strongly that the deployment of ICT technologies must be done cafefully and responsibly, and I think I've tried to make this point in my lectures.

Although my scheudule is rather full, I am always available over e-mail to respond to questions or comments. My MIT office is at the Media Lab (E15-358).

Hello all, my name is Fawah and I am a senior in Electrical Engineering and Computer Science. I am Cameroonian, and was born and lived there till I came to MIT in 2004. I hold my family and home very close to heart, and wish I could travel back more often. My technical background has highlights of Natural Language Processing in it, consisting mainly of undergraduate research projects in Computational Linguistics I have undertaken at CSAIL. Outside of my standard Course 6 curriculum, I am very involved with student life on campus, and I currently head the MIT African Students Association. I am also very committed to community service, and it is through the MIT Public Service Center, iCampus and a similar class to this one that I got to implement my first Education-focused ICT4D project in my hometown back in 2006. I have since been interested in harnessing the power of such technologies as we discuss in class for sustainable development.

I'm a Technology and Policy Program (TPP) first year graduate student at MIT. I am from Kenya and have practically lived there most of my life. I did my undergraduate studies in Business Information Technology at Strathmore University in Kenya and soon after obtained some working experience as a systems analyst in a mobile solutions company in Kenya. Since then I have tried a hand in the ICT business sector and currently have partnership in 2 startups in Kenya. My current research focus is development in emerging economy countries with a focus on ICT and particularly social networking.

My interest in ICT4D and particularly the Mosoko project is based on my research interest in the use of ICT to enhance social networks for development by modeling several socio-economic networks such as the marketplace. On a wider scope I am interested in all the projects and initiatives so as to learn more about the challenges facing ICT in terms of development, and its effects and impact.

I am a student at the MIT Media Lab in the Speech + Mobility group. As of spring, 2008 my focus is researching ways that technology can improve ordinary people's access to and control over media dissemination platforms.

My strengths lie in programming (Java, Python, C, Ruby, web/javascript/sql/etc.), circuit design, and microcontroller programming. I have an academic background in philosophy and electro-acoustic music. I'm interested in learning how to design projects and technology such that they are actually helpful and useful to people, rather than just interesting to engineers and students.

I enjoy biking, am an avid backpacker and practicioner of primitive survival skills, and love playing music and building electronic instruments. My personal website is here.

I'm an Electronics and Computer Science junior on exchange from Cambridge, England. I grew up in England, though my family is originally from India and my dad lived in Uganda until he was 18. I have spent some time travelling in East Africa and in India and I've been struck by how much seemingly small technological advances (or new ways of using technology) can affect people's quality of live and I'm looking forward to being a part of that.

The thing I find most interesting about the CRS project is that it operates right on the edge, the place that gives engineers nightmares: we are dealing with information that could mean the difference between life or death for many people, when the communications infrastructure is unreliable or missing. Prioritizing the information and figuring out appropriate ways of sharing it will be a challenge, and will hopefully result in a solution which is useful in other situations.

I am a senior majoring in Brain and Cognitive Science with a minor in Applied International Studies. I have spent some time doing photojournalism in India, Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, and China and have spent a lot of time in Korea where my family is from. I was born in Maryland and went to high school in New Hampshire, but am very interested in different cultures and codevelopment. My future goal is to be a surgeon practicing in developing countries. I look forward to working on the Beehive project.

I am a second-year graduate student at CSAIL, where I am part of the Database group and the Haystack project. My advisors are Sam Madden and David Karger. Before coming to MIT, I received my B.S. in 2006 in Computer Science and Mathematics at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI).

I was born in Israel and moved to America when I was five years old. While I'm heavily involved in technology, I look forward to putting it into a social context this semester as we do more than develop technology for technology's sake.

My name is Akani Rodriguez and I am a second year MBA student at Sloan. I was borned and raised in Mexico, where I worked as a management consultant before coming to MIT. I majored in Economics and worked for some time as a research assistant in the Mexican Central Bank
I came from a country where half of the population lives in poverty and I believe the current state of technology offers a great chance to bring progress to them through ICT4D. Although the answer sounds as simple as that, there are immense challenges to leverage technology to bridge that gap. Through this class I hope to get a better understanding of the road map one could follow to actually take those out of poverty

Graduate student in the System Design and Management program which is a joint program between the MIT Engineering Systems Division and the Sloan School of Management. I have 12 years of experience in communications technologies (landline and mobile). I have a previous Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from Temple University Philadelphia. I am excited to be able to make a difference in disaster relief measures in my home country. I would love to be able to design effective solutions to real problems.

Hailing from Malaysia, I am a senior majoring in Economics and minoring in Math at Wellesley College. Currently I am writing an honors thesis on the effects of hosting the Summer Olympics on housing markets. Outside my academic pursuits, I enjoy running, traveling, playing jazz violin and cooking with friends.

I am thrilled to be in the ICT4D Spring '08 class, as it builds upon my fascination with technology and passion for international development. In January, Denise and I worked on various D-Lab projects in India, such as working with women cooperatives to expand their knitwear's export markets, performing charcoal demonstrations, and surveying sites for a ropeway system in the Himalayas. Having had a phenomenal experience in India, I look forward to working with the Mosoko team and getting to know all of you!

Hi! I'm Sony. I'm a senior who's majoring in Brain & Cognitive Science and concentrating in Linguistics. I've been pre-med since high school, so most of my background is in Bio and chem, but despite this soft science facade, I actually like math and computational/technical stuff more--in fact, I'm a techie at heart, which I discovered this past summer. This summer I participated in a Public Service Center fellowship project in New Delhi, India, where worked with NGOs. As a part of my project, I had to design a computer application in MS Access that stored and analyzed patient data. This was such an amazing experience that I decided to take this interest seriously and not to be pre-med anymore. So, after declaring my freedom, I signed up for this course and now I'm trying to get more involved in ICT4D!

I'm a senior from Dearborn, MI in Course 3 - Materials Science and Engineering, minoring in Urban Studies and Planning, and this is my first international development experience. Here at MIT I’m on the Varsity Track & Field team and am involved in the MIT Energy Club. I am very interested in technology and policy issues on an international level since I love to travel, and so I'm looking forward to seeing how my team's project can make a difference in a developing country.

I am a SDM (System Design & Management) student. I have 10-year industrial experiences in the field of software engineering and computer/telecommunication networks (hardware as well as software). Currently I work for EMC Corporation in the area of RMS (Resource Management Software) product development and customer interfacing for Statement Of Work (SOW) and requirements. My SDM thesis focuses on market analysis and business strategy for mobile web aggregation.

I was born and grown up in Beijing China. I lived in Melbourne Australia for several years and have been USA (NJ/NYC area) for over 10 years. With SDM training and my engineering/management background, I would like to operate a business using ICT for my local community health care. I am also looking for opportunities to apply ICT4D in China, especially health care and environmental projects.

I am a graduate student at System Design and Management program. I come from Taiwan. I major in Horticulture in university, but found web service, database, and programming are more interesting to me. Therefore, after graduation, I worked at Alcatel as a software engineer, Platform team leader, system architect, and TAC manager. I led the team to design and integrate value-added services for Telecom operators and enterprise users. I do enjoy seeing that customers are benefit from and satisfied with the services we did.
The Beehive project interest me a lot. After one year study at MIT, the Beehive project arises my passion to design application that can improve people's lives. I do want to contribute what I learned before to this project, and want to find out the affordable solution and sustainable business model for this project. It's also a great chance for me to study the application design on mobile client. I'm looking forward to seeing that students at Beehive school can enjoy learning more by using our product.

I am a graduate student of the Engineering Systems Division at MIT doing the MLOG program. I have been a consultant over the past several years where we used technology to solve several business issues.
Having been a native of India, I have witnessed first hand the transformation that has happened in India because of information and communication technologies. Computers and cellphones have revolutionized life to an incredible extent right from booking tickets on the internet to transferring funds to pay your utility bills helping people save time, energy and effort.
The DLab class is an opportunity to examine the next generation of benefits that can be derived out of this technology. I look forward to witnessing the innovations and creations of the various teams that are participating in this class.

Hello I'm Denise and I'm an exchange student who reads manufacturing engineering in the University of Cambridge. In MIT I'm a junior in mechanical engineering and management. I was born in Hong Kong and went to highschool and university in the UK. I enjoy travelling, reading and pistol. I have always been interested in development work and after going to India with D-Lab 1 during IAP, I would like to look at what we can do from a more technical perspective. I hope to use my general techonology background and knowledge in busniess and economics, and be involved in a company that disseminates appropriate technology.

I'm a Ph.D. student at the MIT Media Lab. I was born and raised in México. I'm part of the Lifelong Kindergarten research group where we develop creative learning technologies for children and novices. I've been leading the development of the Scratch on-line community, a place where thousands of kids from around the world share their own animations, interactive art and video games that they create with the Scratch programming environment. I'm interested in education, mobile technologies and web 2.0-ish stuff. I joined the class to continue my search for meaningful uses of digital technology, in particular health-related applications, since it's something I haven't explored yet. (Learn more...)

I am a National Library of Medicine Fellow pursuing a masters degree in Biomedical Informatics in the Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology Division. I am originally from Buenos Aires, Argentina and relocated to the US for further training shortly after receiving my medical degree. Since then I have been working in molecular research and surgery. I am interested in information systems and new technologies to improve and personalize health care delivery.

I am a graduate student in the SDM (System Design & Management) program. Software development and design has been the source of my bread and butter for the past 11 years. I have developed enterprise software in the field of backup-storage, financial applications and Object Oriented data base management systems.

I was born in Mumbai and raised in a small town in central India. Being born and raised in India I am witness to the change that any assistance can bring about and the entrepreneurial passion in people willing to seize any available opportunity to build a sustainable source of income. I hope this project will help kindle that entrepreneurial spirit and allow people to break away from the poverty cycle.

I am a second year fellow in the System Design and Management (SDM) Program. I have eight years of experience in digital circuit design, primarily designing chips for handsets and other wireless applications.

I was born and raised in Bombay, India, but have lived in the U.S for over ten years now. I have lived in Florida and Texas, and am now enjoying the New England winters! I ran my first half-marathon right after moving to MA in fall of 2006. The only running I've been doing of late is running between classes and team meetings.

I am very excited to be working on the smart micro-loan project since it combines my interest in social enterprise in India and innovative applications using mobile technologies. I am looking forward to expanding my knowledge about micro-finance and its potential, and implementing a sustainable solution for the people of Rajugela.

I am a senior (soon to be MEng student) in EECS, and a member of the CSAIL Robot Locomotion Group. I am also a member of a group which is setting up iHealthGIS. It is a disease tracking and prediction system that started as an IDEAS project and is now being deployed in Lahore, Pakistan. I plan to ultimately become an EECS professor. When I'm not working on coursework or projects, I am often writing essays or training for "sprint" triathlons.

I am a graduate student in Biomedical Informatics at Harvard-MIT Health Sciences and Technology Division. Up until graduate school, I have been a practicing physician specialized in intensive care medicine, infectious diseases and internal medicine. I am interested in information systems, systems development and design, and artificial intelligence applications in medicine. I intend to go back into clinical medicine once I have completed my masters. By the way, I grew up in Manila during the tumultuous times under the Marcos dictatorship and moved to the US for all my medical training. I had been practicing medicine in New Zealand immediately prior to going back to school.

I'm a Principal Research Scientist in the Laboratory for Computational Physiology at the Harvard-MIT Division of Health Sciences where I manage a R01 NIH-funded research program, and contribute to the PhysioNet Research Resource. My research is focused on providing open-source tools and public-access data for the evaluation of clinical problems. I'm also a member of SAMP, the Systems Analysis, Modelling and Prediction Group in the Dept. of Engineering Science, Oxford University and an editor for BioMedical Engineering OnLine, a BMC Open-Access Journal with discounted publishing for developing countries.

I am the Telmex Visiting Scientist at the MIT Media Lab. I am also a Lecturer in the Media Arts and Sciences Program. I am experienced in the original conception and deployment of innovative ICT applications and content in developing countries, and in building projects and organizations based around digital technologies. Previous to joining Telmex, I started various companies in the financial and high-tech sectors, and worked as financial analyst and consultant in various investment and consulting firms.

Visit my site at http://web.media.mit.edu/~jrotberg/
or the site of the Center for Developmental Communications at http://dc.media.mit.edu/

I am a graduate student in the Music, Mind and Machine group at the Media Lab. I was born and raised in Paris, France. Originally from India, I trace my roots to Pondicherry (South India), which I visit regularly, and Bengal (Eastern India), which I visit less regularly. I enjoy playing, composing, and listening to music, especially pieces that blend Indian and western influences. I have 9 years of work experience in software engineering, audio signal processing, and research & development consulting in Europe, the US and India. I have traveled extensively, and I enjoy skiing, cooking and martial arts. My interest in ICT4D is related to real-time online collaboration for distance education, communication, and basically to help communities preserve and enhance their local culture and traditions.

You can visit my website at www.media.mit.edu/~mihir