Information and Communication Technologies for Development

Well, half of them. Here's the link:
http://picasaweb.google.com/sonyverma/ICT4DEvent

Enjoy!
: ) Sony

*Note for the Beehive team: Picasa wouldn't let me upload videos above 100MB, so I don't know how to get it to you....

In the poster session after presentation, everyone likes those pictures in our demo.
Unfortunately we just cannot project laptop display on the screen in the demo.
I think we won the cutest kid picture award in ICT4D class.

Hi Guys,
Google provides a SMS query/search service at 466453. If you are interested, check it out at
http://www.google.com/intl/en_us/mobile/sms/

Since several groups have started sms field testing and sms message parsing, there are several web sites that you can sms for free. Below is one of them: http://textforfree.net/

A 2006 article by Microsoft on their research into creating a new product which would "create" a computer from a mobile phone and a TV (2 items which are widely available in households in developing countries)

http://www.microsoft-watch.com/content/desktop_mobile/microsoft_hedges_i...

I read an article in "THE TECH" by Diana Jue - It's a Big, Big World; The showdown. You can find the article here .

In the article she stated..."Politics — the art of getting things done — work differently in developing countries with weaker governments...I reflected on the fact that anyone can make up perfect solutions, but their real life implementation, constrained to conditions like budget and corruption, is incredibly difficult"

Yes, this is an ICT class and we are concentrating on technology. But after all is said and done, what happens to the politics? If the rulers decide the solution will not be implemented, does that mean all that effort has gone down the drain?

Part of the principles we have learnt in class is to take cognizance of the target environment whilst designing the solution. This has spurred things like the "store and forward solution" where having determined that real-time online access is not necessarily a requirement, solutions can be developed to aggregate information and send them out in batches.

If you're looking for templates for things like business plans, agreements, and all sorts of business documents (both for this class and other things), then check out this item

Perhaps some of you have seen this before, but I thought it was interesting that there were awards for mobile phones. Some of the categories and winners for the 2008 awards include:

Best Mobile Handset or Device: SonyEricsson's W910 Walkman Phone and 3UK's 3 Skypepephone

Best Broadcast Commercial: Safaricom's M-PESA "Send Money Home' Campaign

Best use of Mobile for Social & Economic Development: Grameenphone's CellBazaar

For a complete list, see:
http://www.globalmobileawards.com/winners.shtml
Enjoy!

This story caught my eye recently. I'm glad the IEEE, which has so many great high-profile conferences and journals within the field of electrical engineering and computer science, is embracing the idea of using this technology for improving the quality of life in poor/developing areas of the world.

IEEE: "Making a World of Difference"

-Elena

I found one book of Windows Mobile programming.
It has lots of useful examples, especially programs of receiving and sending SMS.
It is available on-line from MIT library. You may access it from the URL below.
http://owens.mit.edu:8888/sfx_local?bookid=17076&rft.genre=book&sid=Bart...

Here is a web site if you are interested in building iPhone web application using Eclipse
http://www-128.ibm.com/developerworks/opensource/library/os-eclipse-ipho...

The iPhone development plugin can be downloaded from
http://www.aptana.com/iphone/

There is a Mobile Camp Boston at E51 this Saturday.
The registration on the web site is full.
However, if you want to attend it, you may send a mail to keith.erskine@gmail.com.
The detailed information is posted below.
===================
Saturday, March 15, 2008
9:00AM to 5:00PM (registration starts at 8:30)
MIT
Building E51 (Tang Center)
70 Memorial Drive
Cambridge, MA 02139-4307

Mark your calendars for Saturday, March 15, because MobileCampBoston will be happening at the Tang Center (Building E51)-MIT. MobileCampBoston will be the place where area developers, companies, marketers and pundits will meet, discuss, and share ideas on all things mobile.
MobileCampBoston is an un-conference. Unlike a conventional conference where discussions and panels are arranged beforehand, MobileCampBoston lets everyone decide what will be discussed that day. You can expect to see discussions around:
- Mobile User Interface
- Location based solutions
- Mobile web design
- SMS integration with your web application
... and so much more.
For more information and updates, go to the MobileCampBoston website at < http://www.barcamp.org/mobicampbos>.

Many thanks to Chris Aden for inviting us to listen to Dave Castell, VP of Services at RIM, speak at Professor Jim Utterback's Disruptive Technologies class on March 4th, 2008.

Key takeaways:
1. Make customers and salespeople successful
=> customers will be willing to pay and even advocate for your product/service; salespeople will be more motivated to promote your product/service

2. Start with a focused target and expand systematically - don't try to solve everyone's problem

3. Position in right category
e.g. Blackberry moved from pager to wireless PDA to phone – this involves design and marketing strategies

4. Nobody can market and sell a disruptive product like YOU, the creator because most mature channels are selling "bought-products" that don't require users' behavioral change. Also, don't have an oligopoly downstream.

5. The biggest enemy of disruptive innovation is status quo
e.g. for BlackBerry, it competes against improved wireless access for laptops; counterintuitively, RIM benefitted Apple’s iPhone marketing campaign because people are willing to pay for a phone vs. free phones; RIM’s sales even increased on Apple’s exclusive carriers

Check out this story about a technology which offers both fun and a solution

http://mywebround.blogspot.com/2008/02/play-pump.html

One of the technical challenges that our team faces is to parse the SMS messages once the server receives them. At MIT, there are several EECS professors working on natural language processing. Below are two CSAIL professors who also distribute source code (free parser download).

Prof. Michael Collins, http://people.csail.mit.edu/mcollins/code.html
Prof. Regina Barzilay, http://people.csail.mit.edu/regina/code.html

In our project deploying country, people may speak and write in other languages than English. It might be a complex task to interface a natural language parser depending on the parsing algorithms used. An alternative for prototyping is to use a "coding book" for SMS messages encode/decode; this requires user education of the "coding book".

Since we've recently discussed, in class, the management of healthcare data, I thought it would be relevant to draw people's attention to Google's efforts in this direction, namely Google Health .

Consider checking out this article in the Wall Street Journal.

-Elena

iHealthGIS is the project I've been a part of since we entered it into the 2007 IDEAS competition. If anyone is interested in finding out more about it, let me know!

-Elena

Prof. Fraser gave a very interesting talk yesterday about some of the projects Partners in Health is involved in. In particular he emphasized the importance of data management, storage, transmission, and integrity in the context of health care. As a foundation for the effectiveness of basic health care, it is not something to be taken for granted.

Feel free to add your comments on this subject.