Administration Classroom Presenter IP Address 131.107.151.68 - PDF document

Administration • Classroom Presenter IP Address – 131.107.151.68 Computing and the • Book review one due April 30 Developing World • Schedule Shuffled – Next week: Video Based Education • Upcoming Guest Lecturers CSEP 590B, Spring 2008 – Tapan Parikh, Neal Lesh Lecture 4 – Internet, SMS • Readings: Authentication – User: csep590b Richard Anderson, Umar Saif – Password: student Tonight Highlights from Lecture 3 • Telehealth [Telemedicine] • Rural Networking (Umar) – Martinez et al. – Poor Man’s Broadband • Basic communication – TEK Internet Search – High/ Low bandwidth, Sync and Async – Inverse Multiplexing of Cellular Connections – Emergency notification, supply management, – Teleputer combating isolation, training, reports, • Agricultural Markets (Richard) consultation – Robert Jensen • Long distance WiFi • SMS Applications – 3Mbps, 20 km, LOS, isolated environment – Warana Unwired Umar Saif Where are these flags from? • Associate Professor of Computer Science and Engineering, LUMS, Lahore, Pakistan • B.Sc, LUMS, PhD, Cambridge, PostDoc MIT • Research: Ubiquitous Computing, OS, Distributed Systems, Networking • Dritte.org UW MS LUMS Home

Umar’s Slides Warana Unwired • High profile kiosk project to support agriculture • After 7 years, the project had only achieved a fraction of its goals and had very high maintenance cost • Main application was replaced by a cell phone/sms application Warana Sugar Cooperative Warana: Cell Phone Solution • At harvest, farmers send sugar cane to • Low cost mobile phone at the kiosk cooperative for processing • Smart phone running server at processing • Farmers receive reports of the amount of plant sugar cane processed by factory – Messages translated into DB query • Before Kiosk Project – “TON 123456 0807” – Farmers visit central processing office – Answer sent back to calling phone • After Kiosk Project • Farmers would have kiosk operator place the – Farmers visit kiosk office text message – Kiosk operator places request • Set up as experiment to evaluate cell phone – After one or two days, farmer gets report against the PC SMS Applications Key ideas for SMS Applications 1. 2. Country Country 3. Domain Domain UW Problem Problem MS LUMS Home

Markets and Development Market Price Info • Agricultural wholesale markets can have • The key for solving rural poverty is greater large price swings during the day agricultural income • Transportation costs and perishability limit • Improved markets are necessary for producer options increasing income • Advance notice of price information – Decision which market to use – Decision whether to bring goods to market – Decision whether to harvest • Is there any evidence that this information actually is of value? Robert Jensen Main result • Study of wholesale prices of fish markets in Kerala • Data covered the time period when cellular coverage was introduced Importance of Agricultural Information and Market Output Markets Functioning • Significant portion of the worlds poor are in • Sigler, Economics of Information agriculture, fisheries, forestry – Costly search for information leads to price dispersion – Especially if infrastructure is poor and markets are • Functioning of Markets important for well dispersed being of the poor • Without information, no reason to assume markets • Markets are efficient – coordinate dispersed consumers and producers – Consumers, Producers, Intermediaries don’t adjust to scarcity – price coordinates allocation of goods • Price dispersion reflects inefficiency. Improved • Fundamental theorem of welfare economics information might improve efficiency and help the – “Law of one price” poor.

Information for Fishermen Welfare Economics M 2 M 2 M 1 M 1 Mackerel Economics Economics • Welfare theory argues for a net gain for produces and consumers • Gains depend on the shape of the curve – Price elasticities • Reduction in waste potentially benefits both groups • Impact of reduced price variability on consumers not clear Study Cell phone adoption • Beach Market Survey (N=15, 15 km • Fishermen quickly adopted cell phones as apart) they became available – Every Tuesday, 7-8 am, 1996-2001 • Fishermen would contact a large number – All transactions of buyers while at see • Fisherman Survey (weekly, N=15*20) • Other benefits of cell phones for fishermen documented by Abrahim (ICTD 2006) • Fishing village survey (monthly, N = 15) • Consumer price survey (weekly, N = 15)

Conclusions (Jensen) SMS (Short Message Service) • Poor information limits functioning of • Protocol for text messages on GSM markets phones – 1120 bit messages • Information makes markets work, and • 160 7-bit, 140 8-bit, 70 16-bit characters markets help the poor – It’s the I, not the T • Fishing in Kerala probably not a special case • This was not a development project – People figured it out on their own SMS Costs world wide Smart phone vs. Dumb Phone Country SMS Cost, Local SMS Cost USD • Should ICTD work target “Smart Phones” USA $0.10 or “Dumb Phones”. Pakistan 50 paisa $0.008 India 10 paisa $0.0025 China 0.15 yuan $0.02 South Korea 10 won $0.01 Namibia 0.40 NAD $0.05 • Why? Bangladesh 1 taka $0.015 Philippines 1 peso $0.02 Cambodia 150 riel $0.03 Bhutan 1 nu $0.025 Botswana 0.40 pula $0.06 UW MS LUMS Home Warana Wired Village (1998) Planned applications • Case study of a failed kiosk project • Warana on Internet • Database of farmer statistics • Very ambitious goals • GIS of 70 villages • Funding split: • Local language interface – Central: 50%, State: 40%, 10% Cooperative • Land record computerization • 54 to 70 Village Kiosks • Intranet site about crop pests • Setup • Agricultural price info – Concrete building • Personalized sugarcane information – PC (Pentium, Win95), UPS, Printer • Internet connectivity – Landline, 10 kbps connection

Warana Experiment Warana Results: Cost Savings • Question: can the Kiosk functions be replaced by • Compared to what? SMS. – Existing PC System • Method: have Kiosk operators use cell phones – New PC System instead of the PC. Other operations remained the same. – Mobile SMS with Kiosk • Issues: – Mobile SMS without Kiosk – Physical space: kiosks and computers left in place – GPRS with Kiosk – Printouts: handwritten and stamped receipts given by kiosk operator – GPRS without Kiosk – Security and privacy: not a worry for the farmers. Access restricted to registered phones Study results Other SMS based projects • 7 village pilot • Training of kiosk operators on SMS system • Usage comparable to kiosk • Query time: 2 minutes • Favorable response from farmers – Requests to expand the pilot – Use from phones outside of kiosks Zambian National Farmers Market Price Queries Union • ZNFU • http://www.farmprices.co.zm/prices.php

tradenet.biz www.dam.gov.bd • Agricultural trading in • Web portal with price information for West Africa agricultural commodities in Bangladesh • Primarily web based, but supports sms notifications Why things fail literature Failures • Richard Heeks • What percentage of startup companies fail? – Information systems and developing countries: Failure, Success, and Local • Leading cause of failure ______________ Improvisation _________________________________ • What percentage of IT projects fail? • Leading cause of failure ______________ _________________________________ Design-Actuality Gaps Hard vs. Soft Models Dimension “Hard” rational design “Soft” political • Components from the designers’ own actuality context Information Standardized, formal, Contingent, informal, quantitative information qualitative • Conceived assumptions about the Technology Simple enabling Complex, value-laden, mechanism status-symbol situation of the user Process Stable, formal; outcomes Flexible, complex, as optimal solutions constrained, informal Objectives and values Formal organizational Multiple, informal, • “Information systems per se have a objectives personal objectives Staffing and Staff viewed as rational Staff viewed as political tendency to be designed according to management beings beings models of rationality” Management systems Formal, objective Informal, subjective and structures processes processes Other resources: time Used to achieve Used to achieve and money organizational ends personal ends