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SUMMARY:Computing for Development: A New High Impact Research Area - Laksh
 minarayanan Subramanian\, NYU
DTSTART:20110607T130000Z
DTEND:20110607T140000Z
UID:TALK31699@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:Microsoft Research Cambridge Talks Admins
DESCRIPTION:Computing for Development as a research area focuses on the de
 sign and\nimplementation of new information and communication technologies
  for\nsocial and economic development. Conventional computing solutions ar
 e\noften inappropriate for these environments due to several contextual\nf
 actors - cost\, lack of power\, lack of bandwidth\, literacy\, language\, 
 user\ninterface and other socio- cultural factors. In this talk\, I will d
 escribe\nthe broad set of research challenges in this space and then focus
  on two\nspecific research challenges: (a) Low-cost connectivity solutions
  for the\nnext billion. (b) Enhancing Web access in emerging regions under
  poor\nnetwork connectivity.\n\nTo address the first challenge\, I will de
 scribe our experiences with\ndeveloping Wireless Rural Extensions (WiRE) a
 nd Hermes\, two contrasting\nsolutions to the connectivity problem. WiRE i
 s a clean-slate\,\nsolar-powered rural connectivity architecture that aims
  to change the\nexisting cellular connectivity model and provide focused\,
  reliable high\nbandwidth connectivity to rural regions with no dependence
  on the power\ngrid. Hermes\, on the other hand\, aims to provide a new da
 ta connectivity\non top of the existing cellular voice connectivity channe
 ls which are\nextremely unpredictable and hard to model.\n\nTo address the
  Web access challenge\, I will specifically describe a new\nWeb architectu
 re stack for developing regions which supports a\nlow-bandwidth transport 
 layer\, a contextual Web caching layer\, a content\nadaptation layer and a
 n intermittency-aware Web application layer. Given\nthe poor connectivity 
 conditions\, complexity of Web pages and high levels\nof network sharing\,
  traditional networking solutions completely break down\nin these environm
 ents and we need to fundamentally rethink how to enhance\nWeb access in th
 ese settings across all layers of the protocol stack.
LOCATION:Small lecture theatre\, Microsoft Research Ltd\, 7 J J Thomson Av
 enue (Off Madingley Road)\, Cambridge
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