Archive for the 'india' Tag
The Case for Shared Computing
My elementary school’s computer lab probably had 50 computers, where we frequently played Oregon Trail and made flashy presentations in HyperStudio. My middle school had a lab of iMacs and rolling carts full of brand new iBooks. My high school had hundreds of PCs available for use in computer labs, classrooms, and even in the hallways. Needless to say, as I grew up, I always had individual access to computers and never needed to share.
In most of the world, this isn’t the norm.
Due to the fact that computers cost money, resource-constrained schools simply cannot afford to provide kids with access to one computer each. One approach to this issue is that of Nicholas Negroponte, which is to reduce the cost of computers to the point that One Laptop per Child is a feasible ideal.
Unfortunately, even if Negroponte achieves his goal of producing laptops at $100 each (they’re $200 today), maintenance expenses will bring the real cost of deploying these machines to over $250 per year. In India, where the government spends under $100 per student per year, deploying such technology is obviously an impossibility given these budget constraints.
Another approach is to split a single computer for simultaneous use by multiple people. Microsoft Research India has done much work in this field, through projects such as MultiPoint and Split-Screen — these projects connect multiple input devices to a single computer and thus allow people to have individual access to the machine, allowing for shared computing.
I’m currently working on a project for the Computing for the Developing World capstone course at UW with three other friends to explore the use of shared computing via multiple numeric keypads in improving primary education. Called MultiMath, our software provides arithmetic drills to four students at once, allowing for shared computer use, individualized attention, and adaptive questioning in competitive and collaborative environments.
This week, we are in Bangalore, running preliminary field tests at government schools in the area. We’ve learned a lot, but I’ll save that for another post.
MultiMath will be presented as a demo at ICTD 2009 in Doha, Qatar.
Interested in similar projects at UW? Check out Change.
March 26, 2009 | no comments | tags: computerscience, education, ictd, india, multimath, research, sharedcomputing
Painting India on the Silver Screen
First, a lesson in how to make a movie sound cheesy and boring:
The story of how impoverished Indian teen Jamal Malik became a contestant on the Hindi version of “Who Wants to be A Millionaire?” — an endeavor made without prize money in mind, rather, an effort to prove his love for his friend Latika, who is an ardent fan of the show. [imdb]
While that sentence does not misrepresent the movie, Slumdog Millionaire is far more than a romantic game show appearance. Rooted in the escapism that is typical in Bollywood cinema, the story is a deep one that uses Jamal’s rags-to-riches appearance on Who Wants to Be a Millionaire as a framework from which to explore not only his incredible story as an impoverished orphan from the slums of Mumbai, but also the ups and downs of life in poverty.
Over the course of two hours, we follow the stories of Jamal, his brother Saleem, and love interest Latika, and witness their encounters with everything that life brings them, including Amitabh Bachchan, religious tensions, police brutality, child exploitation, urban gangs, and love. What’s most striking is that these individually believable microstories combine to paint a refreshingly realistic portrait of India, even though stepping back to the big picture reveals an unbelievable fairy tale.
Much as Gregory David Roberts did with his writing in Shantaram, director Danny Boyle brings the energy of Mumbai and all of India to life with brilliant cinematography, an excellent cast, and a surprisingly great soundtrack by AR Rahman and MIA.
Experiencing India through their eyes is fully enjoyable and humbling. If you don’t want to take my word for it, take a look at what just about everyone else has to say.
December 4, 2008 | no comments | tags: bollywood, dannyboyle, india, movies, reviews, slumdogmillionaire
Everyday India
Before and during my recent trip to India, many of my friends encouraged me to blog because they wanted to hear about what I was up to. It turns out that I didn’t do the best job of writing frequently and ended up with a grand total of three posts.
For those of you who are still curious, however, I found something much better! Yesterday morning, Boing Boing linked to a profile of Nehru Place on Our Delhi Struggle, an awesome blog written by two New Yorkers currently who are living and working in Delhi. The post on Nehru Place caught my interest because I happened to be there exactly one month ago on a mission to find a new power adapter for my laptop — the previous one died with dramatic sound effects due to a voltage spike which somehow made it past my precautionary surge protector.
Jenny and Dave do a great job of capturing everyday life and experiences (of Americans visiting or living) in India through brilliant writing and beautiful photography. They’ve covered topics ranging from infrastructure frustrations to development to healthcare to social norms to poverty, and most of their experiences, reactions, and insights mirror my own. I quickly found myself reading through their entire blog archive, and am sure that their posts will resonate with anyone who’s visited India in the past.
As for my travelblogging habits, I promise I’ll try to do better next time!
July 10, 2008 | no comments | tags: india, travel
Waste Management in an Age of Disposable Goods
Last month, I visited Goonj, a Delhi-based NGO which began in 1998 with a focus on the reuse of clothing. Now a decade old, the organization distributes over 20,000 kilograms of material ranging from clothes to school supplies to computers throughout South Asia every month.
Though I was primarily there to evaluate the possibilities of partnering Ujaala’s efforts in the Pacific Northwest with Goonj, the feature of my visit was a tour of their sorting facilities, which turned out to be quite an impressive operation. What began as a small organization quite similar to Ujaala’s has visibly evolved into a well-planned and thoughtfully executed process of collecting, sorting, recycling, packaging, and distributing various material through a network of NGOs spread across the country.
For example, Ujaala’s clothing drive in Portland last year concentrated its efforts around clean and wearable clothing, due to limited resources like washing machines and volunteer hours available to sort and package the clothes. At Goonj, clothes are sorted based on type and condition, with torn or otherwise damaged clothing reused for other purposes including drawstrings, sanitary napkins, and other items. Lightly damaged clothes are repaired with sewing machines. Everything is finally made into sets which are tied together with a thin strip of salvaged cloth.
Apart from collection and processing, the organization’s mission was quite obviously applied in the other steps of its process. The sorting efforts described above were staffed by members of the local community, and used as an opportunity to provide incomes to individuals in need. At the other end of the chain, Goonj works with its partner NGOs to use the donated materials as incentives for positive behavior rather than simple charity, which could mean something as simple as giving the school supplies to attentive students. To top it all off, the organization does its own printing on the backsides of used paper.
Wild Elephants and Tigers, oh my!
In mid-April, our group decided to take a trip to Corbett National Park, which is a large and famous tiger reserve in southern Uttarakhand. Our visit was an incredible learning experience, as it not only provided an opportunity to view rare wildlife but also to consider some important issues regarding park management and ecotourism. While in the park, I noticed many tenuous issues, especially with regards to the park’s heavy regulation of tourist activity and its relationship with the surrounding community.
As we first drove into the park, I was immediately drawn to notice the contrast in access models between American national parks against Corbett’s strict limitations on vehicles and pedestrians within the park. I am accustomed to parks in the US with universal access provided by way of well-paved roads, large visitor centers, and recreational facilities including campgrounds and miles of hiking trails. The threat to visitors’ lives exists in both cases – put simply, here, it’s due to tigers and leopards, and there, bears and wolves. In cases where strict rules are absolutely necessary in the US, such as in extremely fragile alpine climates, regulation exists in the form of required permits and limited trails. Thus, I wonder how differences in access policy affect conservation efforts in parks, as I believe most human impact in these environments is caused by tourist activity.
My second thought was about the park’s history. Given India’s high population density, it was hard to imagine that the area within the park’s boundaries was previously uninhabited. I have since learned that upon the park’s creation, people were forced to move outside of its borders in order to provide a sanctuary for tigers and other wildlife. While this effort has resulted in measurable success to conserve India’s tiger population over the last few decades, it has undoubtedly had an impact upon the surrounding community.
We stayed at a dormitory residence in Dhikala, a small settlement in the center of the park, which is surrounded by a formidable electric fence. From there, we were able to explore the park via jeep and elephant safari every morning and afternoon. Since we stayed there for two nights, we had the opportunity to go out four times, and every trip resulted in sightings of elephants, deer, birds, and other wildlife. On top of all of that, we were able to get a glimpse of a tiger in the wild!
As we left the park, we had an opportunity to sit in on an seminar hosted by the International Ecotourism Society. Because the park attracts a significant number of visitors every year, tourism has become an important part of the economy in the surrounding areas, including the nearby towns of Ramnagar and Chhoti Haldwani. While we were there, Carolyn Wild, an ecotourism consultant from Canada, gave a well-attended talk on using indicators to assist in sustainable tourism development. While giving the presentation, she focused on leveraging tourism to provide benefits for the local community, while promoting sustainable development to attract more tourists in the future.
Along these lines, while she expressed the importance of sustainable tourism development, Wild did little to explain what measures could be taken to attain sustainability. Had she done so, the audience would have been better equipped to make tangible changes in their businesses and lifestyles to practice sustainable tourism development in the Corbett region. In addition, Wild did not discuss the education of tourists as a means for protection of the surrounding environment instead choosing to focus on the economic wealth brought to a region by tourists.
Judging by the audience present at the seminar, the impact of tourism has likely been largely positive due to increased tourism in the region. I am curious to know how the park’s creation has affected people who are not directly involved with tourism, as well as in other regions where park creation is similarly taking place today.
All in all, I was completely awed by the experience of staying in and exploring this vast wildlife reserve. Hopefully it will remain a successful endeavor to conserve nature and biodiversity for future generations.
May 20, 2008 | no comments | tags: ecotourism, india, studyabroad, travel
Blogging from the Himalayas
This quarter, I’m studying abroad with the UW South Asia Center in India’s mountainous northern province of Uttarakhand. Along with 11 other students from Seattle, I will be studying forest ecology, sustainable development, and culture of the Kumaon region, over a span of ten weeks. In addition, we will be working closely with Chirag, a well-established non-governmental organization in Uttarakhand which works to promote development in the area.
Every time I travel to India, I begin to convince myself that I’ve become accustomed to the 20+ hour journey. However, every time I visit again, it becomes uncomfortably apparent that there’s no getting used to the long flights, extreme time difference, change of climate, and of food and water.
Since this is the first time I’ve visited India outside of the peak winter season, I was surprised to find that the 747 we boarded in Amsterdam was carrying less than a third of its capacity for passengers. Upon landing in New Delhi (after spending eight hours stretched out across multiple economy class seats), our group quickly cleared customs, picked up our baggage, and climbed aboard a chartered bus heading towards our hostel at Connaught Place.
We spent two days in Delhi — just enough time to decompress, orient ourselves in the city, and get some shopping out of the way — before escaping the heat with overnight accommodations on the northbound Ranikhet Express. The next morning, we arrived at the railhead in Kathgodam and transitioned to yet another method of transportation, this time onto three jeeps which carried us upwards on winding mountain roads to our final destination at Sonapani.
In the past week, we’ve spent some time becoming familiar with the area, our coursework, and Chirag’s ongoing projects. I plan to continue blogging over the next few months about our work and travel excursions in the region.
Stay tuned for more!
April 8, 2008 | no comments | tags: chirag, india, studyabroad, travel