People | News | Research | Papers| Hiring
The Technology for Emerging Markets group seeks to address the needs and aspirations of people in the world's developing communities. Our research targets people who are increasingly consuming computing technologies and services as well as those for whom access to computing remains largely out of reach.
TEM is a multidisciplinary group engaged in a range of technical and social-science research. By combining a variety of backgrounds and training, we are able to engage deeply with some of the complex problems associated with poverty and scarce resources. Our goal is to study, design, build, and evaluate technologies and systems that are useful for people living in underserved rural and urban communities.
Based in Bangalore with Microsoft Research India, we work closely with a variety of partners, including NGOs, universities, government, and private companies. We also work with several groups within Microsoft, but our emphasis is on rigorous research and exploratory pilots rather than product, business, or partner development.
People
|
|
|
|
| |
|
Andrew Cross |
||||
|
|
|
|
| |
TEM News
Current Projects & Research Areas
|
|
Technologies for healthcare Bill Thies, Jonathan Donner, Ed Cutrell We are exploring how information technology can aid health workers and patients in improving health outcomes in both rural and urban environments. Projects include tools for collecting health information, tools for patient and medication tracking and field work on the role of mobile phones in healthcare and healthful living. |
 |
We are working on multiple projects aimed at understanding how ICTs can be effectively used to improve education in developing regions. We are developing new systems and techniques to assist both teachers and students in and out of schools to improve their learning experiences. More info... |
 |
Financial service delivery to the poor Jonathan Donner, Indrani Medhi We are conducting primary research to understand the ways in which low-income households access and use financial services from various providers. We study whether and how different technologies enable the use of lower-cost and higher-quality financial services by poor households. More info... |
 |
Mobile phone-enabled banking and payments Jonathan Donner, Indrani Medhi, Ed Cutrell This project examines a range of mobile phone-based banking and payment solutions across countries, understanding the usability of m-banking systems by low-literate clients, the security of financial transactions conducted over low-end phones, as well as the social and economic context and impact of the new channel on low-income households. More info... |
 |
Everyday mobile use in the developing world The majority of the world’s 4 billion mobile subscriptions are in the developing world, and mobiles are woven into nearly every facet of human life. Our project explores the diversity of mobile use in settings where the mobile is the primary ICT, while identifying generalizable patterns and trends. More info... |
|
|
User interfaces for low literate users The goal of this research is to understand, devise and implement design principles such that a non-literate person can, at first contact with a PC or phone, immediately realize useful interaction with minimal or no assistance. This work comprises extensive ethnography to arrive at design principles that could apply to non-literate groups new to ICTs. Check out the exhibit from MOMA which features text-free user interfaces! |
 |
Kelsa+: IT access for low-income office workers Kelsa+ is a program that offers low-income support staff in modern offices Internet-connected PCs for free, unrestricted use during their off-duty hours. This project assesses how such a program affects workers' basic digital literacy, and how that it turn affects self-esteem, skill development and work opportunities. More info... |
 |
Information environment of micro-enterprises Businesses with five or fewer employees, called micro-enterprises, support many rural and urban households in developing nations. We are conducting qualitative and quantitative research to explore the overall information and communication behaviors of micro-enterprises. More info... |
 |
Adoption of ICTs in urban slums This work explores the adoption of information & communication technologies in the context of urban slums in Mumbai. We are conducting ethnographic research amongst ICT-based business like mobile phone stores, cyber cafes, PC assembling units and computer training institutes to map the ecologies of mobile phones and PCs in these communities. More info... |
|
|
Public Access, Private Phone How does the spread of the mobile internet alter the established role of public access venues such as telecentres, libraries, and cybercafés? This study explores the interplay between mobile internet and public access use by resource-constrained teenagers in urban South Africa. The year-long project is a collaboration with Dr. Marion Walton at the University of Cape Town, and is part of the University of Washington’s Global Impact Study. The project page resides at globalimpactstudy.org |
Preeti Mudliar, Jonathan Donner, and William Thies, Emergent Practices Around CGNet Swara, A Voice Forum for Citizen Journalism in Rural India, in Proceedings of the International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development, ACM, March 2012
Nimmi Rangaswamy and Nithya Sambasivan, Cutting chai, Jugaad, and Here Pheri: Towards a UbiComp for a Global community, in Personal and Ubiquitous Computing , vol. 15, no. 6, pp. 553-564, Springer Verlag, June 2011
William Thies, Aishwarya Lakshmi Ratan, and James Davis, Paid Crowdsourcing as a Vehicle for Global Development, ACM CHI 2011 Workshop on Crowdsourcing and Human Computation , May 2011
Jonathan Donner, Shikoh Gitau, and Gary Marsden, Exploring mobile-only internet use: results of a training study in urban South Africa, in International Journal of Communication, vol. 5, pp. 574–597, 11 April 2011
Marion Walton and Jonathan Donner, Read-Write-Erase: Mobile-mediated publics in South Africa’s 2009 elections, pp. 117-132, Transaction Publishers, 4 April 2011
Marshini Chetty, Richard Banks, AJ Brush, Jonathan Donner, and Rebecca E. Grinter, While the Meter is Running: Computing in a Capped World, in Interactions Volume 18, Issue 2, vol. 18, ACM, 1 March 2011
Akhil Mathur, Divya Ramachandran, Edward Cutrell, and Ravin Balakrishnan, An exploratory study on the use of camera phones and pico projectors in rural India, in Proceedings of the 13th International Conference on Human Computer Interaction with Mobile Devices and Services, ACM, New York, NY, USA, 2011
Edward Cutrell, Context and design in ICT for global development, in UN Chronicle. United Nations in a united world., United Nations, 2011
Nithya Sambasivan, Julie Weber, and Edward Cutrell, Designing a phone broadcasting system for urban sex workers in India, in Proceedings of the 2011 annual conference on Human factors in computing systems, ACM, New York, NY, USA, 2011
Rajeev Rastogi, Ed Cutrell, Manish Gupta, Ashok Jhunjhunwala, Ramkumar Narayan, and Rajeev Sanghal, Connecting the next billion web users, in Proceedings of the 20th international conference companion on World wide web, ACM, New York, NY, USA, 2011
Photo: Divya Ramachandran
