People | News | Research | Papers|
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.
TEM News
- mBillionth Award & Manthan Award : The Digital Empowerment Foundation has awarded Operation ASHA an mBillionth Award and a Manthan Award for “Ensuring reliability of Tuberculosis DOTS medications using low-cost biometrics and mobile phone.” Video here & and livemint article about mobiles & public services. Congratulations to Bill Thies & the Operation ASHA team!
- Welcome Andrew: Andrew Cross has joined TEM as a Research Assistant. He recently completed his Master's degree from the University of Cambridge, UK. Welcome, Andrew!
- Welcome Aditya: Aditya Vashistha has joined TEM as a Research Assistant. He previously worked at the Infosys Labs, Bangalore. Welcome, Aditya!
- Farewell Kaleem: Kaleem Rahman, former Research Assistant, has left TEM to pursue a Masters at the HCI Institute, Carnegie Mellon University. Best of luck, Kaleem!
- Farewell Aishwarya, Saurabh: Aishwarya Lakshmi Ratan, former Associate Researcher and Saurabh Panjwani, former Post-doc Researcher, have recently left TEM. Aishwarya is headed to serve as Director of the Microsavings and Payments Innovation Initiative (MPII) at Yale University. Saurabh will be joining Bell Labs India as a Researcher working for their emerging markets applications group. Best of luck, Aishwarya and Saurabh!
- Another India TR-35: TEM does it for the second consecutive year at India TR-35! This year, Aishwarya Lakshmi Ratan was named to the India TR-35 list of outstanding innovators under 35. Congratulations! Check out the press here!
Current Projects & Research Areas
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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. |
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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... |
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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... |
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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... |
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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... |
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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! |
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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... |
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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... |
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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... |
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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 |
Aditya Vashistha, Ed Cutrell, and Bill Thies, Mapping Interactive Voice Response Call Data in Developing Regions, ACM CHI 2013 Workshop on Geographic Human-Computer Interaction, May 2013
Andrew Cross, Mydhili Bayyapunedi, Edward Cutrell, Anant Agarwal, and William Thies, TypeRighting: Combining the Benefits of Handwriting and Typeface in Online Educational Videos, 29 April 2013
Sebastien Cuendet, Indrani Medhi, Kalika Bali, and Edward Cutrell, VideoKheti: Making video content accessible to low-literate and novice users, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, April 2013
Indrani Medhi, Meera Lakshmanan, Kentaro Toyama, and Edward Cutrell, Some Evidence for Impact of Limited Education on Hierarchical User Interface Navigation, ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, April 2013
Ted McCarthy, Joyojeet Pal, and Edward Cutrell, The “voice” has it: screen reader adoption and switching behavior among vision impaired persons in India, in Assistive Technology: The Official Journal of RESNA, Taylor & Francis, 27 February 2013
Jonathan Donner and Marion Walton, Your phone has internet - why are you at a library PC? Re-imagining public access for the mobile internet era, in Proc. Interact 2013, Springer, 2013
Pranav Ramkrishnan, Aditya Vashistha, Ed Cutrell, and Bill Thies, DocTalk: Extending Doctors' Reach with Personalized Voice Messages, ACM Symposium on Computing for Development (ACM DEV), January 2013
Dipanjan Chakraborty, Indrani Medhi, Edward Cutrell, and William Thies, Man versus Machine: Evaluating IVR versus a Live Operator for Phone Surveys in India, ACM Symposium on Computing for Development (ACM DEV), January 2013
Rijurekha Sen, Andrew Cross, Aditya Vashistha, Venkat Padmanabhan, Edward Cutrell, and William Thies, Accurate speed and density measurement for road traffic in India, in Proceedings of ACM Symposium on Computing for Development (DEV 2013), ACM, January 2013
Kalika Bali, Sunayana Sitaram, Sebastien Cuendet, and Indrani Medhi, A Hindi Speech Recognizer for an Agricultural Video Search Application, ACM Symposium on Computing for Development (ACM DEV), January 2013
Photo: Divya Ramachandran
