Bill Thies
Researcher
Microsoft Research India
thies@microsoft.com
Brief Bio
I am a researcher in the Technologies for Emerging Markets Group at Microsoft Research India. My research focuses on building appropriate information and communication technologies that contribute to the socio-economic development of low-income communities, as well as the description and automation of biology protocols on platforms such as microfluidic chips. I received all of my degrees from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, where I completed a Ph.D. in computer science in 2009.
News
- I'm co-organizing DataDev 2012, the International Workshop on Mobile Data Collection in the Developing World. Over 30 organizations are signed up, and it's not too late to join!
- Our study on participant response bias in HCI (paper, slides) appeared at CHI 2012. This paper (led by Nicki Dell) has some of the most eye-opening results I've seen since coming to India. Be careful what you ask your users, or your study will be doomed to succeed!
- Our study on mobile crowdsourcing (paper, slides, Tech Review article) appeared at CHI 2012. It describes a clever system (designed by Aakar Gupta) for sending picture-based tasks via SMS, with viral uptake by over 200 users in India.
- CGNet Swara, our voice portal for citizen journalism in rural India, was recently presented as a paper at ICTD 2012. It was also the subject of a recent TEDx talk by Shubhranshu Choudhary.
- At Persuasive 2012, we will present the first evaluation of our eCompliance terminal, a system developed with Operation ASHA and Innovators In Health to ensure reliable delivery of tuberculosis medications.
- I recently taught an intensive one-week course on building mobile services for emerging markets at Carnegie Mellon's fantastic new campus in Rwanda.
