NextLab I: Designing Mobile Technologies for the Next Billion Users
As taught in: Fall 2008
NextLab designs mobile technologies for the next billion users in developing countries.
Instructors:
Mr. Jhonatan Rotberg
Dr. Luis Sarmenta
Dr. Gari Clifford
Dr. Rich Fletcher
Dr. Luis Sarmenta
Dr. Gari Clifford
Dr. Rich Fletcher
MIT Course Number:
MAS.965 / 6.976 / SP.716
Level:
Undergraduate / Graduate
Course Highlights
Course Description
Can you make a cellphone change the world?
NextLab is a hands-on year-long design course in which students research, develop and deploy mobile technologies for the next billion mobile users in developing countries. Guided by real-world needs as observed by local partners, students work in multidisciplinary teams on term-long projects, closely collaborating with NGOs and communities at the local level, field practitioners, and experts in relevant fields.
Students are expected to leverage technical ingenuity in both mobile and internet technologies together with social insight in order to address social challenges in areas such as health, microfinance, entrepreneurship, education, and civic activism. Students with technically and socially viable prototypes may obtain funding for travel to their target communities, in order to obtain the first-hand feedback necessary to prepare their technologies for full fledged deployment into the real world (subject to guidelines and limitations).
NextLab is a hands-on year-long design course in which students research, develop and deploy mobile technologies for the next billion mobile users in developing countries. Guided by real-world needs as observed by local partners, students work in multidisciplinary teams on term-long projects, closely collaborating with NGOs and communities at the local level, field practitioners, and experts in relevant fields.
Students are expected to leverage technical ingenuity in both mobile and internet technologies together with social insight in order to address social challenges in areas such as health, microfinance, entrepreneurship, education, and civic activism. Students with technically and socially viable prototypes may obtain funding for travel to their target communities, in order to obtain the first-hand feedback necessary to prepare their technologies for full fledged deployment into the real world (subject to guidelines and limitations).
Syllabus
This is NextLab
This video was produced
and provided by nextlab via Vimeo, and is not covered under our Creative Commons license.
Lecture Videos
Videos, slides and other materials on individual projects can be found on the projects pages.
| SES # | LECTURES AND CASE STUDIES | READINGS DISCUSSIONS |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Introduction to NextLab | |
| 2 | Proposal selection process (PDF) Project proposal presentations | |
| 3 | Needs assessment (Guest lecture by Rachel Hall-Clifford)Team formation | |
| 4 | Class logisticsPlanning ICT4D Interventions | Heeks. "ICT4D 2.0: The Next Phase of Applying ICT for International Development." Donner et al. "Stages of Design in Technology for Global Development." Pentland et al. "DakNet: rethinking connectivity in developing nations."
|
| 5 | Economic and social conditions Technology survey / ICT penetration | Banerjee and Duflo. "The Economic Lives of the Poor."Jensen. "The Digital Provide: Information (Technology), Market Performance, and Welfare in the South Indian Fisheries Sector."
|
| 6 | Milestone 1: Elevator pitch, including related work | |
| 7 | Social and cultural considerations (PDF) | Malink. "Design of Health Care Technologies for the Developing World."Caldwell. "Cultural and Social Factors Influencing Mortality Levels in Developing Countries."
|
| 8 | Milestone 1 continued | |
| 9 | ICT4D history | Kumar. "eChoupals: A Study on the Financial Sustainability of Village Internet Centers in Rural Madhya Pradesh."
|
| 10 | Milestone 3 requirementsMilestone 2: Presentations on needs assessment results | |
| 11 | Milestone 2 results (continued) | |
| 12 | Interfaces | Parishk et al. "Design studies for a financial management system for micro-credit groups in rural India." Parikh and Lazowa. "Designing an architecture for delivering mobile info services to rural developing world." Mehdi et al. "Text-Free User Interfaces for Illiterate and Semiliterate Users." Mehdi and Toyama. "Full-Context Videos for First-Time, Non-Literate PC Users."
|
| 13 | Two guest lectures: 1) An Introduction to the GSMA’s Mobile Innovation Market and Development Fund. (Guest lecture by Andy McGuire, GSMA.) 2) Microsoft Innovation Partnership Program (Guest lecture by Smeeta Hirani, Microsoft.) Milestone 3: Presentations on system design and initial implementation results | |
| 14 | Health (PDF) (Courtesy of Gari Clifford. Used with permission.) | Clifford, G., et al. "Medical information systems: A foundation for healthcare technologies in developing countries."Blaya et al. "A web-based laboratory information system to improve quality of care of tuberculosis patients in Peru: functional requirements, implementation and usage statistics." Anantraman et al. "Handheld computers for rural healthcare: Experiences from research concept to global operations." Sherwani et al. "HealthLine: Speech-based Access to Health Information by Low-literate Users." Fraser et al. "An information system and medical record to support HIV treatment in rural Haiti." Malkin, "Technologies for clinically relevant physiological measurements in developing countries."
|
| 15 | Milestone 3 results (continued) | |
| 16 | Disaster management Health (continued) | Szot et al. "Diagnostic Accuracy of Chest X-rays Using a Digital Camera for Low-Cost Teleradiology."Plauché and Nallasamy. "Speech interfaces for equitable access to information technology."
|
| 17 | Milestone 4: Sustainability and financial factors | |
| 18 | Milestone 4 continued | |
| 19 | Education | Leach. "DEEP IMPACT: an investigation of the use of information and communication technologies for teacher education in the global south."Kam et al. "Localized iterative design for language learning in underdeveloped regions." Kremer and Miguel. "Worms: Identifying Impacts on Health & Education in Presence of Treatment Externalites."
|
| 20 | Mobile money and transactions | Wishart. "Micro-Payment Systems and Their Application to Mobile Networks."Vodafone and Nokia. "The Transformational Potential of M-Transactions." Obopay
|
| 21 | Milestone 5: Demo | |
| 22 | Milestone 5 continued Nextlab Final Presentation Template | |
| 23 | Milestone 6: Final presentation practice | |
| 24 | Milestone 6 continued | |
| 25 | Conclusion | |
| 26 | Final presentation event Opening remarks by Jhonatan Rotberg and Luis Sarmenta For individual project presentations and demonstrations, see the Projects pages. |
Readings
This page presents the complete reading list for the course.
Many of these papers were selected for in-class presentation and discussion by the students. Videos of these discussions and associated presentation slides are available through the lecture videos page, or by following the individual links provided in the following table.
Many of these papers were selected for in-class presentation and discussion by the students. Videos of these discussions and associated presentation slides are available through the lecture videos page, or by following the individual links provided in the following table.
Recommended Readings
| READINGS | DISCUSSIONS |
|---|---|
| Session 4: planning ICT4D interventions | |
| Donner, Jonathan, et al. "Stages of Design in Technology for Global Development." IEEE Computer 41, no. 6 (2008): 34-41. | Videos and slides |
| Heeks, Richard. "ICT4D 2.0: The Next Phase of Applying ICT for International Development." IEEE Computer 41, no. 6 (June 2008): 26-33. | |
Pentland, A., R. Fletcher, and A. Hassan. "DakNet: Rethinking Connectivity in Developing Nations." IEEE Computer 37, no. 1. (January 2004): 78-83. ( PDF) | |
| Hudelson, Patricia M. "Introduction," and "The Toolbox." Chapters 1 and 2 in Qualitative Research for Health Programmes. Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization, WHO/MNH/PSF/94.3, 1994. (PDF) (Pay particular attention to Chapter 2 section on focus groups.) | |
| Varkevisser, Corlien M., Indra Pathmanathan, and Ann Templeton Brownlee. "Design of Research Instruments; Interview Guides and Interview Skills." Module 10B in Designing and Conducting Health Systems Research Projects 1, 2003. | |
| Veeraraghavan, Rajesh, Naga Yasodhar, and Kentaro Toyama. "Warana Unwired: Replacing PCs with Mobile Phones in a Rural Sugarcane Cooperative." International Conference on Information & Communication Technologies for Development, Bangalore India, 2007. | |
| Session 5: economic and social conditions | |
| Banerjee, Abhijit V., and Esther Duflo. "The Economic Lives of the Poor." The Journal of Economic Perspectives 21, no. 1 (February 23, 2007): 141-167. | Video and slides |
| Jensen, Robert. "The Digital Provide: Information (Technology), Market Performance, and Welfare in the South Indian Fisheries Sector." The Quarterly Journal of Economics 122, no. 3 (2007): 879-924. | Video and slides |
| Karnani, Aneel G. "Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: A Mirage." University of Michigan Ross School of Business Paper No. 1035. California Management Review (forthcoming). Available at SSRN. | |
| Session 5: technology survery / ICT penetration | |
 Horst, Heather, and Daniel Miller, eds. Selected chapters in The Cell Phone: An Anthropology of Communication. Oxford, NY: Berg Publishers, 2006. ISBN: 9781845204013. [Preview this book in Google Books.] | |
| Session 7: social and cultural considerations | |
| Caldwell, John C. "Cultural and Social Factors Influencing Mortality Levels in Developing Countries." The Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science 510, no. 1 (July 1, 1990): 44-59. | Video and slides |
| Malkin, Robert A. "Design of Health Care Technologies for the Developing World." Annual Review of Biomedical Engineering 9 (July 25, 2007): 567-587. | Video and slides |
| Wells, Stewart, and Chris Bullen. "A Near Miss: The Importance of Context in a Public Health Informatics Project in a New Zealand Case Study." Journal of the American Medical Informatics Association 15, no. 5, pp. 701-704. | |
| Session 9: ICT4D history | |
| Cohen, Nevin. "What Works: Grameen Telecom's Village Phones." A Digital Dividend Study by the World Resources Institute, June 2001. (PDF) | |
| Kumar, Richa. "eChoupals: A Study on the Financial Sustainability of Village Internet Centers in Rural Madhya Pradesh." Information Technologies and International Development 2, no. 1 (2004): 45-74. (PDF) | Video and slides |
| Surana, Sonesh, et al. "Deploying a Rural Wireless Telemedicine System: Experiences in Sustainability." IEEE Computer 41, no. 6 (June 2008): 48-56. | |
| Session 12: interfaces | |
| Medhi, Indrani, and Kentaro Toyama. "Full-Context Videos for First-Time, Non-Literate PC Users." Presented at CHI 2007, San Jose, CA: ACM, 2007. (PDF) | Video |
| Medhi, Indrani, Aman Sagar, and Kentaro Toyama. "Text-Free User Interfaces for Illiterate and Semiliterate Users." Information Technologies and International Development 4, no. 1 (2007): 37-50. (PDF) | Video and slides |
| Parikh, Tapan, Kaushik Ghosh, and Apala Chavan. "Design Studies for a Financial Management System for Micro-credit Groups in Rural India." In Proceedings of the 2003 Conference on Universal Usability. Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada: ACM, 2003. | Video and slides |
| Parikh, Tapan S., and Edward D. Lazowska. "Designing an Architecture for Delivering Mobile Information Services to the Rural Developing World." In Proceedings of the 15th International Conference on World Wide Web. Edinburgh, Scotland: ACM, 2006. | Video and slides |
| Plauché, Madeline, and Udhyakumar Nallasamy. "Speech Interfaces for Equitable Access to Information Technology." Information Technologies and International Development 4, no. 1 (2007): 69-86. (PDF) | Video and slides |
| Session 14-16: health | |
| Anantraman, V., et al. "Handheld Computers for Rural Healthcare: Experiences from Research Concept to Global Operations." Proceedings of Development by Design, 1-10. (PDF) | Video and slides |
| Blaya, J. A., et al. "A Web-based Laboratory Information System to Improve Quality of Care of Tuberculosis Patients in Peru: Functional Requirements, Implementation and Usage Statistics." BMC Medical Informatics and Decision Making 7, no. 33 (2007). doi:10.1186/1472-6947-7-33. Formats: (full text HTML) (PDF - 1.0 MB) | Video and slides |
| Clifford, G. D., J. A. Blaya, R. Hall-Clifford, and H. S. F. Fraser. "Medical Information Systems: A Foundation for Healthcare Technologies in Developing Countries." BioMedical Engineering OnLine 7, no. 18 (2008). doi:10.1186/1475-925X-7-18. Formats: (full text HTML) (PDF) | Video and slides |
| Derenzi, Brian, et al. "e-IMCI: Improving Pediatric Health Care in Low-income Countries." CHI '08: Proceeding of the Twenty-sixth Annual SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 2008, pp. 753-762. (PDF) | |
| Fraser, H. S. F., et al. "An Information System and Medical Record to Support HIV Treatment in Rural Haiti." British Medical Journal 329 (2004): 1142-1146. Formats: (full text HTML) (PDF) | Video and slides |
| Malkin, Robert A. "Technologies for Clinically Relevant Physiological Measurements in Developing Countries." Physiol Meas 28 (2007): R57-R63. doi:10.1088/0967-3334/28/8/R01. | Video and slides |
| Sherwani, J., et al. "HealthLine: Speech-based Access to Health Information by Low-literate Users." In Proc. IEEE/ACM Int'l Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development, Bangalore, India, December 2007. (PDF) | Video and slides |
| Szot, A., et al. "Diagnostic Accuracy of Chest X-rays Acquired Using a Digital Camera for Low-Cost Teleradiology." Int J Med Inform 73 no. 1 (2004): 65-73. (PDF) | Video and slides |
| Session 19: education | |
| Kam, Matthew, et al. "Localized Iterative Design for Language Learning in Underdeveloped Regions: the PACE Framework." In CHI '07: Proceedings of the SIGCHI Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems. San Jose, CA: ACM, 2007, pp. 1097-1106. (PDF) | Video and slides |
| Kremer, Michael, and Edward Miguel. "Worms: Identifying Impacts on Health and Education in the Presence of Treatment Externalities." Poverty Action Lab, September, 2001. ( PDF) | Video and slides |
| Leach, Jenny, et al. Selected chapters in DEEP IMPACT: An Investigation of the Use of Information and Communication Technologies for Teacher Education in the Global South. Department for International Development, 2005. Full report: (PDF - 5.9 MB); executive summary: (PDF) | Video and slides |
| Session 20: mobile payments and transactions | |
| Vodafone, Nokia, and Nokia-Siemens Networks. The Transformational Potential of M-Transactions, Policy Paper Series No. 6 (July 2007). (PDF) | Video and slides |
| Wishart, Neville. "Micro-Payment Systems and Their Application to Mobile Networks." InfoDev, January 2006. | Video and slides |
| Session 21: environment and other applications | |
| Workshop on ICTs, the Environment and Climate Change. OECD and Danish Ministry of Science, Technology and Innovation, National IT and Telecom Agency. Copenhagen, Denmark, 22-23 May 2008. | |
| Supporting technical references | |
| Li, S., and J. Knudsen. Beginning J2ME: From Novice to Professional. 3rd ed. Berkeley, CA: Apress, 2005. ISBN: 9781590594797. [Preview this book at Google Books.] | |
| Course materials from MIT EPROM (Entrepreneurial Programming and Research on Mobiles). | |
Projects
Project Milestones
The project teams progressed through a sequence of seven milestones during the term. Presentation slides summarizing the milestone requirements are provided below for the first three milestones.- Elevator Pitch and Related Work (PDF)
- Needs Assessments Initial Results (PDF)
- System Design, and Initial Implementation Results (PDF)
- Sustainability / Financial Factors
- Feature Complete, General Progress Report
- Working Demo
- Final Presentation Event
Project Team Pages
From a longer list of potential projects, student teams worked on the following seven projects. Each of the following links goes to a page presenting videos and slides of final results, as well as interim milestones and some supplemental project materials.| ECONOMIC EMPOWERMENT |
| Giving Farmers a Fighting Chance (with ITESM Zacatecas, Mexico) |
| Get New Money: Multilevel marketing for microfinance (with Cobiscorp Bank, Ecuador) |
| M-commerce (with United Villages, India) |
| HEALTH |
| MoCa: Mobile diagnostics for cervical cancer (with CIDRZ, Zambia) |
| EDUCATION |
| Fellows Forum: Mobile social network for students in low-income communities (with Telmex, Mexico) |
| ENVIRONMENT AND COMMUNITY |
| NextMap: Disaster Management (with CRS, India and InnovGreen, Vietnam) |
| Thrive in 5 Baby Blog (with Mayor’s Office, Boston) |
Download Course Materials
This package contains the same content as the online version of the course.
For help downloading and using course materials, read our frequently asked questions.
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