Designing Mobile Technologies for the Next Billion Users
Fall 2008
NextLab designs mobile technologies for the next billion users in developing countries.
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).Lecture Videos
This page presents selected videos and slides for classroom lectures and case study presentations, plus student-led discussions of assigned readings. Where a video is provided on a particular topic, the corresponding slides will be found on that linked video page. PDF files linked in the table below are the slides for the associated topic, but no video is available. Some topics are also listed below but no further content is available.
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 logistics Planning 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 requirements Milestone 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 |
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