Pinnacle of Artificial Intelligence (AI)

Until recently, AI has been a neglected subject in the curriculum of most Indian Universities.  As times are changing, thanks to the frenzy of Machine Learning applications popping up everywhere, the interest in AI is gaining momentum.

My work on AI started, way back in 2001, but had to drop them, as there was lack of interest, applications, takers, market, and all...  So, whenever I get an opportunity for an invited talk (the topic would generally be of some jargon prevailing at that point of time - like Mobile Computing, Cloud Computing, Big Data, IoT etc..), I used to add a couple of slides on AI and will play to the gallery (as they say in Cricket Commentary). My objective was to spur interest on the subject.

I pepper the presentation with examples that the students can connect with. I therefore focus on applications of AI, and tell about how Facebook (as every student invariably has an account) uses algorithms such as DeepFace, IBM used Deep Blue, and now Watson - for creating a movie trailer (Morgan) etc...

I also give a brief history of AI, tell them the craze over today's programming languages such as Java - being an OOP language - were derived from Frames and Concepts (Ontologies) in AI.

Then coming back to AI, I also tell about the pinnacle of intellectual ability expected from AI systems, as we keep raising the bar of the required intelligence continuously. I introduce them to Alan Turing's test, (wherein a human tries to distinguish between a human and a machine through conversation) and then go on about the need for "contextual intelligence" that has been missing now, and go on and on and conclude with a still from the popular Tamil movie Enthiran, wherein a Robot tries to distinguish between a man and machine, which is probably the pinnacle of AI.

P.S: I used to wonder whether the story writer (and director) of the movie did this in full realization.

Chennai Floods and Probable Techno Solutions

Chennai Floods and the damages it had caused to life and lifeless things are enormous. Hope the people rebuilt it with zeal to make it a better place, withstanding any natural and man-made disasters in the future.

This post tries to dream or fantasize, how much could be done to minimize the pain and suffering of the people who were badly affected, by using the upcoming and future technologies.

1. Electrical Power 

The most fundamental element - as lots and lots of our equipment and devices, food and even water are dependent on electricity. So, we badly need a way to generate it with little manual power in case of emergency situations. A recent innovation unveiled by Manoj Bhargava that uses pedaling power to produce electricity is a good place to start with. A detailed article can be found here. Probably a leaner, efficient and compact machine for individual homes, if becomes available in future will be grabbed by many! 

2. Water 

People need clean and pure drinking water.In today's environment, the water is pumped up to the overhead tanks through electrically powered motors. So, electricity is required, and of course regular water supply is also required. With these two constraints in getting the drinking water, it's going to be tougher in these situations. Even if we manage to get, purification will be another problem, unless people use the traditional LPG stove and boil the water for 20+ minutes. Low-energy water purification systems that may come into play in future can be found here. 

3. Communication and Home Delivery 

With energy being available, communication would eventually be available. Proposals to use balloons, and drones by Google and Facebook respectively aim to use the Stratosphere for providing Internet Connectivity. Whether they will be able to come out of red-tape and be able to offer these services remains, but probably will be allowed to function under emergency situations.  Also, Amazon's idea of using drones for delivery of items such as medicines will come in handy in these kind of natural calamity. 

Smart Medians or Dividers for a Smart City?

Medians or Dividers on the road serve as an excellent tool for enforcing lane discipline and probably as a good regulator for managing the traffic. However at times, it may be a cause for an increase in traffic jams, especially on one side of the median. 

I had earlier proposed the idea of Shiftable medians (in 2011) - a sort of Dynamic Medians on the road instead of the fixed ones. The advantages are given below:

• During Peak hours, traffic is generally expected to flow in one direction. At such times, when the roads are narrow, the median will be a bigger hindrance, and in such instances, if more lanes (say 3) are allowed for the peak traffic to flow instead of existing (say 2) lanes, it will ease the flow of traffic
• For emergency vehicles, such as Ambulance, a separate lane can be facilitated, if the median can be shifted to one corner of the road 
• A median can be removed during holidays or off-hours to simply allow crowds or gatherings to pass through - on a positive note think of a Marathon or Walkathon 
• A median can be made leaner or fatter based on the need, though such a use case scenario would then be exploited for advertisement hoardings

Given that Smart City initiatives are under progress in several countries including India, it makes sense to have Shift-able medians or smart medians as it has the advantages outlined above. 

Taking it a step further, the smart medians of course would require management, which could be initially done by humans, but later managed through intelligent systems that takes several inputs including the traffic conditions, timing, traffic flow at traffic signals etc... 

Update: September 2015: Found Shiftable median concept being already used in SanFanscico Golden Gate, in January 2015, called as Moveable Median, as given below, wherein a Zipper truck is being used for shifting the median. 

Amar Bose and Bose Stereo: Passion for Excellence

Amar Gopal Bose, an American with Indian origins (born to an Indian father, who was a freedom fighter) was a professor at MIT, and CEO of the (World renowned) Bose Corporation passed away recently (June 12, 2012 at the age of 83). This short post recounts his quest and pursuit of excellence in creating world-class systems.

Bose Stereo Speakers are world-class and there is no need to shout it over the top, as its systems are installed in Sistine Chapel in Vatican City and also in the grand mosque, Masjid al-Haram in Mecca - cutting across different religions but unifying through its quality product.

Amar Bose's venture into creating the world's best audio system starts like this: Bose bought a high-end stereo system in 1956 with technically impressive specifications, thinking it will be able to reproduce the quality of sound as in a live performance in an auditorium, but failed miserably. Bose, then a professor at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), researched on acoustics and produced a stereo loudspeaker that would reproduce music as you would listen in an auditorium, and without any sub-woofers.  

Bose then founded his own company Bose Corporation in 1964 with funding from angel investors and from his mentor and professor Dr. Lee. Bose said he never wanted to do business to make money, but to try out his creative ideas and research. A point to note is that though the first speakers were a flop, subsequent product releases delivered through extensive research garnered huge appreciation and gave them required reputation. 

Bose had varied interests and developed technologies for regulating electric power on Jets, noise-canceling head phones, suspension system in cars (a very innovative technology developed after 24 years of research!)

Though a founder of a firm, he continued as a professor at MIT, till 2001; and he also donated a major chunk of shares in his company to MIT - as a gratitude to the institution. 

As I write about this genius, two thoughts occupy my mind. One is the link between passion and excellence - his passion for excellence coupled with his curiosity and persistence (what can explain several years of research without results for many years) lead to greatness; and the other is about when will the Indian academic system will create such an conducive environment for such passionate researchers to thrive?

Few Notable Quotes by Bose: 

•  I wanted to teach thought, not formulas; - as a professor to his students at MIT

•  Learn how to work through the problems you'll experience in life, in any subject - to his students

•  Better Products through Research - his company tagline

•  I went into business so that I could do interesting things that hadn’t been done before

The Laminated Truth in Digital World

It was the early 1990's, when I was in my high school.  Lamination as a technology and as a industry was growing and touching our everyday lives - in the form of laminated identity card, laminated report card, laminated photographs etc...  It protected the cards and photographs from being smudged or stained. 

We were then quite surprised by the 'neat and clean' work done, through lamination, and it became so entrenched in our conversations, a new phrase called "Laminated Truth" was created - to mean absolute truth! and to convey that the information or message heard (invariably over heard) by that person has not been altered or modified in any way. Determining the truthfulness of this "laminated truth" is entirely a different matter altogether ... 

Coming back to today's digital world, where "cut & paste" is the norm, and documents could easily be forged, how do you achieve this "laminated truth"?  - The answer is Cryptography.  A mathematical one-way function called Cryptographic Hash Function produces a fixed-size bit string for the input message. The beauty of this function is that any alteration in the input message, even as insignificant as punctuation, will produce a different output bit string. For instance "Its mine" and "Its mine." will produce different bit strings, as the second message contains a period at the end. 

The fixed-size output bit string produced by the Cryptographic Hash Function is called as "Message Digest", which form the basis for a "Digital Signature".  The digital signature is nothing but the encryption of the "Message Digest" by using a key that is personal (private key) to the author or signer of the message. This encrypted digital signature could then be decrypted only by using the one and the only another key that has a mathematical pairing with the key used for encryption, and which is generally announced publicly (public key) by the author or signer.  

Therefore the signer has a pair of keys with him or her - One of them is announced publicly - called public key, another is kept secretly - called private key. A message encrypted using public key could be decrypted only by using the private key, and a message encrypted by using private key could only be decrypted using the public key.  The digital signature provides a reliable mechanism for anybody to determine whether a message is indeed a laminated truth!  

Kaapi and Coffee

After writing about a hot and serious topic (on Religion), its time to unwind and thought I will focus on a hot but not a serious topic.

I like Coffee ... with milk and sugar; and preferably with pure coffee powder (without chicory; and preferably with Peaberry Coffee Beans) and would like it to be a filter coffee (instead of instant variety; though I like the freeze-dried instant powder); served at sipping hot levels and with froth at top.

Well the above description of Coffee refers to South Indian Filter Coffee pronounced popularly as "Kaapi". If you are keen to know, how this is prepared, follow this link , else follow these steps:

• Add 20 grams of fresh roasted coffee powder to the brew basket. 
• Pour 200 ml of freshly boiled water over the coffee powder and close the brew basket. 
• Allow it to brew for 4-6 Minutes
• Wait for the brewing cycle to complete. 
• Pour the brew into the cup
• Add fresh hot milk and sugar to the brew

Ofcourse I had tasted the modern varieties of coffee also and liked Latte Macchiato, Cafe Latte and Cafe Mocha. Though I was able to distinguish between the taste of different varieties, I only later realized the compositions of different varieties. Here they are:

• Cappuccino - Espresso (1/3) + Steamed Milk (1/3) + Milk Foam (1/3)
• Espresso - Espresso (Black Coffee) 
• Cafe Latte - Espresso (1/3) + Steamed Milk (2/3)  + Milk Foam (as a topping)
• Cafe Mocha - Espresso + Chocolate Syrup +  Steamed Milk + Whipped Cream
• Latte Macchiato - Steamed Milk (1/2.5) +  Milk Foam + (1/2.5) + Espresso (< 1/6th)
• Cafe Americano - Espresso (1/3) + Hot Water (2/3)
• Cafe au Lait - Coffee + Milk

As you can find Cafe Latte (also called simply as Latte) and Cappuccino are similar; but the proportions of Steamed Milk is higher in the former which makes it comparable with the Indian Filter Coffee, and Latte Macchiato (pronounced: lawthe muckiyatho) makes it comparable to a 'light' Indian Filter Coffee. Cappuccino and Caffe Latte both originated in Italy.  Latte Macchiato is very popular in Germany. 

As you can see Espresso is the base, and it is nothing but the coffee decoction. However espresso is prepared by a different style of brewing, especially using Espresso Coffee machines, in contrast to the simple method adopted for preparing decoction in Indian filter coffee.  Espresso is therefore liquid coffee extracted very fast under both high pressure and temperature. A 30 ml of Espresso coffee can be extracted from about 7 -10 grams of Coffee powder within 30 seconds.  The extraction takes very little time, but the espresso coffee has to be consumed immediately after brewing to get that taste.

I also found that WMF coffee machines are used in high-end restaurants and hotels, like the one below.

Think it's enough of writing about coffee! - Looking for a hot Indian filter coffee!

Wild Ideas or Fantasies?

Well, once in a while, I get interesting ideas or fantasies. OK, I could describe it using adjectives like "Wild", "Awesome",  and so on... But I don't like to do a self boasting here. These may sound like wonderful ideas, but may lack the technology or economics to be implemented. Though, I like to see these ideas into action, I am not contemplating  to take them to the next level. So, let me start spelling out one such idea (or fantasy) here. 

"As you travel in a car on a road, the heat generated due to the movement of wheels on the road, should be used to charge a layer of energy cells (solar) that are embedded on the road! and the car can draw energy from the road, when required, and when being stationed!, to run its AC's and Entertainment systems!  

Of course this might sound improbable at least for the next 25 years, but hope something close to it could spring up after 25+ years. This requires radical technologies like roads being laid with energy cells that can withstand all the rough movements on it, heat and other climatic conditions. 

An even still better one would be: Once a car (or any vehicle) has started moving it should at least  get or derive part of its energy required for further acceleration from the underlying roads."

WWW2011 and Interactions with Sir Tim Berners-Lee

The dub-dub-dub 2011 Conference (that is how they call WWW2011) was held for the first time in India, at Hyderabad, during March 28th to April 1st, and I attended it from March 30th to April 1st. The keynote speakers included: Sir Tim Berners-Lee, and also our former president, APJ Abdul Kalam.

Our former president Kalam, was as usual at his best, highlighting his vision for the nation (empower the rural and underprivileged people, through Internet & Web), and sought solutions from the research community, for NLP related challenges especially in Indian languages.

On 31st, I got a chance to listen directly to the inventor of Web: Sir Tim Berners-Lee. He did not use any slides for his presentation!, and probably it was not required, as his talk was very much animated and everyone was listening with rapt attention.

Ask him a question related to Web, and you are sure to receive a long reply, which shows his enthusiasm, excitement, and the commitment he still has over his creation, which I understood from the Q & A session, that followed his talk.

He asked the businesses, and the governments to put their data on Web, and create mechanims for an inclusive Web. He also mooted for a multi-stake holder model for governing the Internet, and eventually the Web. He talked about the extremes: Finland and Libya; He also talked about privacy concerns, and the need for being anonymous, and at the same time, highlighted the negatives associated with allowing full anonymous status.

During later part of the day, when I got a chance to directly interact, I asked him whether he still believes in his top-down approach towards Semantic Web, and after finding out that I was from C-DAC (an agency under the Govt of India), he said that govt and their departments should put all their contents on Web, in the form of Linked Data, which could pave the way for the realization of Semantic Web. He was very keen in wanting us to contribute to the linked data.

And then, I took a photograph with him, - really a memorable moment for me!, followed by my colleague and friend - Dittin Andrews.

Also, I need to mention about the General co-chair of the event: Prof. Sadagopan, who was as usual at his best - Warm & Witty. He was the prime person responsible for bringing this conference to India; first tried in 2001, and then in 2006 successfully won the bid, to bring the 2011 conference to India! Lastly about the Venue: HICC - Wonderful place to be; and I could not forget the Coffee that was served throughout the event from the WMF combiNation vending machines.

I forgot the art of Handwriting!

It was mid (19)80's, when I was in school, and had to do a lot of homework each and every day, assigned by teachers of various subjects, who taught on that day. There were two standard homeworks that had to be done each day for the subject of English - One, a vocabulary work - where we have to write about 5 'not-so-common' words from the dictionary, and Two, a handwriting work - where we need to write one page passage as legibly and neatly as possible.

Now, it appears to me all those efforts were waste, because these days, I rarely get an opportunity to write anything on my own handwriting, except for signature. Writing on paper with pen, has changed to typing on your favorite word processor, and if required, printing it out later.

Many would be complaining about the loss of 'personal touch', in computer-typed & printed documents. For those such people, here comes a technique that would help you regain that personal touch, despite it being computer-typed & printed. Check this link for more details.

Now, for those of you who had been signing paper after paper, each day, and cribbing about the 'manual' process, stop worrying as the technology of 'digital signatures', (not same as scanning and printing of your hand-written signature) has arrived long back, and the 'legality' of such 'digital signatures' had been enacted as a law, in India, almost 11 years ago!!! (in the year 2000).

For those of you who have already been using digital signatures, and complaining about its use only once or few times in a year - like at the time of filing your IT returns, do not worry much, as more and more applications would become available in the coming years, and 10 years later, from now, you will rarely find an opportunity, to sign using your hand and might probably be using it over greeting cards or gift packs only.

So, for the future generations, there may be hardly any need to learn the art of writing by hand, unless otherwise they are planning to become artists!

Research is Costly!

If you had been guessing that I am going to talk about some Sci-fi or life-involving scientific research here, then you are going to be disappointed.

This week, I had the privilege of attending two events - one was an open discussion forum (that had two renowned guests - one was Dr S P Mudur, and the other was Dr N Vijayaditya), and a project review committee meeting for a project, that was into developing a product, out of research efforts.

In the open discussion forum, after a few questions (including one by myself, on IT infrastructure), the discussions steered towards research in general (with IT or other innovations at the back of the mind). The summary of the discussion was that even a very non-critical research involves risk - risk of time, manpower, & money. Out of several attempts made in research, only a few of them may succeed over time, and that too the success is not guaranteed. This is in a country like India with more than a billion population, translates to spending very less on research, and expecting results in a short time, which imposes constraints on the researchers, to focus on short-term goals rather than long-term goals.

In the later project meeting, there were comparisons drawn between the product developed on home-grown research efforts, and products developed by well-known MNC's. Though the fact that the cost involved in terms of money, time, and manpower, are in no way comparable with those of the MNC products, the expectations were always there. Also, the costs associated to take the product beyond the labs, to a wide-scale user base was even more prohibitively costly affair!, which is the main reason that most of the research prototypes do not see the end of the light, and just lay in the labs.

What's more is that, even cash-rich companies or developed western nations do not expect all their research efforts to produce great outcomes, despite significant costs being associated with them, and here, there is a pressure on many fronts to get a great outcome in a short-time, and with the least of the infrastructure. Of course, this too could be achieved, by an extra-ordinary person in a select field, but could not be replicated every time and every where!

To summarize, research is a form of learning, and one should be open for failures and involves huge cost - not only in terms of money, but also in the form of time, and other risks such as a evolution of a superior technology in the future, turning the scales upside down, for an existing research effort.

Socks - Is there a Left and Right foot socks?

After posting three consecutive 'heavy' articles, let me take a break, and discuss about a lighter issue - Given a pair of socks, which one would you wear on your left/right foot?

Initially, I thought there were no such left and right foot socks, until a friend of mine, asked me how to identify it, couple of years ago!. From that time onwards, I became conscious while wearing the socks, thinking of which one to wear for the right and left foot :) So, one fine day, I consulted our modern-age gurus - Google and Yahoo for answers :)

I started with searches in Google whose results pointed to companies that were manufacturing socks and marketing as "Anatomically designed for left and right foot". I got a few hints, that some companies were making specialized socks for left and right foot, especially for athletes, but otherwise, there is no such concept!. But, when I checked for the same query in Yahoo answers, to my surprise , I found the same question being asked by 2 or 3 users in the past one year!. However, when I went through the answers, to those queries, I was thoroughly confused, as each user had their own opinion, and often contradictory with the previous user, or post!.

So, again I returned to google, rephrased my queries (my first query was left-socks and right-socks; and my final query was "Is there a left-foot sock and right-foot sock") and the initial scanning of the results proved that there were some companies that were making such specially designed socks for athletes, and its there I discovered the phrase "anatomically designed for right and left-foot", and were charging around 9 UK Pounds for a pair of socks!.

The lesson to take-away from this exercise, is that when there are no obvious answers, everyone tries to provide their own answer and adds to your confusion. This could be a factor to the detractors of online social networking. The problem occurs when things are always fuzzy and not obvious, and the chances of even obvious things turning fuzzy may increase, over time, when more people enter the online world and give different and often contradictory suggestions! A simple way to illustrate this is when you try to discover a person, whom you might be knowing already - and you use their name to discover that person say in Facebook or Orkut, you may be staring at a huge list of similar looking names. This might not have been the case, when these sites were in their infancy stages.

Nanotechnology - from a layman

I have never followed (or should I say bothered) about the developments in Nanotechnolgy; However, I have heard about the potential applications and the basics from many people through hear-say. This article is a reflection, of what I had gathered about the technology and its applications from many people, over the last few years.

Nano means 10 to the power -9. This can help you imagine, how small it could be. Nano devices can be built from many materials; However carbon is the most widely used and common material for building nano devices. Generally, using carbon, Nano-tubes are constructed. A significant property of nano-tube is that the surface-area of the tube is very high, and hence it can hold significant quantity of some other materials. Some research is going on for using nano-tubes to carry hydrogen - a potential fuel in the future. A large nano-tube perhaps can be seen only through a microscope, and might appear as a thin black powder, if built using carbon. Nano-tubes made of silicon, or even gold is also in place, but their use and applications are different.

A Nano-tube is a benzene-based structure of the bonds between the carbon atoms, whose property has to be analyzed and studied when they are holding materials like hydrogen or some other material; Right now research is primarily focused on how to use the nano-tube to carry materials using the outer surface-area of the tube, though some researchers are working on how to utilize the hollow space inside the tube to carry materials also.

By now, you might have guessed, that you can only think of carrying chemical compounds or other materials in significantly smaller quantities effectively. Hence research is progressing on how to utilize nano technology for carrying medicines, chemicals and also of how to store and retrieve data (information) from them!

A lot of people, particularly researchers, and students are working in this hot topic. There seems to be two groups here (as usual!) - one of theorists and the other of the practioners. Unlike most other fields, it seems that one could easily start experimenting with nano-technology by investing a few thousands to buy a nano-tube, and study its properties. Also, its said that it is easier to create a nano-crystal (?) in the lab, by growing the atomic structures of a material.

Nano Medicine or Nano Robots is an interesting application area for Nanotechnology and research is going on, in this area. Here it is being said that medicines and that too of a very tiny quantity can be injected at the spots required in a patient's body through this technology. A small tablet like piece, if swallowed by a patient, would travel via the blood stream, before reaching the point where treatement has to be done, and after reaching that point, the medicines or chemicals will be released at the exact quantity for treating the disease. Research is also being carried to perform surgeries through nano-robots.

CAUTION: I have not taken any serious efforts to read, collect and gather data about Nano-technology; Even for writing this article, I have not used any reference material or even used Google. This is absolutely written on the basis, of what I had heard from many people, over the past few years; and hence relying on this information is entirely up to you!.

UPDATE (Jul 2016):  The discovery of  Carbon Nanotubes is hard to figure out. However it could be attributed to the landmark 1991 paper of  Sumio Lijima (Japanese Physicist) who grew graphitic carbon needles on an electrode in a gas-filled vessel.

UPDATE (Sep 2019):  Carbon Nanotubes are being explored to convert heat that is wasted by the Solar Panels (not all light is converted into power in a Solar panel; the efficiency is only around 25%) into light and light into electricity.  Check out this video for more details. 

Intelligence Defined!

Intelligence can be defined as realization; like the realization of:

Learning is different from reading
Listening is different from hearing
Observing is different from seeing
Thinking is different from dreaming
Talking is different from speaking
Relaxing is different from sleeping
Acting is different from reacting
Narrating is different from telling


(This has to be read from the AI Perspective!)

Thoughts on Teaching and Technology

A couple of days ago, I had the privilege to be part of to an informal discussion (meaning, I was a listener) that was transpiring between a highly respected Professor who leads a prestigious institution and a highly respected IAS officer working at the central level. Their views and opinions were very much note-worthy and I just wanted to share this here.

The Professor was strongly of the opinion that teachers, especially primary school teachers cannot be replaced by technology, and technologies can only be aids or better tools in the hands of a human teacher. He also mentioned that not every one can play the role of a teacher, and even within teachers, not everyone would be able to play that role, say, it will be difficult for a professor to play a role of a primary school teacher.

The professor also mentioned an event where employees of an IT company, who send their kids to a particular school, wanted the school management to teach, the programming language of C++ to their children from the 5th grade onwards!. The professor questioned the necessity for such a move, and said it was absurd and ridiculed the idea to teach more than the required basic math and science for a 5th grade kid!. The professor then spoke to those employees, who were convinced of his reasons and with drew their suggestions to the school management!!.

The IAS officer, part of this conversation, is especially interested in primary education and primary health. He likes to give back something to the society; and believes that technology can aid and enhance the lives of the rural masses. He mentioned an incident where the mother of an post-graduate M.Tech student met a principal of an institution, and said to 'take care' of his son!, which shows the faith that the woman had on the human teacher, and in his view, it is extremely difficult to replace a human teacher with a machine, even for a post-graduate student, and hence felt that these tools will only serve as effective aids for imparting education.

After listening to their views, my thoughts on teaching and technology got strengthened: that technology cannot substitute teaching by a human-faculty, but could only serve as an aid in improving the process of learning by the students. This could be only more true at the primary level, as students at their tender age, not only learn the content/subject but also a whole lot of other things.

Reminiscing about our Project

Last month, I was working on the Project Closure report of the CCDN (Community-based Content Delivery Network) project funded by Development Gateway Foundation, and by Govt of India. The main outcome of the project is a Web-based system called ECKO, in which I played the role of a project leader, (2005-2007), promoted from the role of a team member, that I played, for the project that started in the late 2003. I had learnt many valuable lessons during the course of the project. The objective for which the project was funded, was to develop an ICT-based solution that can help the digitally impoverished communities, and empower them. In short, the stated ultimate goal was to alleviate poverty through a Software Solution!!!.

As this was a huge challenge, and ridiculous, it might sound, we believed that communication is the basis for addressing the challenge, and information adding value to the communication would empower people. Due to poor infrastructure facilities, people in rural regions were spending more for communication, (whether to communicate with their near and dear ones in the neighboring villages, or with government officials, or with doctors or with other professional experts; - at that time, mobile penetration was very low and costly) and our idea was to facilitate a system that could help them to communicate and gather useful information that would saves them their costs in many ways. Ofcourse, this requires setting up of a network infrastructure. At this time, we found that, there were many reputed NGO's operating in various rural regions with one or more computer systems and with some minimal network. We initially chose NGO's such as Dhan Foundation, MSSRF, who had superior network infrastructure among others and deployed our solution ECKO - Empowering Communities Through Knowledge.

Our first version of ECKO, developed as a web-based system, using open source tools, in 2003 , was closer to a content management system, that facilitated people to share and know about the local news and events, happening within and around their community, with facilitates for one to one communication, through messaging (similar to orkut's scrapbook), and had a content upload feature that allowed to upload any kind of content, for use by others (might sound similar to youtube!). We deliberately did not want to incorporate crawlers, to crawl and present global information, as we wanted the system to be focused and meant only for a particular local community and to have content contributed only by them. We wanted the people themselves to speak for themselves, and hence we did not hire the services of paid professionals such as local Journalists, content-creators etc... to present the view of the people!. So, as it can be seen, our intention was not to develop a software product, but to deliver a solution that would reach those digitally impoverished people, in some way satisfying some of their needs!.

As, it turned out, the model was not successful. We had tried to circumvent many problems, such as using the infrastructure of NGO's to deploy our system, and training few members of those NGO's to use the system, and used their social contacts with the local people to generate awareness about the system, and also helped the digitally-impoverished people to use the system through trained kiosk operators (who were employed by the NGO's). We also solved the issues of language, by incorporating a local language framework within the system. It should also be mentioned that we faced problems that were unique to these kind of environments: such as the crashing of the hard-disk/system, due to electrical power-supply constraints and unavailability of UPS. This is where we learnt the importance of robustness, reliability and the need for packaging of our software, in such a way that it is easy to install and run it.

As configuring and running a web system with completely open source tools, is not a child's play (even today!), we packaged it in such a way that the kiosk operators can easily install it, and also facilitated mechanisms for database backup and restoration, through the web-based front-end GUI; Despite all these challenges, and measures, we found that the interests of the people could not be sustained, though there were youngsters and students using the facilities of chat and content upload heavily. We then incoproated services, such as daily market-prices, daily weather-information, job information and even matrimonials, but unfortunately that did not catch the fancy of those rural people, atleast in those days. And, moreover we aimed to provide a meaningful usage of our system, and did not want ECKO to be another entertainment service!.

As we started looking in deeper, through our painstaking and laborious surveys and interviews, we discovered that to attract meaningful and fruitful usage, the system should facilitate features that ease their main livelihood-activities, (say in case of agriculture - facilitating a means to buy the seeds, fertilizers, etc..., to marketing the produces, seeking guidance from experts, learning new techniques in farming etc... ) and that was not such an easy-task, as our scope was limited, and such steps required support from many other agencies. Ultimately, we wanted a system that could be termed as a Social Information System, with the ability to cater to any given community, but at the same-time, address the user-specific requirements of a member and ECKO was close to that. These realizations dawned, while we were close to the final phase of the project, though our system is being used in few places across India, supported by NGO's that are active in those regions of deployment.

The lessons, I learnt from this socio-technical (ICT) project were many:
(From Technical point)

• Provide simple systems (that serves one purpose, though it can facilitate integration with any system), in a simpler way
• Provide a reliable and robust system!;
• Ensure that the systems ease the load of the people!;
• Ensure, that using the system should not be anything more than a child's play!.

(From a broader perspective)

• A lot more things needs to be done, especially for digitally-impoverished communities, in rural locations, and that requires huge efforts, backed by the governments
• Establishment of 1 lakh kiosks throughout the country would only be a small step, towards empowering communities (though I am afraid, that it is too late and too small step, and will have only a shorter-life time!)
  
• In my guess the true spirits of E-governance will take atleast another 10-15 years, for realization in India!, and that will and should drastically change the way - people do their livelihood activities; businesses are conducted; and the ways of governance.

On a personal note, I had been tested for my technical, social, managerial, organizational and leadership skills and the experience I have gone through, has definitely improved all my skills and has moulded me to understand people, society and things better. I am also proud, that I got this wonderful opportunity, to learn, and gain a very rich and unique experience, that not many would be fortunate to get it!.

In writing such a long essay, about an 'Himalayan' effort, I will be sinned, if I don't mention the people, who were motivating, guiding, and participating along with me in this effort. First, N. Subramanian, who not only believed me and gave the responsibility, but also motivated, encouraged, and guided me, during the project. V Neelanarayanan, a former-colleague, and friend, who participated in this effort, had a lot of knowledge about the rural environments and tried his best, for a reasonable amount of time. R Sreekumar, the former project leader, had a lot of innovative ideas, and tried a few of them. K S Selvakumar, a project leader for another similar project, called Vyapar, funded by the same agency reflected a lot of wise thoughts, guidance and appreciation, during the project. Rajiv Ranjan, Ponraj M, Kailash Tandel, B Ravikumar, Dnyanesh Pawar, & Ravikumar Poddar were the members, who participated in this effort, and without their cooperation, and support, the project would not have progressed beyond a few minds!. Also, I am thankful to the people in those NGO's who sincerely helped and supported us in our efforts, despite their other commitments. Last, but not the least, I am extremely thankful to our administrative staff members (especially Sh. Krishna Kumar and Sh. George Arakal), promotional group members, and all our seniors of the centre, at that time, (especially Sh. Ganga Prasad, Sh. Ramakrishnan) without whose support, it would not have been possible to put even the first steps forward.

Remembering Professor RN

Prof. R Narasimhan (known as RN), was a pioneer in the field of Computer Science; and considered as the Father of Computer Science in India. He joined TIFR in the 1950's and was the senior member of the team that built the India's first indigenous electronic digital Computer known as TIFRAC (Tata Institute of Fundamental Research Automatic Computer). He was a director of NCSDCT (National Centre for Software Development and Computing Techniques) in TIFR for a decade between 1975-1985, and this institution later turned into a separate autonomous organization called NCST (National centre for software technology; which I joined in 2001 in NCST as a Staff Scientist) and now part of CDAC (Centre for Development of Advanced Computing).

Prof RN, has authored many books and papers, and had interests in AI and linguistics. He had won many awards and has played the role of informal advisor on many occasions to the Government of India. He was instrumental in the formation of CMC, now part of the Tata group. In one way, he was also instrumental for the development of this niche IT sector in this country.

He passed away on 3rd of September 2007, and a number of them whom he had mentored and/or worked with attended his funeral, Myself and many of my senior staffs were also present on that day. A lot about him and his work could be found at: http://prof.r.narasimhan.googlepages.com/

I had an opportunity to do a small task for him, a few years back, while he was writing his book on 'Artificial Intelligence and Study of Agentive Behaviour'. He was nearing 80 years at that time, and wanted to help him in scanning a few photographs for his book. The photographs were containing 'kolams' (similar to rangoli), where he was trying to illustrate the concept of patterns being created by joining different dots, as done in a kolam. He was always insisting for perfection, and as I was doing, was questioning about the technicalities of the scanner such as the depth, color, and time taken etc... for the process of scanning. I understood that he was a soft man, seeking absolute perfection.

It was ironic, that I compiled his photographs into a silent film to be played while observing silence as a mark of respect to his soul, by a huge gathering of Who's who of the Indian computer science researchers, at the annual CSI National Convention held last month. In this regard, I also got an opportunity to work with yet another leader in the field of research in Indian computer science - Dr. S. Ramani.

Stem Cell Research - A New Medical System

This article was inspired after reading many reports in daily newspapers and particularly in one issue of National Geographic about the Stem Cells.

Basics
Before our birth into this world, we were all embryo's and then grew up into foetus and then came out as a baby and grow up into what we are today. Our body as you know is made up of tissues, which are made up of cells, that are specific to the organs where they live, like nerve cells, liver cells, bone cells etc... There are 200 or so kinds of cells that constitute a human body. A lot of cells grow and die in our body every day.

Stem cells
These are the special cells that can be mapped into a particular kind of cells. That is they are the generalized cells. There are two kinds of stems cells - Embryonic Stem cells and Adult stem cells.

Embryonic Stem Cells
These cells had to be plucked from a young human embryo. These cells have the ability to modify themselves into any form of cell. But this ability of those cells happen only in the Mother's womb - Natural way, as of today. Scientists are trying to figure out the process and want to coax these naive embryonic stem cells to modify themselves into the required specific type of cell. For example, if a person's liver has been affected, and incase if they had obtained his/her embryonic cells's (it should have been obtained, as soon as he/she had developed into an embryo in his/her mother's womb.) they could coax them into liver cells, mulitply them and infuse them into his body (there are very rare chance of rejection, as it's his own body cell). These freshly infused cells may cure the old and damaged cells and thereby set his liver right.

Adult Stem Cells
These are the immature cells found in specific regions of our body like bone marrow and other organs in adult human beings. But these cells, usually can be coaxed only to emulate the cells in that part of the human body, from which they had been taken. But again there are a few arguments that the research can be advanced and these adult stem cells can be made to coaxed into any kind of cell required.

Future Research
Currently Stem cell research seemed to be bogged down in controversies over religion. i.e., A lot of people seem to be opposing this research. Also other ideas, like taking cells from the umbilical cards (that are discarded at birth), unwanted embryos disposed by fertility clinics are being floated. But still then, a significant amount of research has seemed to happen with U.S leading with the identification 70 embryonic stem lines, followed by Sweden and South Korean, which has 24 embryonic stem cell lines identified. (though it has limited the research, because of religious issues). India too figures in the list, with 10 stem lines being identified, as of date.

Evolution of Email and Google blog

Well, Today, I was inspired after reading the official google blog. It was telling about the features of Gmail, and how it was developed. Here, I would like to admit that I am a fan of Gmail. The post goes to those olden days of email and proves to the reader that Gmail is the next step in evolution of email.

I was wondering and comparing my efforts in our product development that was meant for the masses. Here masses means scores of people, who might not be knowing the definition of IT or even have heard of the term IT. Well, only time can tell our efforts.