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.

Circles and Spheres - Visualization

Some time ago, in the second-half of 2007, we had a guest from the University of Arkansas at Little rock, Prof. Srini Ramaswamy. After his presentation of Modeling and Simulation, he spent some good time with us (the staff members). The last question that was posed to him, was on his beliefs on God, for which he gave an elaborate answer, and finished with a statement, "After you finish drawing a circle, you don't know from where it was started or where it ended ", which symbolizes our lives.

Taking these cues, I start dwelling on my thoughts ...

Correlating this with statements that usually associate circle with life, like "Life has come a full circle", and "Everything is circular in this world", etc... I now begin to dwell on circles ....

A point is a circle whose radius tends to zero (Mathematical Definition!). A line is a series of points that are interconnected and likewise, we could go on to claim that every living and non-living entity is made of atoms and atoms are spherical in shape (by the orbit patterns of the electons; and though there is no clear proof; we continue to visualize them as spherical structures), and after all the circle is a two dimensional visualization of a sphere!.

Moving with these thoughts to the philosophical region, and correlating with circles and spheres, we could say that we are orbiting around in circles or spheres, but transitioning from one state to another in the process of revolving!!!.

Have I provoked your thought processes? .... More to come later!!!....

The year 2007 - for me

As usual, let me start the year, with the significant events that happened to me in last year.

• Part of the team that organized the ISED conference (International Conference on ICT Solutions for Socio-economic Development) event and my first role as an editor for the proceedings of ISED Conference.
• Promotion as a Senior Staff Scientist, at my place of work.
• Some progress in my PhD - Found out, the skills required to do a PhD! - now have to master them.
• My friend Neela moving to Denmark for doing his PhD
• Wrote a couple of proposals, to various funding agencies; - In the process gathered some experience!.
• Travel trips to Delhi
• Had good breaks, from work, at home, owing to chickenpox and Madras eye (Conjuctivitis), and utilized them to rejuvenate myself with new ways of thinking, and looking at things!.
• Overall the year allowed me to reflect back, from absolutely eventful previous years
• Opportunity to learn about Financial Markets and Investments
  

Things that we don't switch off

Refrigerator, Mobiles, Office Computers, Office AirConditioners, Network devices ...

These are some of the things that we rarely switch off or sometimes never.

My prediction is that this list would be expanding immensely in the future. I am also wondering about the size or the number of items that would get added up to this list, if technologies for generating cleaner and greener power is in place with less or zero harmful emissions.

One more extension of this thought is that, there may be a 'day' celebrated/recognized in future so that on that day, all these things are switched off!. - Any takers for this ?

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.

Drastic Changes in Indian Agriculture

Last month, I was invited to be part of a State-level workshop at Madurai, convened to identify the information needs of the farmers in the region, so that they can be explored further to be addressed by ICT. It was a good workshop that threw light on the current scenarios and the plight of Indian Agriculture or atleast the Agriculture in Southern India. Here are a few:

Indian Agriculture is facing a severe labour crisis
Most of the agricultural labourers have gone to work for fire/match industry, textile industry, construction works, Granite Mining, etc... where they get job and salary regularly and adequately.

Expectations of the farmers have gone high!
They require high yield from their farms to sustain themselves in the changing modern India. Therefore, they tend to use hybrid seeds, insecticides and pesticides as given by the shopkeepers without knowing much about them!.

High up-front investment is required to do farming

A consequence of the previous point. Farmers tend to buy costlier seeds, costlier chemicals and ofcourse the rising cost of labour, to get the maximum yield.

Middlemen are turning as Financiers
Middlemen are the people, who buy the goods from the farmers and sell in the market. As the costs of farming is increasing and profits declining, the farmers have started to look at these middlemen as 'Financiers', who finance to some extent at the beginning of the season, and then procure the produce from them and give them (farmers) on whatever is left-over.

Lure by sellers of Medicinal Plants
Some people make business by selling/marketing medicinal plants to these farmers. However, they need proper care and environment to grow. The farmers buy these crops at higher prices, and eventually the crops fails, resulting in losses

Many are aware of Contract Farming, and seem to know names like Reliance and ITC
However, it seems that they (corporates) have studied and understood about the soil, water, suitable crops, market, meagre land size etc... much better than the others! They are ready to buy the goods based on the grade at a higher price than prevailing in the market

Precision Farming along with Cooperative Farming seems to be the new ray of hope!
A technique (developed in Israel) currently being explored in India, that feeds the plant/crop exactly its required water, food, and chemicals. It requires the use Drip-irrigation system. Cooperative Farming means that the small chunks of farm lands owned by different farmers are integrated to facilitate cooperative precision farming techniques.

Well, this article/blog might have shed some light on the issues surrounding the Indian Agriculture in today's context.

Theory of Relativity in Real Life

Last month, I was helping a friend and two friends of him, to find a single BHK (Bed room, Hall and Kitchen) house in the costlier area of BTM Layout in Bangalore. We took the help of the brokers / middlemen to help us to find out a house in that area within our budget of around 6K per month.

The broker took us to a house that was spacious enough (around 300+ Sq.ft) to be called as a single BHK house. The rent was acceptable around Rs. 5500/- per month and all of us liked it. But then we came to know that it would take another 3-4 days to get the possession of the house, and my friends were so desperate that they required a house immediately.

The broker took us to another house, that was just ready and available for immediate occupation. It was quite smaller (around 200+ Sq.ft) than the previous one, but the rent was around Rs.5000/- per month. Two of three friends were not satisfied with the house and said that they wanted to check some other house.

The broker again took us to another house, that was also available for immediate occupation but was really and relatively smaller (around 100+ Sq.ft!!! In fact, one has to see it to believe that it is 1 BHK house ) and the rent was around Rs. 5700/- per month.

Left with these options, now my friends, immediately wanted to take the second house for rent (around 200+ Sq.ft and a rent of Rs.5000/-) and did it immediately!. This explained me the theory of relativity in real life!, because, if the third house shown by the broker was not relatively smaller and/or costlier, there is no chance, that they would have picked up the second house. Perhaps that broker too would have had an understanding of this psychology!!