We present a case for aspirations-based design by drawing on a qualitative inquiry into the lives of young girls in rural West Bengal (India). These girls form a particularly vulnerable population, coming from an area known to be susceptible to sex trafficking and crimes against women. We leverage our findings to engage with Kentaro Toyama's call for greater attention to aspirations in designing technology for development [51]. We highlight the aspirations of and for these girls and reflect on the embedded, temporal, and mutable qualities of these aspirations. Finally, we examine how an aspirations-based design approach might factor these qualities into technology design. Although our analysis draws on empirical findings from rural/suburban India, the insights derived from this research are relevant for the process of designing technologies towards fulfillment of aspirations, more generally.
{"title":"Aspirations-based design","authors":"Neha Kumar, Marisol Wong-Villacrés, Naveena Karusala, Aditya Vishwanath, Arkadeep Kumar, Azra Ismail","doi":"10.1145/3287098.3287117","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3287098.3287117","url":null,"abstract":"We present a case for aspirations-based design by drawing on a qualitative inquiry into the lives of young girls in rural West Bengal (India). These girls form a particularly vulnerable population, coming from an area known to be susceptible to sex trafficking and crimes against women. We leverage our findings to engage with Kentaro Toyama's call for greater attention to aspirations in designing technology for development [51]. We highlight the aspirations of and for these girls and reflect on the embedded, temporal, and mutable qualities of these aspirations. Finally, we examine how an aspirations-based design approach might factor these qualities into technology design. Although our analysis draws on empirical findings from rural/suburban India, the insights derived from this research are relevant for the process of designing technologies towards fulfillment of aspirations, more generally.","PeriodicalId":159525,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development","volume":"54 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"124520114","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Hasan Murad, Nafis Irtiza Tripto, Mohammed Eunus Ali
Deep learning based assistive technologies for the visually impaired and blind people have gained increasing attention from various research communities in recent years. In this paper, we have developed a camera-based automatic currency recognizer for Bangladeshi bank notes that assists visually impaired people in Bangladesh. We have exploited the deep learning architecture MobileNet for classification of bank notes. We have evaluated the performance of our model using a novel dataset consisting of nearly 8000 images of Bangladeshi bank notes. To verify the effectiveness and efficacy of the proposed solution, we have developed a mobile Android application, and evaluated and validated the application with the users from a blind community. The validation shows that our proposed system is robust and highly effective with heterogeneous environment.
{"title":"Developing a bangla currency recognizer for visually impaired people","authors":"Hasan Murad, Nafis Irtiza Tripto, Mohammed Eunus Ali","doi":"10.1145/3287098.3287152","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3287098.3287152","url":null,"abstract":"Deep learning based assistive technologies for the visually impaired and blind people have gained increasing attention from various research communities in recent years. In this paper, we have developed a camera-based automatic currency recognizer for Bangladeshi bank notes that assists visually impaired people in Bangladesh. We have exploited the deep learning architecture MobileNet for classification of bank notes. We have evaluated the performance of our model using a novel dataset consisting of nearly 8000 images of Bangladeshi bank notes. To verify the effectiveness and efficacy of the proposed solution, we have developed a mobile Android application, and evaluated and validated the application with the users from a blind community. The validation shows that our proposed system is robust and highly effective with heterogeneous environment.","PeriodicalId":159525,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development","volume":"2 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115473120","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
F. Okeke, Lucas Nene, A. Muthee, Stephen Odindo, D. Kane, I. Holeman, Nicola Dell
This paper explores the design space of feedback systems that connect care recipients to the community health feedback loop. While related work in this vein has often emphasized gathering feedback for the sake of transparency alone, our study emphasizes opportunities to integrate the collection and use of feedback in ways that may improve the quality or equity of routine health services. We conducted a qualitative study using semi-structured interviews and focus groups with 23 participants in Kenya. Our field study makes current feedback practices visible; and reveals barriers faced by beneficiaries, community health workers, and their supervisors. Our findings identify relevant socio-technical complexities, and we outline concrete opportunities to design feedback systems that support and augment current practices. These contributions to the ICTD literature hold potential to inform the design of feedback systems that engage underserved populations in a systematic and equitable manner.
{"title":"Opportunities and challenges in connecting care recipients to the community health feedback loop","authors":"F. Okeke, Lucas Nene, A. Muthee, Stephen Odindo, D. Kane, I. Holeman, Nicola Dell","doi":"10.1145/3287098.3287111","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3287098.3287111","url":null,"abstract":"This paper explores the design space of feedback systems that connect care recipients to the community health feedback loop. While related work in this vein has often emphasized gathering feedback for the sake of transparency alone, our study emphasizes opportunities to integrate the collection and use of feedback in ways that may improve the quality or equity of routine health services. We conducted a qualitative study using semi-structured interviews and focus groups with 23 participants in Kenya. Our field study makes current feedback practices visible; and reveals barriers faced by beneficiaries, community health workers, and their supervisors. Our findings identify relevant socio-technical complexities, and we outline concrete opportunities to design feedback systems that support and augment current practices. These contributions to the ICTD literature hold potential to inform the design of feedback systems that engage underserved populations in a systematic and equitable manner.","PeriodicalId":159525,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development","volume":"7 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"125326990","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
We present the design and preliminary evaluation of a mobile text-based system and that provides homeless people in the United States with information about the availability of free meals. The system, piloted in Ann Arbor, Michigan, provides information about when and where free meals are offered based on zipcode as entered by users. It has features to address issues around information access, incompleteness, and irrelevance. We found that SMS text messages are preferred by our homeless users even when they are non-literate and own smartphones, and that formal systems are useful even in contexts where word-of-mouth predominates.
{"title":"Food-availability SMS system for U.S. homeless communities","authors":"N. Mohan, Abhraneel Sarma, K. Toyama","doi":"10.1145/3287098.3287128","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3287098.3287128","url":null,"abstract":"We present the design and preliminary evaluation of a mobile text-based system and that provides homeless people in the United States with information about the availability of free meals. The system, piloted in Ann Arbor, Michigan, provides information about when and where free meals are offered based on zipcode as entered by users. It has features to address issues around information access, incompleteness, and irrelevance. We found that SMS text messages are preferred by our homeless users even when they are non-literate and own smartphones, and that formal systems are useful even in contexts where word-of-mouth predominates.","PeriodicalId":159525,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development","volume":"53 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133078530","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
N. K. Krishnan, A. Johri, Ramgopal Chandrasekaran, J. Pal
We explore how different segments of the population in India coped, in terms of business transactions, with the sudden decision of the government to stop accepting certain legal tender bills, popularly referred to as demonetization. The decision to demonetize was followed by a large-scale push for adoption of digital payments. Behavioral changes during such shocks do have specific nuances different from those during normal times. Using the concept of resilience, we examine the drivers of behavior change that differentiated those that were able to make the switch compared to those that weren't. Those technologically more adept were more resilient to the shock, in terms of being able to navigate through new means of exchange. Also, rural poor showed greater resilience than urban poor, a function of the level of homogeneity in those societies with respect to technology adoption and the ability to cope without changing cash practices. We also found that those who had bank accounts and relied largely on those accounts for daily transactions, without being aware of alternate modes, were impacted the most. From a policy perspective this research cautions against unintended consequences of purely access-driven incentives to behavior change, advocating instead a holistic approach.
{"title":"Cashing out: digital payments and resilience post-demonetization","authors":"N. K. Krishnan, A. Johri, Ramgopal Chandrasekaran, J. Pal","doi":"10.1145/3287098.3287103","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3287098.3287103","url":null,"abstract":"We explore how different segments of the population in India coped, in terms of business transactions, with the sudden decision of the government to stop accepting certain legal tender bills, popularly referred to as demonetization. The decision to demonetize was followed by a large-scale push for adoption of digital payments. Behavioral changes during such shocks do have specific nuances different from those during normal times. Using the concept of resilience, we examine the drivers of behavior change that differentiated those that were able to make the switch compared to those that weren't. Those technologically more adept were more resilient to the shock, in terms of being able to navigate through new means of exchange. Also, rural poor showed greater resilience than urban poor, a function of the level of homogeneity in those societies with respect to technology adoption and the ability to cope without changing cash practices. We also found that those who had bank accounts and relied largely on those accounts for daily transactions, without being aware of alternate modes, were impacted the most. From a policy perspective this research cautions against unintended consequences of purely access-driven incentives to behavior change, advocating instead a holistic approach.","PeriodicalId":159525,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development","volume":"36 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"131069320","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Amna Batool, N. Ahmed, Waseem Rasool, U. Saif, Mustafa Naseem
Religious donations are a very significant financial resource, and mosques as places of worship and as religious institutions, play a strong role in collecting such donations. This is especially true in developing countries, where cash-based donations are commonplace. In this paper, through 8 semi-structured interviews with mosque leaders (Imams) and finance secretaries, and three religious and government leaders, we present qualitative findings about various donation mechanisms and the religious and legal regulations governing such transactions. We then use these findings to present suggestions for a mobile-based application that digitizes the donation mechanism for local mosques.
{"title":"Money matters: exploring opportunities in digital donation to mosques in Pakistan","authors":"Amna Batool, N. Ahmed, Waseem Rasool, U. Saif, Mustafa Naseem","doi":"10.1145/3287098.3287143","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3287098.3287143","url":null,"abstract":"Religious donations are a very significant financial resource, and mosques as places of worship and as religious institutions, play a strong role in collecting such donations. This is especially true in developing countries, where cash-based donations are commonplace. In this paper, through 8 semi-structured interviews with mosque leaders (Imams) and finance secretaries, and three religious and government leaders, we present qualitative findings about various donation mechanisms and the religious and legal regulations governing such transactions. We then use these findings to present suggestions for a mobile-based application that digitizes the donation mechanism for local mosques.","PeriodicalId":159525,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development","volume":"285 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127398024","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
The purpose of this paper is to bridge the knowledge gap on how digital inclusion initiative can help people with disabilities (PWD's) into employment, and improve their capabilities. We adopt a qualitative case study from the Philippines. Data is analysed through the lens of Amartya Sen's capability approach (CA). Interview and ethnographic data provide the evidence to analyse functionings for PWD and the barriers and facilitators of the functionings. The findings indicate that online technology facilitated employment, which has wider implications than merely an improved financial situation. Challenges include lack of formal agreements and increased stress are negative consequences of the jobs they obtain. More research is needed to see whether the findings can be replicated in other countries. Government and private organizations can utilize the findings of this study as a guideline for helping PWD's to find employment, which can contribute to their capability building.
{"title":"How a digital inclusion initiative at the philippines affect capabilities of people with disabilities","authors":"Karsten Eskelund, B. Nicholson, Richard Heeks","doi":"10.1145/3287098.3287122","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3287098.3287122","url":null,"abstract":"The purpose of this paper is to bridge the knowledge gap on how digital inclusion initiative can help people with disabilities (PWD's) into employment, and improve their capabilities. We adopt a qualitative case study from the Philippines. Data is analysed through the lens of Amartya Sen's capability approach (CA). Interview and ethnographic data provide the evidence to analyse functionings for PWD and the barriers and facilitators of the functionings. The findings indicate that online technology facilitated employment, which has wider implications than merely an improved financial situation. Challenges include lack of formal agreements and increased stress are negative consequences of the jobs they obtain. More research is needed to see whether the findings can be replicated in other countries. Government and private organizations can utilize the findings of this study as a guideline for helping PWD's to find employment, which can contribute to their capability building.","PeriodicalId":159525,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development","volume":"33 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"133009525","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Narratives of the gig economy are largely perspectives from the global North and the nature of their ride-hailing market. Freelancing or gigging offer contrasting connotations depending on the market and the labour it is situated in. India, with its demographic dividend and employment challenges, view opportunities arising out of the gig- economy differently. To investigate the impact of ride-hailing apps in the Indian market, and the challenges and opportunities it has brought in, we offer learnings from an ethnographic study of Uber drivers in India.
{"title":"India's \"Uberwallah\": profiling Uber drivers in the gig economy","authors":"Shantanu Prabhat, S. Nanavati, N. Rangaswamy","doi":"10.1145/3287098.3287139","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3287098.3287139","url":null,"abstract":"Narratives of the gig economy are largely perspectives from the global North and the nature of their ride-hailing market. Freelancing or gigging offer contrasting connotations depending on the market and the labour it is situated in. India, with its demographic dividend and employment challenges, view opportunities arising out of the gig- economy differently. To investigate the impact of ride-hailing apps in the Indian market, and the challenges and opportunities it has brought in, we offer learnings from an ethnographic study of Uber drivers in India.","PeriodicalId":159525,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development","volume":"1 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129398700","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
S. Singanamalla, Venkatesh Potluri, Colin Scott, Indrani Medhi-Thies
Visually impaired people (VIPs) face significant usability and privacy challenges using digital finance technologies. In this paper, we focus on investigating these challenges in the context of Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) in India. To find out the accessibility status of ATMs across India, we first reach out to public banks, and then conduct in-person field surveys and an online crowd sourcing survey of 107 ATM machines across 4 cities in India. We find that less than 18% of surveyed machines are accessible, and follow up with 22 interviews with VIPs regarding challenges using ATMs. Based on insights, we design PocketATM: a system that enables VIPs to use ATMs using their own smartphones - a user can pre-authorize a cash withdrawal using a phone application, then go to any nearby ATM to receive the pre-authorized amount. Our usability evaluation with 19 VIPs demonstrates that PocketATM is usable, practical, and could be embraced by VIPs in India.
{"title":"PocketATM: understanding and improving ATM accessibility in India","authors":"S. Singanamalla, Venkatesh Potluri, Colin Scott, Indrani Medhi-Thies","doi":"10.1145/3287098.3287106","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3287098.3287106","url":null,"abstract":"Visually impaired people (VIPs) face significant usability and privacy challenges using digital finance technologies. In this paper, we focus on investigating these challenges in the context of Automated Teller Machines (ATMs) in India. To find out the accessibility status of ATMs across India, we first reach out to public banks, and then conduct in-person field surveys and an online crowd sourcing survey of 107 ATM machines across 4 cities in India. We find that less than 18% of surveyed machines are accessible, and follow up with 22 interviews with VIPs regarding challenges using ATMs. Based on insights, we design PocketATM: a system that enables VIPs to use ATMs using their own smartphones - a user can pre-authorize a cash withdrawal using a phone application, then go to any nearby ATM to receive the pre-authorized amount. Our usability evaluation with 19 VIPs demonstrates that PocketATM is usable, practical, and could be embraced by VIPs in India.","PeriodicalId":159525,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development","volume":"5 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130115231","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Noah Klugman, Santiago Correa, P. Pannuto, Matthew Podolsky, Jay Taneja, P. Dutta
Incentives are a key facet of human studies research, yet the state-of-the-art often designs and implements incentive systems in an ad-hoc, on-demand manner. We introduce the first vocabulary for formally describing incentive systems and develop a software infrastructure that enables UI-based graphical generation of complex, auditable, reliable, and reproducible incentive systems. We call this infrastructure the Open INcentive Kit (OINK). A review of recent literature from several communities finds that of the one hundred and twenty-one publications that incorporate incentives, only thirty-one describe their incentive system in detail, and all of these could be implemented using OINK. We evaluate OINK in practice by using it for an active energy monitoring deployment in Ghana and find that OINK successfully facilitates thousands of individual incentive payments. Finally, we describe our efforts to generalize OINK for different research communities, specifically focusing on architectural decisions around extensibility to support unanticipated use cases. OINK is free and open-source software.
{"title":"The open incentive kit (OINK): standardizing the generation, comparison, and deployment of incentive systems","authors":"Noah Klugman, Santiago Correa, P. Pannuto, Matthew Podolsky, Jay Taneja, P. Dutta","doi":"10.1145/3287098.3287101","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1145/3287098.3287101","url":null,"abstract":"Incentives are a key facet of human studies research, yet the state-of-the-art often designs and implements incentive systems in an ad-hoc, on-demand manner. We introduce the first vocabulary for formally describing incentive systems and develop a software infrastructure that enables UI-based graphical generation of complex, auditable, reliable, and reproducible incentive systems. We call this infrastructure the Open INcentive Kit (OINK). A review of recent literature from several communities finds that of the one hundred and twenty-one publications that incorporate incentives, only thirty-one describe their incentive system in detail, and all of these could be implemented using OINK. We evaluate OINK in practice by using it for an active energy monitoring deployment in Ghana and find that OINK successfully facilitates thousands of individual incentive payments. Finally, we describe our efforts to generalize OINK for different research communities, specifically focusing on architectural decisions around extensibility to support unanticipated use cases. OINK is free and open-source software.","PeriodicalId":159525,"journal":{"name":"Proceedings of the Tenth International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development","volume":"17 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2019-01-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"123592499","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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