ICT for Development

My major research focus is ICT4D. Within this there are interrelated sub-areas: Crowd Sourcing, Communications, Community-Based Co-Design and Indigenous Knowledge and Cultural Heritage. This work is supported by the NRF and other funding sources.

Crowd Sourcing

Crowd sources here works in two directions feedback from the community or crowd sourcing of ICT solutions for the community.

Citizen Empowerment

South Africa has recently seen many service delivery protests. The aim of this project is to provide an effective channel for citizens to provide information to government on service delivery requirements and issues. There currently already examples of such services (for example, uReport run by UNICEF in cooperation with the government of Uganda).  The aim of this project is to derive a system that will work in the South African context (e.g., SMS prices are much higher but data communication systems are common).  The challenge will be to deliver a system that will run on the most common types of phones (not high end smart phones). 
Factors that will have to be looked at will be how to integrate this with a feedback mechanism to ensure that people feel heard. Statistics and visualizations will be required to provide local authorities with usable information. In this way we can help to defuse the frustrations that have led to violence in the past.

3-D Indigenous Knowledge System

We have unexpectedly discovered that 3-D visualization is very effective in knowledge transfer across age barriers in an oral culture. This system has shown great promise in enabling a particular community to collect, organize and retrieve knowledge while preserving their communication and thought patterns to ensure local usability.
Having achieved the proof of concept we now want to look at the transferability of the process and the system to other communities in Southern Africa. In order to do this we want to source new 3-D models, animations and perhaps environments from volunteer developers across the world.

Communications

Rural Communication and Open Spectrum for Development

We have been involved in mesh networks (and associated technologies) for rural communication. We wish to create user friendly environments for this research that targets the needs of rural users. Such needs are related to supporting communication all communication needs which may be more than just meshed networks and can include support for GSM mobile phones, local content creation and content distribution.
The current regulatory environment obliges us to use the WiFi 2.4GHz and 5GHz bands.  These are unsuitable to rural communication because of the short transmission ranges (these bands are better for heating up water in microwaves than they are for long distance signal transmission).
The project has two aims:

• Explore the application of current generation WiFi based meshed networks (e.g., Mesh Potato) in rural areas. Here we look at practical applications and how to integrate such systems in a community.  The applications can include health care and other issues can include the provision of solar-based electric power.
• Build test-beds to evaluate the use of TV white space as soon as such spectrum becomes available for experimental use.

It is expected that much of the user experience and supporting technology will carry over from WiFi-based mesh networks to the next generation. 

Communication Access for Deaf People

The aim of this project provide Deaf users with a practical way of communicating in their own language, South African Sign Language, and at the same time highlight policy impediments to the widespread adoption of such a solution. The key question is: Can video on cell phones be used to provide an effective low-cost and natural communication tool for Deaf people who use sign language?

This project is being done in cooperation researchers from the Computer Science department of UWC and the Technical University of Delft (Netherlands) and in a sustained involvement over many years with a grassroots NGO, DCCT (Deaf Community of Cape Town) which is staffed almost entirely by Deaf people and serves the needs of the larger Deaf community in the Western Cape.

Community-Based Co-Design

How can we develop software for rural and disadvantaged communities? This research builds on previous work that set out to develop and deploy useful systems for these kinds of users. We build systems that will enable us to have a useful and sustainable impact.

We now set out to sensitize practitioners to major cultural differences and help them develop ways of entering into design conversations with people who do not have technical skills but who are knowledgeable on their own needs.    In every design situation there are many communities: the elders, the youth, women, migrants, people with disabilities, and so on. Each of these has to be given a voice in design. We have called our new method Community-Based Co-Design.

Indigenous Knowledge and Cultural Heritage

We have been co-designing indigenous knowledge management prototypes in collaboration with a rural community in Omaheke, Namibia. The latest prototype, the HomeSteadCreator, is a 3D graphics application on an android based tablet, which was originally designed to facilitate a 3D contextualization of indigenous practice. The tool consists of a selection of 3D objects representing real elements in the rural surroundings and community elders can build up scenarios from the 3D interface objects. There are now a number of further ideas, such as visually enhanced story-telling, sustainable stock management, land planning, etc.

The aim is to produce effective low-cost tools for showcasing and conservation of cultural heritage. These virtual tools will complement our oral tradition in passing on culture in its living context. People will be able contribute and value their cultural heritage as a dynamic experience.