Enabling information Access under Poor Connectivity

Speaker: Jay Chen, NYU

Abstract:

A significant fraction of Internet users who reside in low-income regions
in developing countries (emerging regions) are subject to very poor network
connectivity. In these contexts, the World Wide Web is largely unusable or
prohibitively slow. In a similar vein, despite the high penetration of
mobile devices, a lack of affordable data connectivity prevents wide-scale
adoption of many new mobile information services. This situation is
unfortunate because information technologies can potentially benefit
people's lives through economic opportunities, improved efficiencies, and
spillover effects. The conventional models for web and mobile information
access are ill-suited for emerging regions due to underlying economic and
technological trends. I will outline these trends and how they cause
systemic problems throughout the networking stack resulting in broken
information systems. I will then show how to address each of these problems
and how to then build systems that work 'for real' in developing regions.

Bio:

Jay Chen is a Visiting Assistant Professor at NYU - Abu Dhabi. He received his PhD in Computer Science from New York University.His research is in the area of Information and Communication Technology for Development. He is a researcher at the Center for Technology and Economic Development (CTED) in Abu Dhabi. He has a background in Systems and Networking, and his current focus is on providing affordable information access for clients with low/poor connectivity and sustainable energy.