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October 09 Sorry: Buy Thursday's New York Times!!!Here's the link:
IHT.com: Internet revolution reaches India's poor http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/10/10/asia/jobs.php
It’s front page of the Int'l Herald Tribune in Asia and Europe for tomorrow - we'll see about the NYTimes in the next couple hours... for more http://babajob.com/sean August 09 Moving to babajob!It's time to let some cats out of the bag. Come find me at http://babajob.com/sean
It's basically represents everything my life is about right now - most people don't say that about their blogs.
See ya later Spaces,
Sean April 17 XeniiHmm - I always wondered how a geeky company suddenly gets mad celebs to their parties - xenii. http://xenii.com/flash/corporate.htm
Honestly, it makes me want to never, ever live in Hollywood. I'm friends with people who are some of their clients but man -$10,000/month to go to LA parties is ridonkulous. March 28 We've released the MSR India SMS ToolkitI'm quite excited that we have released our SMS toolkit, allowing anyone with a windows mobile phone and a PC to build an SMS server! Now you too can also send 500 messages on your phone, using just excel. Honestly, I'm quite proud that Vibhore, Rajesh and I have gotten this out with luck we'll see tons of SMS based applications built by small organizations.
Read all about it here:
Or just get the toolkit here:
March 27 The Taco Truck is back!And now it's actually a restaurant. I'm very proud of them. It's basically at the south end of crossroads...
March 07 seanI am having a great time in seattle for the month of march. Today i'm working the press at the Microsoft research techfest. Msft folks come see me on Wednesday! sean January 10 A vision for mobile bankingIn mid December, I went to an interesting rural mobile banking conference in Chennai, organized by Ashok Jhunjhunwala, attended by about 35 people, primarily various mobile banking start-ups, banks, a few banking regulators and a couple MFIs. About 2/3s of the way through the conference, Ashok posed a question to the attendees “Do we all agree that ideally, any mobile phone user should be able to cheaply, reliably and easily send 500R (~$12) or less to anyone else, simply by knowing their phone number?” Everyone collectively nodded their heads. “Then what is the regulatory, legal, technical and business model issues that need to be solved to make that happen?”
In many ways, the first question really is a great vision – primarily because it’s simple and virtually every major player – tech companies such MSFT and Google, the government, the telcos and the banks – could get behind it and publicly support it in principle – an important and necessary step for the cooperation and legal framework wrangling that will lie ahead if this vision is to be made reality.
First, let me state why I think the vision is important (because I’ll admit on the face of it, it seems a little like an obscure wish of telcos and banks hoisted on to unsuspecting phone users).
(At some point later, I'll flesh out the Philippines as the example.)
Towards solutions that might work: Likely step 1: Enable cheap intra-operator transactions. Keeping the money within the system of one telco (or more precisely inside one bank who has partnered with the telco in a rev share arrangement) allows the telco to earn interest on the float regardless of how customers move money around within the system. From an end users perspective, it’s somewhat annoying but not entirely un-useful. If my family or co-workers are on the same network – either because we’ve bought a family plan or my company has partnered with a particular telco to provide phones/accounts to all their employees, respectively, I can easily transfer money between these folks. From a business perspective, it’s a little annoying because they must maintain phone accounts on several networks but this may be acceptable.
Hallmarks of a successful strategy here:
Step 2 (where we’d like to be): Enable cheap inter-operator transactions. I really do think that the model of cheap call interconnection fees provides a model here. Some history…
Enable a system where given a mobile number, a bank, telco or company can look-up the associated bank routing information associated with the mobile number. Thus, if user A (Adam) wants to send user B (Barry) 500R, Adam’s phone company – looks up Barry’s mobile number and receives back Barry’s associated bank routing number. Adam’s phone company – likely with an associated banking account – then deposits money from Adam’s account into Barry’s account.
Such a system purposely does not specify any of the technology companies may implement to enable this, nor even which banking systems that could be used (e.g. a given mobile number might have associated VISA/MC and bank routing accounts associated with it). It does not need to specify the charges that customers should pay for any part of the chain – it simply specifies that the data look-up to gain associated banking deposit information for a given mobile should be low. There may be significant costs to collect cash and convert it into digital form, just as there may be costs to convert digital cash back into real cash. Each of these are opportunities for new technology solutions and business models – this system just seeks to ensure that the required data to interop between these systems is kept low, so as not create an unneeded price floor on transactions.
Such a system could be a centralized DB, maintained by the government or a mobile consortium. It also could simply be a set of standardized interconnection APIs between banks and telcos.
What else is needed:
Hopefully, I'll more to say about this in the coming months and weeks - I find it to be pretty interesting space with lots of potential. The iPhoneMy thoughts: 1. It’s lovely but damn expensive. Apple has done what they do well and created a high-end device that really pushes the envelope and UI very well. On the down side, I actually really got annoyed at all the sanctimonious BS (and “the opposite of terrorism” comment) around the device – curing diseases, providing better educational opportunities, etc. – those things really help the world – not making a better ipod for really rich people. 2. I’m pretty skeptical that they will do that well in the first year. $499+ a 2 year contract exclusively on Cingular means that unlike the ipod, no one’s getting this as a gift. 3. No keyboard is going to make typing REALLY hard. 4. The lack of Exchange syncing is frankly weird. It basically implies that everyone who buys a smartphone today – like me and all those blackberry users – can’t use this phone. I basically ONLY have a smartphone to back up my contacts (so that when I lose my phone, I still have every contact in Outlook without ever having to connect my phone to a PC) and have my calendar always available (and read mail) – the first 2 features you can’t do on the iPhone. In particular, before I had calendar syncing I would constantly doublebook people on the street whenever I made plans. My phone essentially solved that problem for me (and the embarrassment that it created) and I’m not going to give that up.
All that said it’s beautiful and I’d certainly still love to try one for a while… October 08 Nov 06 US Trip IteneraryI've got another States trip coming up but it's short. Give me a holler if you wanna meet up!
Interesting thoughts on the One Laptop Per ChildI liked this post a lot and it sums up many of my thoughts on how to approach the technology space in developing nations. The importance (and with it need for innovation) of network access price reductions, local language availability and education can't be understated. Not coincidently that happens to be the focus of much of the work at MSRIndia's Tech for Emerging Markets group. (http://research.microsoft.com/india/) Sean From Robert B. Kozma, Ph.D. Emeritus Director and Principal Scientist Fulbright Senior Specialist Center for Technology in Learning SRI International ----------------------------------------------------------------- Hi all, It was great seeing you at AERA. Several of you asked me to elaborate on my $100 laptop comments during the Future of the Learning Sciences session. I¹ve copied some others on this email who may be interested in this issue but were not at the session. Please feel free to pass this along, if you think it would inform a healthy debate. I would be interested in your thoughts on this topic. My own interest in the issue of technology and development comes out of my work during ³retirement² in developing countries--my consultation with NGOs and ministries of education on how ICT can support education reform and, more importantly, my research in eastern Africa. I spent a month last year looking at how community technology centers in rural villages in Uganda, Tanzania, and Kenya are supporting economic and social development. It was a paradigm-altering experience for me. Having worked at SRI for 10 years, the starting point of my work has been that by enriching classrooms, schools, homes, and workplaces with advanced technology one can positively impact people¹s cognitive, social, and cultural practices. I suspect that this is Nicholas Negroponte¹s starting assumption, as well. But after spending a month in rural African villages studying their needs, constraints, and technology practices, my assumptions have changed and I¹ve come to very different conclusions about technology and development than has Professor Negroponte. At a recent Linux conference, Negroponte shrugged off criticism of his one-laptop-per-child program by saying that if ³Intel and Microsoft are on your case you must be doing something right². Like Negroponte, I believe the criticisms of Barrett and Gates are off-target. The problem with the $100 laptop solution is not what processor or operating system it uses, nor whether it has a hand crank or foot pedal, or lacks a hard drive, or has only a 7 inch screen, or only a 500 MHz processor. But neither do I believe that Negroponte¹s conclusions are on-target. The factor limiting development in poor countries is not the cost of computers or even their general availability. Poverty is a systems problem, not a hardware problem. There are multiple, interconnecting factors at the root of poverty in developing countries. Focusing on the cost of hardware does not solve the problem and even diverts us from the real solution. There are four reasons why I think that the emphasis on the $100 laptop is a digression: 1. Access to information is more important than access to equipment. The primary need of rural Africans is access to knowledge about crop inputs, markets, nutrition, clean water, and safe health practices. A proliferation of laptops will not address these needs, particularly since there is very little information available in digital form that is most useful to rural communities and in their local languages. 2. Fundamental changes are needed in the education system. Most schools in developing countries are still based on dated, colonial education systems design to prepare a very few native people for positions in civil service. During much of their primary school education, students are in classes of 70 or 80 memorizing facts meant to prepare them for the high stakes exam that will allow entry into secondary school. However, in rural eastern Africa only nine of ten students make it into secondary school, mainly because they cannot afford tuition and school uniforms. Consequently, 90% of the children in these communities leave school without the skills needed to improve life in their villages. Ubiquitous computing will not change this situation. 3. The cost of Internet access is far higher than the cost of computing. The limiting technological factor in rural eastern Africa is not computer access but Internet access. For the most part there are neither electrical lines nor phone lines. Beyond this, there is no fiber optic backbone to the eastern part of the African continent. Nor will there be one until late 2007, at the earliest. Currently all access to the Internet is via satellite. The current setup fee for a satellite dish is close to $2000; the monthly tariff is between $200 and $400 for 64 Kbps bandwidth. 4. Inexpensive computers are still expensive when you consider that most people in Africa live on less than $2 a day. The laptops will not be given away; they will be sold to governments. Even at $100 (the actual price is expected to be $135 until 2008), their purchase in massive numbers would be a huge burden for developing countries. Let¹s take Kenya as an example. There are approximately 7 million primary and secondary students in Kenya. If the government was to take Negroponte seriously and purchase a laptop for each, that would be $700 million. This would not only be a huge drain on the national budget but all of this money would leave the country. This would be a huge economic hit on a country whose GDP is about $14 billion (the ³GDP² of the State of California is $1.5 trillion) and whose total education budget is less than $1 billion. Of course, they could always borrow the money from the World Bank, but then you would have to figure in the interest on these loans, too. One laptop per child is too simple a proposal for the complexity of the problem of poverty in the developing world. Unfortunately, it is sucking up all the air in the room. Might it be more effective and less expensive to provide each teacher with an inexpensive computer? Or even each village with a computer? Wouldn¹t it be better to have enough money left over to train teachers in contemporary pedagogy, to revise curriculum and assessment approaches, and to provide more affordable access to the Internet? Perhaps other technologies might do as well, or better, at providing villages with the information people need. In most of the telecenters I visited, multilingual staff members used a single computer connected to the Internet to access information (usually in English); they transformed this information in language and form, in response to local needs; and they used inexpensive, low-wattage radio transmitters to provide villagers with information to help them improve their crop productivity, health, sanitation, water safety, and literacy. In such a situation, wouldn¹t it be better to provide each family with an inexpensive, hand-crank radio receiver and a neighborhood cell phone which could be used for interactive community broadcasts that draw on Internet resources? But let¹s not start with the hardware. Let¹s think systemically about what people need. I have to think that as a discipline, the learning sciences must be able to come up with a more elegant proposal than OLPC to address the needs of developing countries. After all, we are a discipline of educators, psychologists, sociologists, and anthropologists, as well as engineers. Bob ________________________________ Robert B. Kozma, Ph.D. Emeritus Director and Principal Scientist Fulbright Senior Specialist Center for Technology in Learning SRI International October 05 Emerging Markets don't imply new computing platformsBelow is an article that's typical of many I see around tech for emerging markets - read my critique at the bottom.
http://www.technologyreview.com/read_article.aspx?id=17421&ch=infotech http://www.technologyreview.com/tr35/Profile.aspx?Cand=T&TRID=473 Imagine for a moment that you have one chance to pass a driving test; if you fail, you can never reapply for a license. You ask for the material you will be tested on and are told you can see it only briefly, peering over someone else's shoulder. No one has trained you to operate an actual car. And when it is time to take the test, you are blindfolded. The result will, of course, be catastrophic. This isn't a bad analogy for the challenges facing a typical African elementary- or secondary-school student, even though most world political leaders and development specialists agree that the future of African nations lies in education. African schools teach toward set exams, which determine who passes and who leaves school. It is a system that does not foster much creative thought but in its own way ensures certain standards. Or would, if access to educational materials were equal throughout all schools. But it is not. Educational materials are expensive to print and to supply to remote rural schools. Senegal is typical: school textbooks cost two to three times what poor families can afford, so only one in five students receives them. There is an alternative. Using digital satellite radio to connect to a content distribution network, students could download new material--as soon as it becomes available--to small handheld computers recharged with solar power or crank chargers. Then they could take it home to read at night, on a backlit screen, even in homes without electricity. That is the technology my company, EduVision, has been developing for the last two years. Not only would such a distribution system get more, and more current, material to more students, but it would also introduce students to an important new approach to learning and working. Students who compete throughout their school years for top ranking will not be prepared for workplaces where collaboration is becoming far more important. An electronic environment for group work--a textbook wiki of sorts, in which students around the world can compare notes and share information--could teach collaboration at the same time that it teaches academic material itself. In the future, students in schools throughout the developing world will communicate and interact to solve problems and complete assignments. They may be in the same class or school, or they may be in different countries. They may never meet in person, but they will form close connections and learn to work in teams. They will also have access to vast libraries of content where they can find solutions, answer questions, and explore the life of the mind. Matthew Herren is founder and chief technology officer of EduVision, an e-learning company based in Zürich, Switzerland. He is also one of our TR35 winners. Here's his TR35 profile. Sean's thoughts: I agree with the identified problem but the technology solution seems very heavy and expensive to pull off. Why not just use phones with GPRS? Or simply make the textbooks available as PDFs or HTM files on a website that can be consumed on a PCs, existing handhelds, phones, etc.
This is a flaw I see in too many tech for development plans – new needs for content or communication in EMs do not necessarily imply building an alternative telco/computing infrastructure. And yet there are many examples where this connection has been made (e.g. nLogue’s cordDECT, India’s strictly satellite based telemedicine system, Simputer). Furthermore, these plans ignore the basic fact that most content companies (news sites, television show makers, etc.) are NOT companies that are also run by EE majors, spending lots of time dreaming up new communications infrastructures. In other words, Intel does not make movies; cnet does not worry about communication protocols (it just builds on HTML); the telcos have shown us how notoriously bad they are at providing content.
Furthermore, if a company really hopes to build a low-cost and yet reasonably powerful computing solutions, the only real way to lower the chips costs at the fab is to get the volume into the millions, ideally the tens of millions (hence the fast that not one $100 laptop will be built until Negropointe gets 5 mil confirmed orders). The only devices at this stage that have that 10s of millions scale are mobiles, TVs, DVD players and standard PC components. In my mind, this implies the world should be building EM solutions on top of these existing infrastructures – phones and networked PCs – or at the very least building solutions that still leverage the scale of components built for these larger device markets (e.g. the TiVo’s use of standard PC hard drives and a simple PC board to build a dedicated device, the iPod’s use of Toshiba’s small laptop harddrives, etc.) September 02 Recent presentationsIn an effort to bolster my international reputation, this site will proudly feature....some links to presentations I've given. Seriously though, I've been meaning to do this for ages and I hope you like the talks. If you've got questions just post 'em as comments.
Here's the talk I gave recently at FooCamp06. "What's Web 2.0 Got to do with Poor Folks? Tech for Ecomonic Development"
Another that I gave recently at a SIGCHI meeting we hosted at MSRIndia in Bangalore: "You Look Good To Me: User Centered Design from a Social Perspective". I've been talking about this subject inside Microsoft for about 3-4 years and it was great to finally get to present it on outside MSFT too.
September 01 Sony mylo = DumbHmmm. This released this couple days ago. It's essentially a little memory stick based mp3 player, with a slide out keyboard and wifi.
Reasons it sucks:
* No GSM - what's the point of a texting device if it does not work everywhere?
* No harddrive - what's the point of a big movie/music device if the most you can put on it is 4GB?
August 26 Foo Camp Day 0I arrived yesterday evening at this strange little conference in Sebastopol and I must say, I'm impressed by the invite list: Philip Rosedale, CEO - secondlife.com who I'm very proud to report, confirmed my guess that the security model for running uploaded user code is essentially geographic, with each of their 3400 servers running a given virtual geographic region in the game. He told a great little Snowcrash moment when he literally drew a little firebreak around a self-replicating virus that was creating spheres in the world spreading like wide-fire and infecting adjacent servers. The thought of a huge red infected cube the size of a city is just amazing vision. In any case, I really liked Philip. Tim O'Reilly (the eponymous book-publisher), who's interested in doing a FooCamp in India and mentioned doing a collaboration with MSRIndia to help make it happen. This could really be a wonderful opportunity. Dave McClure - Director of Directors at Unitus - one of the largest microcredit NGOs. Yes and I made fun of his funny title (Do you make meta-movies?) James Fruchterman - President of Benetech - these guys are very interesting and are the biggest software vendors to Human Rights groups, NGOs. There may be some interesting opporunities to work together with MSRIndia. David E Calkins - he makes the Hitec robot, was sleeping across from me and had a home-made, flame-throwing robot. Awesome, awesome, awesome. I'm trying to take some home to India with me. Other cool folks I haven't yet talked to: Ray Ozzie, Jeff Bezos, Founders of digg.com, plus many, many others. PS. Here's my session abstract for today. Software for Social and Economic Development- there are widespread stories about the economic and productivity benefits that mobiles have brought to many parts of the developing world. Largely, this has been outside the realm of "Web 2.0" technologies that have largely focused on technologies that require users to have fat connections, read English, own their computer and usually live in America. What can this community do to accelerate the economic development of the world? Some thoughts to explore: How we build systems that enable the creation of strong credit models and agencies in places such as Africa and India where weak governments don't issue unique identifiers (e.g. Social Security numbers) that form the basis of organizations like Equifax and thus allow easy extension of credit? The micro-credit folks are screaming for solutions here. Another, how could social software systems begin to better model trust relationships among poor villagers? What can we do accelerate the convergence of web payment technologies, pre-paid mobile cards and VISA-based debit card systems like the Philippines, enabling person to person digital cash transactions & the ability to make international purchases via standard credit cards? In any case, I think there's a ton that this community can do to push forward this area, and honestly there's likely billions to made in the process over the next 5 years. <a href=” http://research.microsoft.com/research/tem/default.aspx”>Sean Blagsvedt</a> July 31 Snakes on a planeLike many others, I find the premise of this movie wonderful and thus, here's my list of predicted and arguably mandatory scenes: Oxygen masks from ceiling as snakes. Snake bites mouth, sucks life out of traveler. Snakes fall from luggage bin - almost too obvious Snakes in the toilets. Fasten snake as seat-beat Half-eaten, half-naked woman OR older, white business man inside an anaconda Evil guy escapes with a parachute, jumps off the plane - but the ripcord is a snake! Air marshal shoots a hole in the side of the airplane - Snakes are sucked out! For more info: http://www.google.com/search?q=snakes+on+a+plane&rls=com.microsoft:en-us &ie=UTF-8&oe=UTF-8&startIndex=&startPage=1 PS In many ways, it's sad that unlike the 80s and late seventies, movies today do not embrace utter predictability. I'm so happy that Mr Jackson, has returned this wonderful art form back to us. ;-) July 19 My sister Rachel is safe!Thank goodness, my sister is safe. Thank you to everyone who called and helped. I’m so happy, though obviously still worried about everyone there. There’s a strange sense of absolute but guilty joy in knowing that someone you love is out of harm’s way – even if you abstractly you know that some many others still are threatened. Still, I’m so happy.
Thanks and much love, Sean
Here's her mail: From: Rachel Weise [mailto:rachelalicia@yahoo.com]
Good news everyone! I made it safely to Cyprus, although the boat ride was potentially the worse thing I have every experienced, but I don't really want to get into that now. At least I am safe. I'm staying with two friends in a family friend's apartment in Zygi, Cyprus. It's beautufil, but kinda dull. But that's good. I am with my friends Jay and Michael who are amazing travel companions and good entertainment- plus Michael has been to over 90 countries, and is a well-seasoned traveler. A good addition to any travel group. No need to worry about me anymore, except who's buying me my first American beer when I get home? I have a flight to London on Saturday, and from then I am not sure how I am getting back to the states, but that is a start. We rented a car and are touring around Cyprus. This whole experience has been so surreal, I feel like I am in a dream state (probably due to lack of sleep and high stress levels). I could really just use a day on the beach, which is our plan for tomorrow. I spoke to a bunch of press before I left. Here are some of the links sfgate.com/blogs/rossreport
Also, I did an interview when I was getting off the boat with the AP, so I might be in any variety of papers and might ahve been on TV. I'm not really sure. I can't wait to see you all and regale with my stories in person, because at this point, emailing sounds tedious and much that i say about the experience will be tainted by utter exhaustion and frustration. So glad to be out but sad for those still there, Rachel July 15 I've heard from my sister Rachel in BeirutShe’s stuck in Beirut at the American University with a bunch of other students. They cannot leave Beirut but apparently they are not freaking out too much. Very very scary.
PS. This is the most interesting quote I’ve read – hmmm. There is a logic that leads leads towards war. I really don't know how I feel about that. It's horrible.
From Saudi Arabian news agency:
Israel has also been buoyed by the mild reaction of Arab governments, who have not come to Hezbollah’s defense — not even Syria and Iran. Israel was also pleased by a statement from the Saudi government on Thursday that blamed Hezbollah for adventurism and called on it to end the crisis. “A distinction must be made between legitimate resistance and uncalculated adventures taken by elements inside Lebanon and those behind them without recourse to the legal authorities or consulting and coordinating with Arab nations,” said a statement published on the official news agency SPA. “These elements should bear the responsibility for their irresponsible actions and they alone should end the crisis they have created.” And from the State department travel site: LEBANONJuly 13, 2006 This Travel Warning is being updated to alert American citizens that, due to ongoing security concerns in Lebanon, the U.S. Embassy has been granted authorized departure status. Family members and non-emergency American employees have permission to depart Lebanon. American citizens are urged to evaluate their personal security posture and consider departing in light of the current situation in Lebanon. The Department of State urges American citizens to defer travel to Lebanon. This supersedes the Travel Warning issued on May 2, 2006. The Department of State is concerned for the personal safety of American citizens due to the current security situation in Lebanon. In light of the events of July 12 in Southern Lebanon and the resulting escalation in tensions in Lebanon, including the closure of Beirut International Airport and the Port of Beirut, American citizens are urged to avoid non-essential travel in Lebanon. There remains the possibility of anti-U.S. demonstrations and American citizens are reminded that even demonstrations intended to be peaceful can turn confrontational and possibly escalate into violence. American citizens should avoid any areas where demonstrations are possible and exercise caution if within the vicinity of any demonstrations. U.S. citizens in Lebanon are encouraged to register with the U.S. Embassy in Beirut where they may also obtain updated information on travel and security in Lebanon. See registration details below. Events in Lebanon underscore the need for caution and sound personal security precautions. Since March 2005, there have been 13 separate bombings in Lebanon, resulting in the deaths of at least 11 people and injuries to more than 100 others. U.S. citizens who are in Lebanon despite this Travel Warning should exercise heightened caution when traveling in parts of the southern suburbs of Beirut, portions of the Bekaa Valley and South Lebanon, and the cities of Sidon and Tripoli. Hizballah has not been disarmed, it maintains a strong presence in many of these areas, and there is the potential for action by other extremist groups in Tripoli. Palestinian groups hostile to both the Lebanese government and the U.S. operate largely autonomously inside refugee camps in different areas of the country. Intra-communal violence within the camps has resulted in violent incidents such as shootings and explosions. Occasionally this violence spills over into neighboring cities and towns.
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