Things I learned yesterday

1. Out of the world's population 26% of adults are illiterate, and 98% of those live in developing countries.
2. A woman named Afsa in Rwanda has a successful hair braiding business, which she attributes it's success in part to the fact she has a mobile phone.
3. 5 mice are better than 1 in rural classrooms in India.
4. Globalism can be seen as both a threat and opportunity to families living in the emerging middle class in India.
5. Text free interfaces are possible and appropriate.

I attended an amazing symposium sponsored by the Computer Science Dept at UW where 5 researchers from Microsoft Research in Bangalore, India presented some of their work.

You can learn more by checking out the abstracts and slides from the talks.

One of my collegues is off to MSR this summer to do an internship. She's going to be working with some very cool people doing important work.

The talks made me reflect on both the need and challenge of researching information and communication technologies in developing countries.

It looks more and more like I'll be heading to Kyrgyzstan this summer for work on the CAICT project. The talk yesterday reminded me of how much there is to learn from talking to and working with people within their own context, how important it is to listen and understand instead of placing the technology first.

The other thing I learned yesterday is that I'll still a pretty crappy bowler.