[liberationtech] PCD 3/1/13 - Tapan Parikh, Representation Technologies

[Yosem Companys]

Stanford Seminar on People, Computers, and Design (CS547: HCI Seminar)
http://hci.st/seminar

1 March, 2013
12:50-2:05 pm, Gates B01

Tapan Parikh, UC Berkeley School of Information
Representation Technologies

Information technologies are essential tools for the representation
and communication of human knowledge. However, there are significant
disparities in the sources of knowledge currently represented on the
Internet. To address this, my research group developed Awaaz.De, a
phone-based voice message board allowing small farmers in India to
ask, answer and listen to agricultural questions and answers. Awaaz.De
has been deployed in Gujarat, India for over four years, and receives
hundreds of calls every week. I report on recent results from this
deployment, including empirical evidence of impact on farmer
decision-making, such as reducing the use of less effective and
potentially harmful pesticides. While Awaaz.De illustrates the
importance of appropriate user interfaces for representing situated
knowledge from underrepresented groups, this knowledge must be
translated to structured, quantitative forms for aggregation and
policy decision-making. Local Ground is a data collection,
  mapping and information visualization tool that helps youth develop
data skills by making connections between different representations of
the same empirical phenomena. Students begin by collecting open-ended
qualitative data, in the form of free-hand drawings, pictures and
audio interviews. This data is iteratively categorized and tagged,
leading to the design of structured data collection instruments for
more systematic inquiry. Finally, these various forms of data are
combined into narratives that can articulate youth perspectives to a
variety of stakeholders. Local Ground has thus far been used to
contribute to the planning of a public park, ground-truth civic data
about food access, and document air quality issues across the BART
transportation system. Within these projects, I explore several themes
in my work, including the design of more accessible interaction
techniques allowing new populations to author content, the importance
of bottom-up data for planning and eva
 luating development projects, and how we can bridge between diverse
knowledge representations using participatory data processing
techniques.

Bio: Tapan Parikh is an Assistant Professor at the School of
Information at the University of California, Berkeley, where his
research interests include human-computer interaction (HCI), mobile
computing, paper and voice UIs and information systems for
microfinance, agriculture, health, governance and education. Tapan and
his students have started several social enterprises, including
Awaaz.De, Captricity, NextDrop, Acopio and MobileWorks. He holds a
Sc.B. degree in Molecular Modeling with Honors from Brown University,
and M.S. and Ph.D. degrees in Computer Science from the University of
Washington, where his dissertation received the William Chan Memorial
award. Other accolades include the NSF CAREER award, TR35 Humanitarian
of the Year, and several best paper awards for his group's research.

-----
Jeffrey Heer
Assistant Professor, Computer Science
Stanford University
hci.stanford.edu | vis.stanford.edu