Developmental Informatics Lab

Developmental Informatics Lab
Established	2002
Head	Krithi Ramamritham
Staff	20
Location	Powai, Mumbai, India
Website	http://dil.iitb.ac.in

The Developmental Informatics Lab (also known as DIL meaning heart in Hindi) is a research lab within the Indian Institute of Technology Bombay . Devoted to research projects at the convergence of Information and communication technologies and Socioeconomic development, the Developmental Informatics Lab was popularized in 2002-2006 in India by business and technology publications such as IEEE Internet Computing, The Telegraph (UK Newspaper), Times of India, Hindustan Times, Indian Express and The Economic Times for a series of practical ICT deployments in the fields of wireless networks, real-time collection of data from sensors,Indian Language Computing, web browsers and the World Wide Web. More recently it has focused on product design in technologies that directly address social causes. The lab has spun-off one company in the area of ICT4D.

<-- The second company will be updated later after we receive permission -->

Research Objectives

The lab emphasizes action research in the sense of Deployment oriented projects solving real problems of real communities or tackling scalability/technology problems in existing projects) and to rapidly bring out research outputs/prototypes relevant to rural and small town "Bharat". Mobile telephony reach is growing at an accelerated rate giving a large part of the developing populations access to the Internet for the first time. However the current generation of handsets and mobile data transmission exchange protocols are too primitive for providing multimedia at the last mile. e.g. In the context of using the mobile phone for applications in e-Learning, SMS (Texting) while useful is not as powerful as Video.

The lab also emphasizes the study of how web content is created and how first time users can participate (Inviting the next Billion new users to participate and contribute as producers of information and not just as its consumers).

e.g. Aaqua - a portal powered by user-generated content primarily from Indian Farmers and Agri-Experts.

Goals

Increased understanding of the benefits and limitations of ICTs in achieving the Millenium Development Goals. All publications and research outputs are in the public domain with the goal of making a significant and attributable contribution to development and encouraging other technologists and scientists (esp. in Engineering or Computer Science fields) to look at this area as good research that is relevant to India today as we connect millions of our people as consumers of Internet & Communication Technologies. The Lab looks at these millions not just as consumers of ICTs but as producers who one day can and will contribute to Wikipedia as well.

Building

The Developmental Informatics Lab is housed at the Kanwal Rekhi Building - a landmark building designed by Hafeez Contractor with funding from the established US entrepreneur and IIT Bombay Alumnus, Kanwal Rekhi. This building still houses the first business incubator in the IIT Bombay campus.

Funding

In the past the lab has received funds from several organizations including:

Ministry of Information Technology, Govt of India
Developmental Gateway foundation, itself funded by a World Bank Loan
Panasia ICT R&D Grants, itself funded by a consortium of partners
National Agri-Innovation Project, itself funded by a World Bank Loan
Few Corporate Sponsorships

Spin Offs

The lab has spun-off one company:

Agrocom Software Technologies Pvt Ltd. was formed in 2006. The company is running the Aaqua Farmer Knowledge Exchange designed to power millions of farmers and is currently helping solve the problems of Indian farmers coming from 350 of India's 600 Districts.

<-- The second company will be updated later after we receive permission -->