Stanford University

Can ICT Improve Clean Water Delivery Systems in Slums? Lessons from Kibera

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Water is scarce, costly, and contaminated in Kibera, Nairobi -- one of Africa's largest urban slums. On good days, the women and children spend just under an hour finding clean water in their community. On bad days, the price of water increases tenfold and the search takes all day. Often, people ask jokingly whether it is water or cholera they are buying.

Many slums like Kibera lack access to clean drinking water, but they don't lack access to mobile phones. This is the insight behind M-Maji, a start-up non-profit project that uses mobile phones to empower communities with better information about water availability, price, and quality. This seminar will introduce the M-Maji system, and describe some of the challenges to designing for such a complex social environment.Background: M-Maji emerged from the Designing Liberation Technologies course in the Stanford d.school, which focused on using mobile phone technology for health improvement in Kibera. M-Maji has since received funding to run a pilot from the Program on Liberation Technologies and the Center on Philanthropy and Civil Society at Stanford

Sunny Jeon is the principal investigator to M-Maji research, and is currently making frequent trips to Kenya to prepare for a randomized impact evaluation of their water program. He is also a Ph.D. Candidate in the Stanford Department of Political Science, where he is working on a dissertation project that studies the economic and political returns to ethnic diversity.

Katherine Hoffman is a co-terminal student completing a B.A. in International Relations and Economics and an M.A. in International Policy Studies with a focus on Global Health. She has been involved with M-Maji since it began in Spring quarter, and has just returned from a trip to Kenya in December to begin laying the groundwork for the project implementation. 
Her primary interests include economic development and health improvement in low-resource settings. Past experience includes internships at the Bonn International Center for Conversion in Bonn, Germany and at the Institute for Financial Management in Chennai, India; she has also volunteered at the Center for the Working Girl in Quito, Ecuador and studied abroad for a quarter in Moscow.

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Katherine Hoffman M.A. Candidate, International Policy Studies, Global Health Speaker Stanford University
Sunny Jeon Ph.D. Candidate,Political Science Speaker Stanford University
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Liberation Technology Seminar Series

Inter-Korean relations

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Gi-Wook Shin
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Gi-Wook Shin, director of Shorenstein APARC and Stanford KSP, speculates on what inter-Korean relations will be like after the sinking of the Cheonan and the artillery firing at Yeonpyeong island, in a column in the The Korea Times. While predicting that tension and reconciliation efforts will go side-by-side with one another in the inter-Korean relations in the next few months, Shin further contends that the Lee Myung-bak administration should take on the task of improving inter-Korean relations by diplomatic solutions, not by military means, and that this strategy should be approached in a broader context which takes into account U.S.-Korea relations and the relations among Northeast Asian countries.
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Gi-Wook Shin, director of Shorenstein APARC and Stanford KSP
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Taiwan's Sovereign Status and the Neglected Taipei Treaty of 1952

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With a territory consisting of 36,000 square kilometres and a population of 23 million, the Republic of China (ROC) on Taiwan, Penghu, Jinmen and Mazu had, in 1970, the year prior to its withdrawal from the United Nations (UN), a population larger than two thirds of the countries in the world. In 1996, its population exceeded that of three quarters of the member nations of UN. However, the question of Taiwan being a nation in the international order is, strangely, still debated. To enquire into this delicate issue, Dr. Man-houng Lin will address to what extent the statehood of the ROC on Taiwan has or has not been secured by the Treaty of Peace between the Republic of China and Japan, singed and turned effective in 1952, and often referred to as the “Taipei Treaty.” (Taibei heyue) She will also illustrate that not only the People’s Republic of China, but also the Taiwanese in general have been unclear about Taiwan’s status as a sovereign state on the world stage. Meanwhile, in this special seminar Dr. Lin will further depict the background of the Taipei Treaty in terms of the long-term history of the Asian Pacific region. She will show how the Cold War made the Taipei Treaty, and ironically, how the ideological attachment of Taiwan with the Chinese mainland has also blurred this treaty. 

 

 

Man-houng Lin received her Ph.D. in History and East Asian Languages from Harvard University. She has been a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica since 1990, and Professor at the Department of History, National Taiwan Normal University since 1991. Her research interests include treaty ports and modern China, native opium of late Qing China, currency crisis and early nineteenth-century China, and Taiwanese merchants' overseas economic networks during the Japanese colonial period. She has published 5 books and about 70 articles in Chinese, English, Japanese, and Korean. From May 2008 to December 2010, Dr. Lin was President of the Academia Historica, the Republic of China (Taiwan).

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Man-houng Lin Senior Research Fellow Speaker Institute of Modern History, Academia Sinica
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Information Access under Poor Connectivity

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Abstract
Consider three different worlds of poor network connectivity:

  • Scenario 1: A user in Africa uses a cheap mobile device with voice and SMS as the only data connectivity channel (140 bytes per message and each SMS costs money).
  • Scenario 2: A university in India has good connectivity which is shared simultaneously by 400 users. (Per user share = 2 Kbps)
  • Scenario 3: A school in Kenya has a computer but no Internet.

In this talk, I will describe a range of techniques we have developed to enhance information access in these three scenarios of poor connectivity. In Scenario 1, we have built an entire SMS-based protocol stack for mobile applications being used in India, Mexico and Ghana as well as a live SMS search engine in Kenya. We are also rolling out a data-over-GSM voice stack to support data connectivity over cellular voice.

In Scenario 2, I will describe why some of the fundamentals of network protocols break down in these regimes and why we need a completely new Web architecture for these types of networks. We have deployed early versions of our system in a few schools and universities in India, Kenya.

In Scenario 3, I will describe how we can use vertical search engines to deliver a vertical slice of the Web in a hard-disk and provide an offline searchable and browse-able Internet. This system has been used in schools in India and Kenya as an educational tool for students and teachers.

This is joint work with several others with Jay Chen being a primary leader for many of these projects.

Lakshminarayanan Subramanian is an Assistant Professor in the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at NYU.

His research interests are in the areas of networks, distributed systems and computing for development. He co-leads the Networks and Wide-Area Systems(NeWS) group (which investigates software solutions for distributed systems, wireline and wireless networking, operating system, security and privacy, technologies and applications for the developing world) and the CATER Lab at NYU ( which focuses on developing and deploying low-cost, innovative technology solutions to some of the problems in developing regions in terms of communication, healthcare and microfinance).

Recently, he has co-established a new Center for Technology and Economic Development (CTED) at NYU Abu Dhabi which brings together students from several disciplines (CS, economics, healthcare, education, policy). He is the recipient of several awards including the  NSF CAREER Award (2009), IBM Faculty Award (2009, 2010) and C.V. Ramamoorthy Award. He has been at the forefront of several technological innovations for development that have been used in several countries around the world.

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Lakshminarayanan Subramanian Assistant Professor in the Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences Speaker University of New York
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Liberation Technology Seminar Series

Corrupt States: Reforming Indian Public Services in the Digital Era

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Why are some governments better able to reform public service delivery than others? The increased availability of information and communication technologies marks an important opportunity for politicians to improve the quality of public services. However, state-level experiences with eGovernment in India display significant variations in the ability of governments to successfully adopt these technologies to provide benefits to citizens. Based on her studies of one-stop, computerized public service centers in sixteen Indian states, Jennifer will discuss the characteristics of states associated with differences in policy outcomes and present original survey evidence on the effects of technology-based reforms on the quality of public services.

Jennifer Bussell is an Assistant Professor of Public Affairs at the Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs at the University of Texas, Austin. She received a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of California, Berkeley. Her research concerns the political economy of development and governance with an emphasis on the role of formal and informal institutions--such as federalism, coalition politics, and corruption--in shaping policy outcomes. She is particularly concerned with the politics of government technology adoption for the benefit of poor citizens in developing countries, with an emphasis on India.

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Jennifer Bussell Assistant Professor of Public Affairs, Lyndon B. Johnson School of Public Affairs Speaker University of Texas, Austin
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Liberation Technology Seminar Series

Thomas Fingar analyzes China and the global system

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Despite all of the rhetoric, it is clear from the numbers that China's ascendency has not been at the expense of the United States.

-Thomas Fingar

China unquestionably occupies a significant place in the world's U.S.-led economic and political system. Will it continue to participate in the system that it has benefited from and contributed to, adapting its policies and practices in order to do so? Or, will it attempt to overturn the current system at some point in an effort to gain global dominance? Thomas Fingar, the Oksenberg/Rohlen Distinguished Fellow at Stanford University's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies, will address these core questions in a new research project, arguing that the situation is neither so polarized, nor so simplistic. Former chairman of the National Intelligence Council, Fingar takes an empirical approach to his research, examining whether there have been recurring patterns to China's involvement in the global order; what drives, shapes, and constrains Chinese initiatives; and how others have responded to Chinese actions.

Fingar asserts that there have been patterns to China's participation in international economics and politics over the past 30 years, including a pendular quality to the U.S.-China relationship. According to him, relations between the two countries were largely instrumental during the Cold War era when the United States was at odds with the Soviet Union and China was undergoing a period of self strengthening. U.S.-China relations cooled following the Tiananmen Square incident, the timing of which coincided roughly with the fall of the Soviet Union. Trust between the two countries deteriorated as China displayed its more authoritarian side, and the United States responded with sanctions that did not significantly impede China's economic growth, but did change the relationship in ways that still shape perceptions of one another.

Economics are now the primary focal point of discussions about U.S.-China relations, with a negative light frequently cast on China. "Despite all of the rhetoric, it is clear from the numbers that China's ascendency has not been at the expense of the United States," states Fingar. Trade with China, in fact, creates jobs in the United States, but trade-related jobs are dispersed and therefore not clearly visible. "They are not concentrated in a place where a factory closed, often for reasons that that have nothing to do with China," says Fingar, "but the pain and the political impact is local. I would predict that when our economy turns around, the pendulum will swing further back in a less-worried, less-critical direction."

While China has a legal system and has adopted many international standards, Fingar asserts that "it is still not a society governed by law," and that it in fact does not always measure up to global or even to its own standards. He cites China's record of undesirable practices and issues, such as currency manipulation, government corruption, and intellectual property violation, which complicate and confuse understanding of its involvement in the global system.

Fingar does not believe that the U.S.-China relationship will ever return to the "honeymoon" era of the Cold War, but he says, "The swings of the pendulum and the perturbations in the relationship are less intense and of shorter duration; that is the pattern." Quoting Anne-Marie Slaughter, director of policy planning at the U.S. Department of State, Fingar suggests that the best vision for the global order is "a world in which there are more partnerships and fewer alliances." He cautions against disregarding important, long-time alliances, such as the U.S.-Korea relationship. He notes, however, the crucial fact that alliances assume that there is an adversary, which can marginalize and threaten regional neighbors, such as China, or put allies in the uncomfortable position of having to choose between siding with a neighbor or a distant ally. "We must find a way so that no one has to choose," says Fingar.

On January 6, Fingar outlined the primary points of his new research project at a public lecture co-sponsored by the Stanford China Program and the Center for East Asian Studies, part of the China in the World series. He will also lead Stanford students through an examination of related key issues and questions in "China on the World Stage" (IPS 246), a course that he is teaching during the current winter quarter.

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President Hu Jintao of China waits in a hallway before the start of a bilateral meeting with President Barack Obama, during the Nuclear Security Summit at the Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C., April 12, 2010. | Official White House photo by Lawrence Jackson
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Food price volatility and the world's poor

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Rosamond L. Naylor
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An October 13 New York Times headline article warned that an increasing volatile market for grains could lead to a repeat of the 2008 food price run-up. That price spike left over 1 billion people in a state of food insecurity-a threshold symbolic in its extreme order of magnitude and in the challenges it presents for combating global hunger in the future. In a paper released December 20 in Population and Development Review FSE director Rosamond L. Naylor and deputy director Walter P. Falcon provide insight into the causes and consequences of these volatile events.

"Price variability, particularly spikes, has enormous impacts on the rural poor who spend a majority of their income on food and have minimal savings," said Naylor. "Impacts at the local level have not been well measured, yet are key to improving food security globally." 

Expectations--often faulty--have played a key role in price volatility over the past decade. Uncertain exchange rates and macro policies added to price misperceptions, as did flurries of speculative activity in organized futures markets, particularly as a result of the growing biofuels market.

"These events highlight new linkages between agriculture-energy and agriculture-finance markets that affect the world food economy today," explained Falcon. "More importantly, volatile markets compound problems of low crop productivity, increase reliance on food imports, and aggravate other internal causes of instability--conflict, weak institutions, and inadequate infrastructure--that typically plague the world's poorest countries."

To see how the rural poor were impacted on a local scale, Naylor and Falcon looked at Ghana, Uganda, Malawi, Guatemala, and India. Price changes at the local level during the 2008 price spike were frequently half that of international prices, primarily as a consequence of domestic food and trade policies.

"The price bubble was undeniably grim for poor consumers, particularly for households living under $1/day or $2/day, but not as debilitating as many commentators suggested," said Falcon. "Unfortunately, most price stabilization efforts aimed at the poor, however well intended, ended up helping larger net producers much more than those at the margin."

Additionally, domestic self-sufficiency polices tended to have long-term negative impacts on the international market when governments lacked the resources to defend a targeted price or were ‘large actors' with significant shares of global production or consumption.

For example, in the spring of 2008, the Indian government placed a ban on rice exports--a major staple in the country--when it feared significant increases in grain prices and a spread of Ug99 (wheat rust). This ban affected food prices from Asia to Africa, created mini-panics within food importing countries, and added to global grain price variability. It underscored the growing food-security and crop interdependencies among nations arising from pathogens, prices, and policies.

The extreme heat wave that hit Russia and Eastern Europe in the summer of 2010, coupled with floods in Pakistan, declining estimates of maize stocks in the U.S., and uncertainties about global GDP growth have captured the attention of many analysts and policymakers. What will happen to prices in terms of spikes, trends, and variations during 2011-2013 and beyond is uncertain.

What is known, said Naylor, is that the causes and consequences of food-price variability deserve much more attention if we are going to alleviate global food insecurity in the future.

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Wolak and Morse's op-ed in the UK Guardian argue that China's record coal imports are actually helping the climate

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Frank Wolak
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PESD Director Frank Wolak and Research Associate Richard K. Morse's op-ed in the UK's Guardian, "China's green gift to the world", argues that China's record coal imports actually contribute to reductions -not increases- of global CO2 emissions.
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Coal powerplant in Chengde China Flickr Gustavo Madico scenery
Coal powerplant in Chengde China | Gustavo Madico
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Environmental Impact of the Nuclear Fuel Cycle

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Rod Ewing Visiting Professor at CISAC; Edward H. Kraus Distinguished University Professor in the Department of Geological Sciences at the University of Michigan Speaker
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China-US Inadvertent Nuclear Escalation

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Reuben W. Hills Conference Room

Riqiang Wu Nuclear Security Fellow at CISAC and PhD Student at Tsinghua University, China Speaker
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