CSE 490, Information and Communication Technology for Development
Prerequisite: CSE 332 and 331 or 351
Counts as a CSE Senior Elective
SLN 23346 , offered MWF 130-220
This is an engineering course teaching the use of Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) to address specific needs of developing countries. While ICTs are having an enormous impact on livelihoods worldwide, deployment environments vary dramatically based on available infrastructure and technologies accessible to people. The goal of this course is provide background to develop and deploy technologies in a global setting that address development challenges. Specific topics will include: health information systems, data collection technologies, applications for basic mobile phones, user interface design for low literate populations, behavior change communication, voice based social networks, community cellular networks, open source projects for global good, low-cost smartphones, satellite image analysis and mobile financial services. The course will consider a wide range of application domains including health, education, agriculture, finance, and livelihood.
The class sessions will be a lecture / discussion format with readings and assignments. There will be a series of small group implementation projects to gain familiarity with different technologies and software systems and to explore the design space for various applications.