[talks] 3pm talk today on Sustainable Networks and Systems for the Developing World in room 402

[Jennifer Rexford]

Speaker: Lakshmi Subramanian, NYU
Title: Sustainable Networks and Systems for the Developing World
Date/time: 3-4pm Tuesday April 28
Location: room 402 in the Computer Science building

Abstract:

The Internet and the World Wide Web have largely remained urban
phenomena and a significant fraction of the developing world,
especially in rural and underdeveloped regions, remains disconnected
from the rest of the world.  In this talk, I will briefly elaborate on
our current efforts in addressing three broad challenges that can help
in bridging the digital divide: (a) developing low-cost high-bandwidth
connectivity solutions;  (b) extending the Web to developing regions;
(c) building new mobile applications for enhancing healthcare and
financial services.

This talk will specifically focus on the challenge of low-cost
connectivity solutions for developing regions. I will describe our
experiences in developing and deploying WiFi-based Long Distance
(WiLD) Networks, a low-cost connectivity solution which provides the
ability to achieve nearly 6-10 Mbps over 100s of kilometers for
roughly $1000/link. WiLD networks have been deployed in 10 developing
countries and have been used to provide telemedicine services in
Aravind Eye hospitals in India to 50,000 patients/year in rural areas
which is currently being expanded to cover 500,000 patients/year. We
are currently extending WiLD networks to develop WiFi based Rural
Extensions (WiRE), a low-cost alternative to cellular networks for
rural settings.

Bio

Prof. Lakshminarayanan Subramanian is an Assistant Professor in the
Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences at NYU. His research
interests are in the space of networks, distributed systems, security
and technologies for developing regions. He received his MS and PhD
from UC Berkeley and B.Tech from IIT-Madras.