These communally available phones can become a major source of communication where there had been none before, connecting families and supporting communities.
However, Nabi said that up to 70% of the cost of providing communications to rural areas comes in the form of connective networks, and so while mobile connectivity can be achieved for voice, often data connectivity lags.
A way of tackling this, Nabi proposes, is a low cost Skype-type system that leverages existing infrastructure. The television co-axial cable network, in combination with a Raspberry Pi and some basic equipment, Nabi found, can serve to provide a basic video-telephony system that can be programmed for those who are not only lacking in technical skills, but may be semi or illiterate. An icon based system can allow such users to access the system, and make contact with relatives and friends, at low cost without the need for costly data infrastructures. In the developing world, says Nabi, family contact is placed ahead of information access.
These networks can also be leveraged to map access and usage to provide insights for social care and development, Nabi argues. Analysis of the data derived could help to map areas for social housing, community care programmes and support of the vulnerable, providing insights that might not otherwise be available.
This could be made available as open data, says Nabi, leading to a democratisation of data and the insights it provides.
“Technology is another form of freedom,” said Nabi, “another tool to understand the world.”
Analytics
The power of analytics can also be brought to bear on massive volumes of clinical research data being produced. For clinicians, simply keeping up to date is an ever increasing burden due to the sheer volume of material produced in each field.
Lea Deleris PhD, and researcher at Dublin City University and IBM, sought to use analytics to extract quantitative risk information, in the form of probability statements, from academic medical papers. Deleris’ approach is based on regular expression matching of probability numbers, which then use lexical, syntactic and semantic features to support machine learning in determining matches to queries. The project application would allow clinicians to search, extract, aggregate and index information using natural language queries, potentially saving hours in research that can be dedicated to care.
A key element of this research is that the various mechanisms are built in modular fashion allowing re-use for other applications, such as developing vulnerability models in social care.
Delivery optimisation
Ronan Rooney, founder of Irish medicare company Curam, and now director of programmes of care at IBM, described the problems being faced by care services. He said the top 5% of clients, often called ‘super utilisers’, can account for up to 45% of total expenditure. He also outlined how existing knowledge can be better utilised to guide resources. For example, it has been shown that one of the single biggest influences in reducing teenage pregnancy is to keep girls in school.
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