Technology in Service of Society
Raj Reddy
Carnegie Mellon University
November 25, 2005
Technology Trends
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A Giga-PC in 2000
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Billion operations per second,
Billion bits of memory
Billion bits per second Network bandwidth
Less than $2 k
A Tera-PC by the year 2015
 A Peta-PC by the year 2030
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Exponential Growth Trends in Computer Performance
1638400
819200
Tera PC
Doubling every 15 months
409600
204800
100G PC
102400
51200
M25600
I
P12800
S 6400
Doubling every 2 years
10G PC
3200
1600
Giga PC
800
400
200
100
1994 1995 1996 1997 1998
1999 2000 2001 2002 2003 2004 2005
2006 2007 2008 2009 2010 2011 2012 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020
Year
What do we do with all this power?
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Social systems not affected:
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Food we eat
Clothes we wear
Mating rituals
The computing will transform the way, we
Live
 Learn
 Work, and
 Communicate
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Using Technology In Service of Humanity
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Helping Aging population
Disaster Rescue
Accident-Avoiding Cruise Control
Access to Information and Digital Libraries
Access to Education
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Literacy
Urban/Rural Divide
Access to Healthcare
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Lifeline
Emergency Healthcare
Helping Aging Population
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US population is aging at an alarming rate.
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Cost of eldercare has grown dramatically over the last
decade
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10% of the population will be over the age of 70
By 2030, it is estimated to be 20%
Home nursing costs between $30k and $60k annually
Explore the use of robots for elder care?
70+ age group is likely to have minor disabilities impacting
their quality of life. The three broad categories are
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Sensory disabilities
Cognitive disabilities, and
Motor disabilities
Role of Technology in Elder Care
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Reminding
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visit the bathroom, take medicine, drink, or see the doctor
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Use tele-presence technology
Professional caregivers can interact directly with remote patients
Reducing the frequency of doctor visits.
Connecting with caregivers
Monitoring the well-being of patients
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Emergency conditions can be avoided
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Help Move Objects for Arthritic Patients
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Manipulating objects around the home such as
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e.g. heart failure or high blood sugar levels
Refrigerator
Washing machine, or
Microwave.
Help with Social Functions
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Many elderly live alone
Deprived of social contacts
Encouraging Social Activity
Encouraging Social Activity
Robotics and Disaster Rescue
Disaster sites are often unreachable and too dangerous
for human exploration
 In most cases, rescue workers need to retrieve victims within
about 48 hours
 Pre-Disaster technology alone doesn’t help
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e.g. In Kobe earthquake (1995, Japan) many structures collapsed
though they were believed to be earthquake resistant
Rescue Robot Ecology:
Environment, Platforms, & Role of People
Robots of International Rescue System Institute
•Information Collection from Above
•Robotic Helicopter
•Infoballoon
•Information Collection on the Rubble
•Information Collection in the Rubble
•Snake Robot
•Wide-Area Information Collection
•Drop-in Cell-phone Tower
•Database for Rescue Management
Autonomous Cars as Eco-Technology
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Unsafe driving conditions
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1 million casualties worldwide every year from road accidents
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Excessive braking causes stop-and-go traffic
Majority of jams can be avoided if 20% of cars use auto-pilots
Passengers disconcerted by irregular driving
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Driver fatigue, drunken driving, speeding
42% of vehicle crashes due to poor visibility conditions
Traffic jams caused by driver panic or miscalculation
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Annual repair bill of $55 Billion for cars in the US
Majority of road accidents caused by human errors and
reduced visibility
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Over 40,000 in the US alone
Sudden speeds and stops highly disturbing to passengers
Also leads to high fuel consumption and wearing of vehicle
Underutilization of roads due to huge gaps between
vehicles
Accident Avoiding Cruise Control
Collision warning systems
 Frontal and sideways collision warnings for
buses/trains
 Adaptive cruise control systems
 Maintain speed, navigate turns, follow vehicles, autopark, switch lanes
 Autonomous driving systems
 Autonomous racing vehicles – Sandstorm, Highlander,
Stanley
 Highway driving for extended time periods – Navlab
11
 Lane keeping and headway maintenance
 Obstacle avoidance by swerving and stopping
 Path planning systems based on GPS and navigation
maps
 Close vehicle following on automated highways –
platooning
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VIDEO
This video shows the 5th generation of autonomous vehicle
Click here to see the Autonomous Vehicle video (49.0 MB)
Access to Information and Knowledge:
Technology to the Rescue
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Unequal Access to Libraries at the Bottom of the Pyramid
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Annual estimated global spending - $42 Billion
Annual estimated US spending - $12 Billion
Annual estimated spending of Developing Countries – Less than $1
Billion!
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Creating universal digital library containing all the books
ever published is feasible today
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Most of it goes to Salaries not Collections
Non-destructive scanning of books possible since 2000
Language Divide Problem
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Unfortunately most of these books are in English
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Not readable by over 80% of the population
Most People cannot read books in other languages
Current translation systems are not yet perfect
The Million Book Digital Library
Collaborative venture among many
countries including USA, China and India
 So far 400,000 books have been scanned
in China and 200,000 in India
 Content is made freely available around
the globe

Cover Page of Sanskrit book RigVeda.
Urdu book by Khader Badesh
(1919)
Status: The Million Book Digital
Library
Collaborative venture among many
countries including USA, China and India
 So far over books have been scanned in
China and 200,000 in India
 Content is made freely available around
the globe

Problems of Educating
the Youth at Bottom of the Pyramid
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In India, 70% of the 20 million children are born in low
income rural communities
Of these only 50% pass the national exam at 10th grade
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The urban top students, usually get 90% plus marks
The top rural students get 10 to 20% points less depending on the
backwardness of the area
As a result, less than 1% of the candidates selected into the
elite national programs like IIT or IAS come from low
income rural communities
Unless all the urban students are brilliant and rural students
second rate, the country is leaving wasting 70% of the
national resource of equally gifted youth
Rather than select students based a national rank, we
propose that use the local-best rank to identify the gifted
students
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independent of how their marks compare with marks of the students
in other local communities.
Step I: The Literacy Problem
Illiteracy cost around $225 b per year
 Over a billion people cannot read or write
 Over 2 billion people in the world are
functionally illiterate

 lack
of comprehension of the sentence and
the meaning of the words
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Children and people who live in villages
need extra help to become good readers
Project Listen Reading Tutor
•
Project Listen’s Reading Tutor is designed to help
children improve their reading skills
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•
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At their own pace, in their own way.
Installed in several schools
Used by hundreds of children every day
Handles students all the way from pre-school level to grade 5
or beyond.
Developed by Prof. Jack Mostow, Carnegie Mellon University
Using the Reading Tutor a student is twice as
effective than the conventional techniques
The Reading Tutor is affordable and the software is
free
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Uses Sphinx-II speech recognition engine
Computer recognizes what you speak and corrects you
Uses Windows XP on an ordinary PC with 256MB of memory
Reading tutor being used in a class room.
Reading Tutor pilot in Ghana.
Step II: Educating Youth from
Low Income Rural Communities
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Rural youth cannot successfully compete in National Exams
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Most Solutions not Scalable to Large Number of Students
Quality Teachers not available
Existing Universities unable to introduce new learning
models
No Access To Computer Literacy
Can’t commute and can’t afford
Rural Parents do not know options available for their kids
Early Specialization into Math, Physics and Chemistry
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leads to narrow uni-dimensional students
One Class Fits All?
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Urban rich kids are specially trained in coaching centers
Most rural kids can’t afford and/or
Quick Learners and Slow learners
No Incentives for Broad-based Education
Limitations of Using Marks as a
Metric of Giftedness
SAT, JEE, IAS all use marks as a measure for
selecting the most deserving candidates
 Marks are primarily a function of “Time on Task”
 If all the candidates had the same training at
school and at home then Marks can be seen as a
Fair and Equitable method of selection
 Marks are a function of
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Time on Task
Quality of the Teachers
Education level of the Parents
Ability to Pay for Coaching Classes
Local Best Model
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Select Students based on Performance based on
Local (County) Ranking
Rather than National Ranking as in SAT Tests
 Rich vs. Poor Divide
 Urban Vs Rural Divide
 Time on Task
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Teaching to Test
Tutorial College Syndrome
 Learning Vs. Memorizing (Rote Learning)
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In the case of unequal training, marks are not a good measure of
talent and ability
Residential
Variable Performance within Local Ranking
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Mandal (County) Best?
 Average
Marks by School in Chillakur Mandal of
Nellore Dt.
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LITTLE ANGEL'S (EM) H S, CHILLAKUR
APSWRS BOYS CHILLAKUR
461
Z P P HIGH SCHOOL THIKKAVARAM 376
Z P HIGH SCHOOL, N. RETTAPALLI
362
Z P P HIGH SCHOOL CHILLAKUR
Z P P HIGH SCHOOL CHINTAVARAM 360
Z P P HIGH SCHOOL VALLIPEDU
Z P P HIGH SCHOOL VARAGALI
ZP HIGH SCHOOL KADIVEDU
263
511
360
356
352
New Rural University in India
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Catering primarily to Rural Students
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Named Rajiv Gandhi University of Knowledge Technologies
Residential – Top 1% of the graduating class admitted each year
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Students selected using the local best model
Admission is by invitation and not by Application
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leading to a dual degree in IT and a domain specialization.
The program uses the learning-by-doing paradigm
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No Entrance Examination.
The program consists of a six year integrated curriculum
after 10th grade
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6500 students admitted in 2008 August
using personalized mentors and intelligent tutoring systems.
Each student is provided a Laptop from the beginning.
Motto: "Learning to learn, Learning to think and Learning
to live".
Access to Healthcare
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Under 5 Mortality Rate
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Underlying causes of many of these deaths
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Poor pre-pregnancy health, Inadequate care during pregnancy
and delivery, etc…
Currently, village health workers make home visits to
provide Neonatal care
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One out of every 5 children dies before reaching the age of 5
As hospitals are not accessible and costly
Scalability and sustainability of current solutions has
been a problem
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Accessibility to a health worker, identifying and training health
workers and providing timely support and medicine
Each year over 100 million infants worldwide
need immunizing against six different diseases.
Education and immunization
campaigns have reduced child and
maternal mortality rates in china
Emergency Scenario in India
until 2004
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300,000 emergencies occur per day (108 M p.a.)
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80% are at the bottom of the pyramid
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80% deaths occur in hospitals in the first hour
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4 M deaths p.a.
Absence of 4 As
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Access
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Availability
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Affectionate Care
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Affordability
Satyam Foundation
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Establishes a Not-For-Profit Organization (NPO) called EMRI to
attack this problem in 2005
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Initial funding of $50 Million
Emergency Management Research Institute
(NPO) and Public Private Partnership (PPP)

EMRI architecture and performance
leads to

P
the following PPP (Public Private
Partnership) framework
Partnership
delivers
targeted
Outcomes
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95% of operational expenses by
Government (Public)
 EMRI to contribute balance 10% of
expenses and all costs of Leadership,
Innovation, Research & Training,
Technology
 Management by EMRI to sustain long term
performance at International quality and
speed
Govt. of
A.P.
Govt. of
Gujarat
Govt. of
MP
Govt. of
Uttarakhand
Govt. of
Tamilnadu
Govt. of
Rajasthan
Govt. of
Goa
with
People, Process and Performance
capabilities
P + P
Poor
Pregnant
Pediatrics
Govt. of
Assam
Passion
Patience
Professionalism
Govt. of
Karnataka
Emergency Response Center
• 24X7 Unique Emergency
Response Center staffed
with trained Communication,
Medical and Police
personnel
Technology
Computer Telephony Integration
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Call Centers: Voice Loggers
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GIS / Maps
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GPS / AVLT
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Mobile Communication
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Application software for Sense, Reach and Care
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ePCR (Electronic Patient Case Record) Form
prevention
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Sense
Reach
Care
Technology enhanced competitive
advantage of EMRI
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One Emergency Response Center per State against
6,500 in the USA
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Employs latest technology (9-1-1 is a 30+ year-old )
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Call handling , dispatching and ambulance control are
under one roof
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Availability of doctors and police in the response center
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Virtual handholding by doctor/paramedic commences
since call is received
Ambulance
• Ambulance design based on best of class - Indianized
Today at EMRI
• 9,000 + EMRI Associates
Jammu &
Kashmir
• 6,800 + Private Hospitals / Nursing homes
Himachal Pradesh
• 2,000 Police / Fire Stations
Punjab
• 280 M population covered in 6 States
• 6,500 emergencies handled ( 2.4 Million
annualized)
• 1,140 Ambulances - 6+ trips a day
Haryan
a
Delhi
Sikkim
Rajasthan
Uttar
Pradesh
Assam
Jharkhand
Gujarat
Madhya Pradesh
Manipur
West
Bengal
Mizoram
Tripura
Orissa
Maharashtra
Andhra
Pradesh
Goa
Karnataka
• 100% virtual handholding (in ambulance) by
EMTs and physicians
• 130+ lives were saved daily(45,000+ till now) and
Kerala
6,370 victims received timely, high-quality pre-hospital
care
Tamil
Nadu
Nagaland
Meghalaya
Bihar
• < 3 minutes Ambulances assigned
• < 14 minutes (urban) and < 21 minutes (rural)
Ambulances reached
Arunachal
Pradesh
Uttarakhand
Medical Emergencies
Medical Emergency
% of
Total
Rural Female
%
%
82
100
57
18
77
35
Age
Yrs
Pregnancy related
Injuries
Acute Abdomen
22
18
8
22
31
32
Suicide related
Cardiac related
6
5
72
66
43
38
27
42
Respiratory related
4
66
36
46
Follow-up after 48 hours
Discharged
49 %
Stable and still in Hospital
45 %
Critical and still in Hospital
1%
Expired
5%
Extraordinary Performance from
Ordinary People
3 Hour Neonate
(Baby Girl) Buried
Cyclist– Fell on road
divider rod
Robbery – Thief requested wife to dial 108 after 10 minutes to
take the injured husband to hospital
Firing - Between
Army Commanders
and Naxalites
Extraordinary Performance from
Ordinary People
35 Ambulances to Bihar
Candle Light Delivery
Suicide Attempt
Snake Bite
Bomb Blasts Ahmedabad
Caring, Valuing and Respecting Life
Humaneness
 Humility &
 Commitment to serve

Leading to Reduction in Poverty, Increase
in Quality of Health and Life
What is Stopping Us?:
Digital Divide Issues
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Connectivity Divide
 Access to free Internet for basic services?
Computer Access Divide
 Accessibility: Less than 5 minute walk?
 Affordability: Costing less than a cup of coffee per day?
Digital Literacy Divide
 Language Divide
 Literacy Divide
Content Divide
 Access to information and knowledge
 Access to education and learning
 Access to health care
 Access to jobs
 Access to entertainment
Necessary Conditions for Inclusive
Technology
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Almost Free Access to Internet
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Basic services free
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Value added services at affordable rates
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To an illiterate person in a village, the need for a PC is not
obvious
A TV and/or a telephone represent a better value proposition: a
PCtvt, 5 in 1 multi-function information appliance?
Accessible
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access to movies
Clear Value Proposition

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up to 10 email and web exchanges per day
No more than a 5 minute walk from home?
Affordable
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No more than the price of a cup of coffee
Initiatives for
Scalable and Sustainable Development

Connectivity: Fiber to the Village
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Computer Access: Multi-Function Information Appliance
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PCtvt – PC, TV, PVR, Video Phone and IP phone
Capacity Building: eLearning for the Masses
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AP Broadband Project
Software for use by illiterate people in rural communities
Content
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Million Book Digital Library
eLearning modules for rural enterprises
Village Google