Mutua Village Community Network (Kitale)

4 January 2024

OBJECTIVE OF THE PROJECT  This project aims to build a community network in Mutua Village in order to provide meaningful and affordable connectivity to community members. In addition, the project is also intended to act as a proof of concept for best practices in designing and deploying a community network.   WHY IS THIS PROJECT IMPORTANT? …

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Online Mental Health and the Future of Therapeutic Labor

4 January 2024
Online Mental Health: a man is talking with his psychologist online.

RESEARCH QUESTION  The research asks how the work of mental health professionals is changing as they increasingly provide services through online digital platforms, and how such shifts impact therapeutic expertise, therapeutic labor, and professional practice.  The project aims to understand how the work of mental healthcare professionals is changing as it moves to teletherapy and…

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Internet Poverty Index (IPI): Methodology, Additional Granularity, Interactive Data Platform & Annual Rankings

4 January 2024

RESEARCH QUESTION  In order to further support the equitable increase of global Internet usage, this research project leverages the current Internet Poverty Index (IPI) — developed by World Data Lab (WDL) with support from the Internet Society Foundation — and upgrades its features to analyze and model with greater granularity the segments of the population…

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Incentivized network and localized services growth with mutual credit-based community vouchers

4 January 2024
Abstract representation of the project - helping to build connections between people who want to trade using a community currency and share local knowledge or digital resources using our iNethi cloud platform

RESEARCH QUESTION  The question that is addressed in this research is: Can a decentralized mutual credit-based community voucher combined with a community network and localized services incentivize (i) custodianship of commons infrastructure, (ii) creation of more locally generated digital content, and (iii) act as a catalyst to the stability and expansion of a local market? …

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Costs of Exclusion: Gendered Experiences of Meaningful Connectivity through a Global Pandemic

4 January 2024
Concept photo that shows a man and a woman next to a image with the equal sign.

RESEARCH QUESTION  Did the digital gender gap mean that women and men experienced the COVID-19 pandemic differently, and what are the microeconomic and macroeconomic consequences of this gap? Did governments take action and succeed in fast-tracking access to Affordable and Meaningful Connectivity as a result of the pandemic? What specific actions proved to be impactful in…

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Potentials of Green Coding

4 January 2024
Background with plants and the title "Green coding"

RESEARCH QUESTION  The research aims to answer three research questions: (1) What concepts of programming software in an environmentally friendly way (“Green Coding”) exist for software development in general? (2) What concepts of environmentally friendly software engineering processes are already in place in the Internet industry? and (3) How can Green Coding concepts be implemented…

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Creating an Open and Secure IoT Infrastructure for Monitoring and Preventing Emergencies in Landlocked Mountainous Countries: the Case of Kyrgyzstan

4 January 2024
Project team members setting wireless sensors in the field in Kyrgyz Republic

RESEARCH QUESTION  Can we use the Internet of Things in a rough environment to detect landslides and other threats while developing an open and secure infrastructure?  The research takes place in the Kyrgyz Republic.  WHY IS THIS RESEARCH IMPORTANT?  Due to the geographic location of the Kyrgyz Republic, the risk of mudslides and flooding is…

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The Critical Infrastructure Lab

4 January 2024
Project team members

RESEARCH QUESTION  The main research question is: How does Internet infrastructure reconfigure power relationships and resource dependencies, and how could it better serve the public interest?  In order to answer the question, the research develops three research streams: environment, geopolitics, and standards. (1) The research on the topic of environment explores the relationship between natural…

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Greening IoT using Radio Frequency (RF) Signal Power: Alternative Energy Source (Green Energy) for IoT

4 January 2024
Environmental technology concept.

RESEARCH QUESTION  The research focuses on green power through ambient RF energy harvesting, where up to 6V can be harvested through the cascading of multiple rectenna circuits. The research question is: Can IoT be green-powered using ambient radio frequency (RF) energy harvesting?  WHY IS THIS RESEARCH IMPORTANT?  IoT continues to grow exponentially, with about 30…

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TIBaLLi: Making AI Work for Internet Inclusiveness in the Global South

4 January 2024
Illustrative image. Data driven mindset concept

RESEARCH QUESTION  The question that is addressed in this research is: Can advanced AI methods (ML, NLP) be used to make the Internet more inclusive for communities in low-resource environments in the Global South such that local weather data combined with Internet-based global climate information become sharable beyond the Internet’s current boundaries and in people’s…

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