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(Co-taught with Prof. Wasilewska)

The seminar will meet once a week. It will work on two levels. The first level will be based on research in the area of ubiquitous computing, with emphasis on mobile computing. We will look for applications already developed for US markets, for African countries, and Cambodia, India, and China. We are interested in tracing the common trends and explore the differences.

On the second, most important level we will develop our own applications. We are first targeting the Senegalese market because we (Christelle Scharff from Pace University and I) were awarded a grant from NCIIA (National Collegiate of Innovators and Inventors Agency entitled Sustainable Technology-based Entrepreneurship for the Senegalese Market. We will collaborate with National Council of Negro Women (NCNW) and Women Business Center(WBC) incubator located in Saint Louis, Senegal.

The seminar format involves discussions and presentations, majority led by students.

Project

Our main goal is to develop Mobile Phone applications for businesses connected with the Women Business Center (WBC) located in Saint Louis, Senegal.

In general, we will also look into development of mobile phone prototypes that target as many informal economies as possible.

Students will use J2ME to develop prototypes on emulators and install them on some phones I will provide, or on their own phones. The prototypes will then be tested in January 2009 with WBC clients.

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