i202 Fall 2009 School of Information, UC Berkeley

Demand Among Poor Farmers Keeps an Industry Growing as Other Sectors of the Economy Are Jolted

"In the village of Karanehalli, a cluster of simple homes around an intersection of two dirt roads about 40 miles from India's high-tech capital of Bangalore, Farmer K.T. Srinivasa doesn't have a toilet for his home or a tractor for his field. But when a red and white cellular tower sprouted in his village, he splurged on a cellphone.

While the way his family threshes rice -- crushing it with a massive stone roller -- hasn't changed for generations, his phone has changed the way he farms. He uses it to decide when to plant and harvest by calling other farmers, to get the best prices for his rice, coconuts and jasmine by calling wholesalers, and to save hours of time waiting on the road for deliveries and pickups that rarely come on time."

[Article]

I often wonder if the access to instant and limitless information simplifies people's lives or further complicates it? As for most things, I think its a bit of both. This article made for an interesting read as it gave me some definitive answers.

It got me thinking me about the "ubiquity" of the need and use for IO & IR - specially as applicable in the context of a non-information-intensive setting. In places where mobile phones are widespread and computers/ internet are a luxury, what kinds of IO & IR techniques would be best suitable? It excited me as I could see it as an opportunity to apply from the learnings of the existing IO & IR mechanisms and to also perhaps bring in a fresh set of ideas to be able to operate effectively under the given constraints.  

As mentioned by Bob in his lecture notes and one can clearly see in this this scenario - that technology is one of the key enablers here but there's immense scope in several other domains to help make the information retrieval process more refined and simpler.