UC Berkeley Blum Center For Developing Economies Center for Effective Global Action

Spring 2013

A USAID Development Lab DIL’s Mezuri Platform: Headquartered at Addressing Development’s Data Scarcity Through University of California, Berkeley Groundbreaking Technology and Greater Openness

B E A DIL G S R

BERKELEY -- In spite of the technological advances and conceptual shifts that have characterized the Information Age, important features and processes of international development remain poorly understood, and the speci c impacts of many development projects remain uncertain. But this situation is rapidly changing. New tools and the democratization of data in open source frameworks are changing how practitioners and academics think about development, allowing data and direct measurement to guide development innovation and decision- From le : UC Berkeley Professor Clair Brown, UW Professor making in meaningful ways. Gaetano Borriello, and PSU Professor Evan  omas discuss their work on data collection and data management at a recent DIL Launch Event at UC Berkeley.  e new USAID-funded Development Impact Lab (DIL) is tapping into and catalyzing this evolution, which represents one of the most important trends in international development today. Innovative and rigorous monitoring and evaluation (M&E) strategies are critical components in DIL’s overall mission to identify, re ne, and scale new sustainable technology solutions to enhance wellbeing in the developing world. Dr. Eric Brewer, a University of California, Berkeley (UC Berkeley) Computer Science Professor and Vice President of Infrastructure at Google, is leading a streamlined group of DIL partners including UC Berkeley, Portland State University (PSU), the University of Michigan (UM), and the University of Washington (UW) to create a “one-stop-shop” suite of technologies, ranging from sensors to cellphone apps, to collect and manage massive amounts of data from development projects in the eld.  e exciting, wide-ranging platform, Mezuri (meaning US Patent-Pending SWEETSense™ allows for customizable, “measure” in Esperanto), does more than embody DIL’s dedication in-situ instrumented monitoring and data collection on to rigorous evaluation – its emphasis on accessibility also exempli es technology performance and use. Above, the SweetSense has been designed to support and monitor the LifeStraw project, DIL’s commitment to include new actors in the ght against global which aims to provide puri ed water in developing countries. poverty. A Sensible Approach One key DIL Mezuri partner, the Sustainable Water, Energy and Environmental Technologies Laboratory (SWEETLab™) at PSU, has designed a highly e ective sensor technology that can provide objective, quantitative, continuous data on technology and program performance across a range of sectors.  e technology, SWEETSense™, aims to address the shortcomings of gathering data through infrequent and expensive surveys. “We want to show how international aid is actually working,” 29-year-old NASA veteran and SWEETLab Director Evan  omas said at a recent DIL Conference at UC Berkeley’s Blum Center. “As engineers, we understand the importance of rigorously using instruments to test programs.” SWEETLab™ is currently demonstrating its concept in water, sanitation, household energy and rural infrastructure programs in several countries including Indonesia, Haiti, Guatemala and Rwanda.  e innovative, rigorous approach to data collection ultimately aims to improve the quality and accountability of international development projects, allowing practitioners and researchers to better understand what works and what doesn’t work in diverse eld contexts.

UM Professor Prabal Dutta shares this aim. Dutta, who completed his PhD at the Computer Science Division of UC Berkeley’s Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences Department, is involved in a range of projects that aim to make computing more transparent, a ordable, and widespread. One such project has produced HiJack, a state-of-the-art device that allows a smartphone to easily integrate with a range of external sensors. HiJack opens the door to new smartphone-based sensor and data collection applications, from EKG monitoring for health interventions to soil moisture testing to improve agriculture. Incredibly, Dutta’s team has focused its design to produce a HiJack with components that cost as little as $2.34, maintaining a low and accessible cost to consumers in developing countries.

University of Michigan’s HiJack uses power and bandwidth from the mobile phone’s audio interface to create a cubic-inch peripheral sensor ecosystem for the mobile phone.

Voices from the Crowd  is focus on accessibility highlights another exciting aspect of DIL’s Mezuri platform: its openness and  exibility.  ese characteristics, crucial aspects of the crowdsourcing revolution that has fostered web giants such as Wikipedia, hold the potential to meet data needs in ways that empower developing country citizens, nurturing a broad understanding of development as civic engagement. Similarly to how Wikimedia – the infrastructure that runs Wikipedia – is open to allow people everywhere to run their own wikis, DIL’s Mezuri platform aims to open and facilitate individuals’ and organizations’ information sharing about international development projects, bringing new players and ideas to the forefront of development research and practice. Few projects exemplify the power of open data better than DIL Mezuri partner Open Data Kit (ODK), developed in 2008 by Google-sponsored UW computer scientists to harness the power of crowdsourcing, and to improve data collection in developing countries. Like HiJack, ODK exploits the ubiquity of cellphones, providing an open-source suite of customizable and easy to use App- based tools that helps developing world NGOs create and manage mobile data collection solutions. ODK o ers a complete open source platform for building survey and information forms (ODK Build), collecting data (ODK Collect), and storing data (ODK Mezuri Platform partner University of Washington has developed Open Data Kit, a free and open- Aggregate) – all via Android smartphones. source set of tools that help organizations author,  eld, and manage mobile data collection solutions. Training developing world-based users to become surveyors and data-generators through ODK is straightforward, and there are a wide range of helpful tips and training resources on the ODK website. And because ODK software is provided under an open source license, it is free to use, disseminate, and modify to best meet on-the-ground data collection needs. ODK has been used for a wide range of purposes and settings in the developing world, from monitoring election fraud in Afghanistan to conducting epidemiological studies in the Brazilian Amazon. All of these uses have one thing in common: they facilitate the easy, open  ow of data directly from its context. ODK allows the M&E of a technology, project, or event to be carried out by those who are directly a ected.

Better Data for a Better World “ e better data you have, the more you can measure and evaluate the e cacy of a development intervention, and ultimately, the greater impact that development intervention is likely to have,” explains Matt Podolsky, a sta researcher at UC Berkeley’s Technology and Infrastructure for Emerging Regions research group (headed by Dr. Brewer) who is also working to support DIL’s Mezuri platform. Data, Podolsky says, is crucial for truly understanding how technology can help people in developing countries, and how limited funding resources can most e ectively be used toward that end.

So it’s good news that more and more, data relevant to development is emerging in new ways from new places, that experimental ideas are leaving the lab for real-world applications, and that a ordable and accessible open data tools are fostering new communities of collaborative problem solvers. And, with its innovative, rigorous, and open Mezuri platform, it’s good news that DIL is at the forefront of the data revolution in development.