The aim of this research is to respond to the challenge of adjusting technology to local contexts in the field of ICT for development, by developing a comprehensive approach (methodology) for the analysis and design of sustainable and scalable socio-technical information systems that promote societal development of local communities in varying developing-country contexts. In addition, the project has a capacity building objective of forming a sustained tripartite international research group capable of disseminating, evaluating and improving the approach further.

Team

Koivu Annariina, Luukkonen Irmeli, Martikainen Susanna, Palmen Marilla, Pentikäinen Marika, Tiihonen Tuija, Vainikainen Vilma

The world needs hands on solutions to wicked problems such as climate change, resource scarcity and poverty, and we need to nd the pathways that enable such solutions to emerge. To maintain competitiveness in the future, Finland needs to improve it’s capacity to innovate and collaborate in new ways, to provide holistic and sustainable solutions to global challenges, both in emerging markets as well as disruptive new approaches to service provision in Europe. New global studies frugal and reverse innovations in complex global systems.

Team

Minna Halme, Teija Lehtonen, Jarkko Levänen, Helena Sandman, Emma Nkonoki, Tatu Lyytinen, Anne Hyvärinen, Sini Numminen, Sini Suomalainen, Marleen Wierenga, Marko Keskinen, Peter Lund, Olli Varis

Visual exploration of data enables users and analysts observe interesting patterns that can trigger new research for further investigation. With the increasing availability of Linked Data, facilitating support for making sense of the data via visual exploration tools for hypothesis generation is critical. Time and space play important roles in this because of their ability to illustrate dynamicity, from a spatial context. Yet, Linked Data visualization approaches typically have not made efficient use of time and space together, apart from typical rather static multivisualization approaches and mashups. We developed ELBAR explorer that visualizes a vast amount of scientific observational data about the Brazilian Amazon Rainforest. The core contribution is a novel mechanism for animating between the different observed values, thus illustrating the observed changes themselves.

Team

Tomi Kauppinen, Suvodeep Mazumdar

The widely-recognized essential features of the emerging 5G network compared with 4G networks include: 1000 times larger system capacity, 1/1000 power consumption, 10 Gbps peak rate and 1 ms end-to-end delay, while the innovation in transmission technologies is the basis in achieving this goal. The research carried out in this project can be divided into three areas: 1) New transmission architecture and protocol design for 5G networks 2) Green-transmission enabled 5G network technologies, 3) Advanced spectrum-sharing and smart transmission strategies in 5G networks. The proposed architectures, protocols, algorithms, techniques, and schemes are validated and evaluated through simulation platform and demonstration systems. Through this project, we expect to not only build theoretical foundations for 5G networks, but also to provide high-quality training opportunities for graduate students and engineers both in Finnish and Chinese Universities/Research Institutes.

Team

research on user-designer interaction has of yet poorly elucidated how meta-communication (communication about communication) is an important means in projects of “massive change”. Meta-communication or multi-actor ‘talk about how to talk’ is key in negotiating shared meanings so that the process for change initiated at a political or organizational high level can proceed also at the micro level despite experiences of tension and perceptions of contradictions and different time frames across this and other levels. This empirical focus is on a comparative analysis of projects in the Republic of South Africa, all of which had to do with on bringing about massive changes for the better in comparison to status quo. On the basis of an analysis of participant observation and analysis and interpretation of the written materials and notes made and collected, the goal is to describe and interpret how meta-communication helps to deal and to handle in constructive and generative ways tensions, contradictions and critical voices both outside and inside a project, which tensions otherwise might be destructive or degenerative. The goal includes to generalize beyond the particular materials how meta-communicative talk is a discursive resource for participants, as goes for facilitator participants in consulting or researcher roles, in particular.

Team

Antti Ainamo, Aalto University Ilari Lindy, University of Turku Associated: Marie-Laure Djelic, ESSEC, Paris, France

Converged Infrastructure for Emerging Regions (CIER) will design and implement the prototype of a self-configuring, cost- and energy effective, multi-radio, wireless backhaul network suitable for providing broadband connectivity to rural areas throughout the world, which are experiencing limited or none connectivity to the internet. Our vision is that communication infrastructure in emerging regions (Africa and parts of Europe) will be based on heterogeneous wireless mesh networks to connect geographically very large areas in an extremely harsh environment.

Team

Sami Ruponen, Kimmo Ahola, Elisa Jimeno, Juha Zidbeck.

Urban poverty in developing countries is fuelling the rapid growth of informal settlements which the UN defines as ‘slums’. Governments want to redevelop valuable slum land in the city centre for official and commercial purposes and to resettle slum dwellers to modern high-rise condominiums outside the city center, but target populations (former slum dwellers) are not always being reached by these programs. We focus on the cities of Addis Ababa and Dar es Salaam and ask: What are the exclusionary processes and forms of political economy that give rise to urban poverty in both of these cities? What are the best methods for understanding the lives of the highly mobile poor and elucidating the often hidden and invisible processes of resource flows, networking, and creation of privilege? More specifically, we investigate the reasons for why the poor are not being resettled in condominium housing, and whether the mismatch between the government’s original plan and the actual outcome arise from (a) policies and decisions which have, intentionally or unintentionally, excluded the urban poor, or from (b) the choices made by the poor themselves, because the new condominiums do not meet their needs (for livelihoods, social networks, access to services, etc. Our research methods are ethnographic: primarily in-depth, semi-structured interviews, including life history interviews.

Team

Prof. Laura Stark, Prof. Elias Yitbarek, Dr. Tiina-Riitta Lappi, Dr. Susanna Myllylä, MS Yonas Alemayehu, MS Imam Mahmoud, MA Jyri Mäkelä