Tapan S. Parikh

School of Information
University of California, Berkeley
102 South Hall
Berkeley, CA 94720-4600
http://www.ischool.berkeley.edu/~parikh/
parikh@ischool.berkeley.edu

Research Interests

My research focuses on human-computer interaction and systems engineering, with an emphasis on developing applications that have a deep socio-economic impact. Combining novel technical approaches with domain and user understanding, my goal is to understand important emerging models of human organization and find ways for technology to facilitate their growth and development.

Focus Areas: Human-Computer Interaction (HCI), Mobile Computing, Programming Languages, Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICTD), Information Systems for Microfinance, Smallholder Agriculture and Global Health

Education

2007

University of Washington - Ph.D. in Computer Science
Dissertation - Designing an Architecture for Delivering Mobile Information Services to the Rural Developing World
Advisors - Ed Lazowska, David Notkin

1999

University of Washington - M.S. in Computer Science
Thesis - WIL: A Compiler Intermediate Language with Explicit Support for Representations
Advisor - Craig Chambers

1996

Brown University: B.Sc. in Molecular Modeling (with Honors)
Thesis - Cation Binding Selectivity of EF-Hand Sites: Perturbation Dynamics of Galactose Binding Protein
Advisor - David Busath

Awards

2007

TR35 Humanitarian of the Year

2005-7

Intel Ph.D. Fellowship

2005-7

NSF IGERT Fellowship

2004

UW Computer Science & Engineering Fellowship

2003

Bonderman International Travel Fellowship

2003

ACM Conference on Universal Usability Best Paper Award

1995

Hughes Fellowship for Undergraduate Research

Employment

2008-

University of California, Berkeley, CA
Assistant Professor
Tenure-track appointment in the School of Information.

2003-

Consultant, Berkeley, CA
Expertise in technology and operations for non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and microfinance institutions (MFIs). Eligible for CGAP IS Fund.

2003-

ekgaon technologies, New Delhi, India
Founder and Director
Founded consulting firm offering services to NGOs and microfinance institutions, focusing on information systems and appropriate rural technologies.

2005

Microsoft Research India, Bangalore, India
Summer Internship
Led project investigating usability of a mobile phone based data capture framework for rural microfinance institutions.

2003-4

University of Washington, Seattle, WA
Teaching Assistant
Teaching assistant for undergraduate Introductory Programming and Computer Architecture courses. Helped conduct a graduate course on IT and Public Policy covering four campuses (U. Washington, UC Berkeley, UC San Diego and Microsoft Research). Also organized a quarterly seminar on ICT and Rural Development, including participants from Microsoft Research, Intel Research Seattle and the UW Center for Internet Studies.

2002

Media Lab Asia, Mumbai, India
Research Associate
Researcher at Media Lab Asia, founded by MIT Media Lab and the Government of India Ministry for Information Technology. Directed the HISAAB project, exploring research issues in user interface design and microfinance.

2000-2

SRISTI, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India
Technical Coordinator
Co-directed the Knownet-Grin project, in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad, supported by the World Bank's InfoDev program.

2000-1

Gujarat Vidyapith, Ahmedabad, Gujarat, India
Graduate Lecturer
Lecturer in Master's in Computer Applications program, teaching graduate courses in C++ programming and XML. Developed a new syllabus, lectures, exams and assignments, and was responsible for more than fifty students.

1999

IBM T.J. Watson Research Center, Hawthorne, NY
Visiting Researcher and Intern
Worked with Harold Ossher on the design of an integrated development environment for Subject-oriented Programming.

1998-9

University of Washington, Seattle, WA
Research Assistant
Research assistant in the Cecil group, working with Professor Craig Chambers on topics in compilers and programming language design.

1997-8

University of Washington, Seattle, WA
Teaching Assistant
Teaching assistant for undergraduate courses in Introductory Programming (I and II) and a graduate course in Compilers. Responsibilities included lecturing, teaching discussion section, tutoring students and developing exams, projects and homeworks.

1996-7

Summit Financial Systems, New York, NY
Application Developer
Involved in the development of financial simulation and valuation models for derivative financial instruments.

1994-6

Brown University, Providence, RI
Teaching Assistant
Teaching assistant for undergraduate CS courses in Discrete Mathematics, Computer Architecture and Software Engineering, and a graduate Chemistry course in Molecular Modeling. Responsibilities included tutoring students and developing exams, projects and homeworks. Helped design the curriculum for a new undergraduate major in Molecular Modeling.

Publications

Theses and Dissertation

Tapan S. Parikh, Designing an Architecture for Delivering Mobile Information Services to the Rural Developing World, Ph.D. Dissertation, University of Washington, 2007
Tapan S. Parikh, WIL: A Compiler Intermediate Language with Explicit Support for Representations, Masters Thesis, University of Washington, 1999
Tapan S. Parikh, Cation Binding Selectivity of EF-Hand Sites: Perturbation Dynamics of Galactose Binding Protein, Honors Thesis, Brown University, 1996

Refereed Journal Publications

Tapan S. Parikh and Kaushik Ghosh, Understanding and Designing for Intermediated Information Tasks in India, IEEE Pervasive Computing Magazine, April 2006
Tapan S. Parikh, Using Mobile Phones for Secure, Distributed Document Processing in the Developing World, IEEE Pervasive Computing Magazine, April 2005

Refereed Conference Publications

Brian DeRenzi, Neal Lesh, Tapan Parikh, Clayton Sims, Marc Mitchell, Werner Maokola, Mwajuma Chemba, Yuna Hamisi, David Schellenberg and Gaetano Borriello, e-IMCI: Improving Pediatric Health Care in Low-Income Countries, ACM Conference on Computer-Human Interaction (CHI), April 7-10, 2008, Florence, Italy (to appear) (Acceptance Rate: 22%)
Tapan S. Parikh, Neil Patel and Yael Schwartzman, A Survey of Information Systems Reaching Small Producers in Global Agricultural Value Chains, Poster, ICTD 2007, December 15-16, 2007, Bangalore, India (Acceptance Rate: 36%)
Tapan S. Parikh and Edward D. Lazowska, Designing an Architecture for Delivering Mobile Information Services to the Rural Developing World, WWW 2006, May 23-26, 2006, Edinburgh, Scotland (Acceptance Rate: 11%)
Paul Javid and Tapan S. Parikh, Augmenting Rural Supply Chains with a Location-Enhanced Mobile Information System, ICTD 2006, May 25-26, 2006, Berkeley, CA (Acceptance Rate: 11%)
Tapan S. Parikh, Rural Microfinance Service Delivery: Gaps, Inefficiencies and Emerging Solutions, Poster, ICTD 2006, May 25-26, 2006, Berkeley, CA (Acceptance Rate: 27%)
Tapan S. Parikh, Paul Javid, Sasikumar K., Kaushik Ghosh and Kentaro Toyama, Mobile Phones and Paper Documents: Evaluating a New Approach for Capturing Microfinance Data in Rural India, ACM Conference on Computer-Human Interaction (CHI), April 24-27, 2006, Montreal, Canada (Acceptance Rate: 23%)
Tapan S. Parikh, Kaushik Ghosh, Apala Chavan, Puneet Syal and Sarit Arora, Design Studies for a Financial Management System for Micro-credit Groups in Rural India, ACM Conference on Universal Usability (CUU), November 10-11, 2003, Vancouver, BC, Canada, Best Paper Award

Refereed Workshop / Short Publications

Neil Patel and Tapan S. Parikh, Designing a Farmer-centric Organic Certification System, CHI Workshop on Human-Computer Interaction for Community and International Development (HCI4CID), April 5-6, 2008, Florence, Italy (to appear)
Yaw Anokwa, Christian Allen and Tapan Parikh, Deploying a Medical Record System in Rural Rwanda, CHI Workshop on Human-Computer Interaction for Community and International Development (HCI4CID), April 5-6, 2008, Florence, Italy (to appear)
Brian DeRenzi, Tapan Parikh, Neal Lesh, Marc Mitchell, and Gaetano Borriello, Striking a Balance between User Comfort and Maximizing Benefit in Developing World Information Systems, CHI Workshop on Human-Computer Interaction for Community and International Development (HCI4CID), April 5-6, 2008, Florence, Italy (to appear)
Brian DeRenzi, Krzysztof Gajos, Tapan Parikh, and Gaetano Borriello, Opportunities for Intelligent Interfaces Aiding Healthcare in Low-Income Regions, IUI Workshop on Intelligent User Interfaces for Developing Regions (IUI4DR), January 13, 2008, Canary Islands, Spain
Brian DeRenzi, Yaw Anokwa, Tapan Parikh, and Gaetano Borriello, Reliable Data Collection in Highly Disconnected Environments using Mobile Phones, SIGCOMM Workshop on Networked Systems for Developing Regions (NSDR), August 27, 2007, Kyoto, Japan (Acceptance Rate: 25%)
Yael Schwartzman and Tapan S. Parikh, Using CAM-equipped Mobile Phones for Procurement and Quality Control at a Rural Coffee Cooperative, MobEA V, Mobile Web in the Developing World, May 8th, 2007, Banff, Canada
Yael Schwartzman and Tapan S. Parikh, Establishing Relationships for Designing Rural Information Systems, Experience Report, ACM Conference on Computer-Human Interaction (CHI), April 30-May 3, 2007, San Jose, CA (Acceptance Rate: 40%)
Yael Schwartzman and Tapan S. Parikh, Establishing Relationships for Designing Rural Information Systems, CHI Workshop on User-Centered Design and International Development (UCD4ID), April 28, 2007, San Jose, CA
Emma Brunskill and Tapan S. Parikh, Lessons from Prototyping a Microfinance Distance Learning Tool, CHI Workshop on User-Centered Design and International Development (UCD4ID), April 28, 2007, San Jose, CA
Tapan S. Parikh, Mobile Phones may be the Right Devices for Supporting Developing World Accessibility, but is the WWW the Right Service Delivery Model?, International Cross-Disciplinary Workshop on Web Accessibility (W4A), May 22-23, 2006, Edinburgh, Scotland
Tapan S. Parikh, Designing an Architecture for Delivering Mobile Information Services to the Rural Developing World, Doctoral Consortium, IEEE Workshop on Mobile Computing Systems and Applications (WMCSA / HotMobile), April 6-7, 2006, Semiahmoo Resort, Washington
Tapan S. Parikh, CAM: A Mobile Interaction Framework for Digitizing Paper Processes in the Developing World, Doctoral Symposium, ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST), October 23-26, 2005, Seattle, Washington
Tapan S. Parikh and Paul Javid, CAM: A Mobile Interaction Framework for Digitizing Paper Processes in the Developing World, Demonstration, ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST), October 23-26, 2005, Seattle, Washington
Tapan S. Parikh, CAM: A Mobile Paper-based Information Services Architecture for Remote Rural Areas in the Developing World, Doctoral Consortium, IEEE Symposium on Visual Languages and Human-Centric Computing (VL/HCC), September 20-24, 2005, Dallas, Texas
Kaushik Ghosh, Tapan Parikh and Apala Chavan Design Considerations for a Financial Management System for Rural, Semi-literate Users, Short Paper, ACM Conference on Computer-Human Interaction (CHI), April 5-10, 2003, Fort Lauderdale, Florida (Acceptance Rate: 38%)

Other Papers

Tapan S. Parikh, Kannaiyan Sasikumar and Sundarmoorthy Olaganathan, Promoting Quality Bookkeeping in Self-help Groups: The Mahakalasm Management Information System, Learning Paper, SEEP Network, November 2006
Tapan S. Parikh and James Dailey, XML-based Data Standards for Microfinance Information Exchange, Book Chapter, IT @ Financial Services, ICFAI (Institute of Chartered Financial Analysts of India), December 2006
Sasi Kumar, Tapan S. Parikh and Vijay Pratap Singh Aditya, Enabling Banking for Rural Communities using CAM ICT Framework, CAB Calling Magazine, College of Agricultural Banking (CAB), Reserve Bank of India (RBI), April-June 2006
Tapan S. Parikh, Rural Microfinance Service Delivery: Gaps, Inefficiencies and Emerging Solutions, Book Chapter, Electronic Banking With the Poor: Increasing the Outreach and Sustainability of Microfinance through ICT Innovation, Foundation for Development Cooperation, 2005
Tapan S. Parikh, "Tech-tip: Mo-Ap", ICT Update, Issue 13, September, 2003
Tapan S. Parikh, "A Synthesis of Complexity", Deccan Herald, June 15th, 2003
Tapan S. Parikh, Vijay Pratap Singh Aditya and Muthu Velayutham, Automated Forms Processing and Paper User Interfaces for Data Collection from Village Microfinance Groups, Unpublished Draft, 2003
Vijay Pratap Singh Aditya and Tapan S. Parikh, Mahakalasm Management Information System - A Functional Study, Unpublished Draft, 2003
Pat Hall, Tapan S. Parikh, Shailey Minocha and Venkatesh Hariharan, Localisation in South Asia, International Journal of Localisation, 2003, Localisation Research Center, Dublin
Tapan S. Parikh, Knowledge Network for Augmenting Grassroots Innovations, IICD / InfoDev ICT Stories, April 2001

Invited Presentations / Exhibitions

Designing Appropriate Computing Technologies for Rural Development, March 5, 2008, Center for Information Technology Research in the Interest of Society (CITRIS), Berkeley, CA Video
Designing Appropriate Computing Technologies for Rural Development, May 24, 2007, Media Lab, MIT, Cambridge, MA Video
Designing Appropriate Computing Technologies for Rural Development, April 25, 2007, Department of Computer Science, Princeton University, Princeton, NJ
Designing Appropriate Computing Technologies for Rural Development, April 19, 2007, Department of Computer Science, University of Texas, Austin, TX
Designing Appropriate Computing Technologies for Rural Development, April 5, 2007, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science, MIT, Cambridge, MA
Designing Appropriate Computing Technologies for Rural Development, March 30, 2007, Department of Computer Science, University College London, London, United Kingdom
Designing Appropriate Computing Technologies for Rural Development, March 28, 2007, Department of Computer Science, State University of New York at Stony Brook, Stony Brook, NY
Designing Appropriate Computing Technologies for Rural Development, March 26, 2007, Department of Computer Science, Tufts University, Somerville, MA
Designing Appropriate Computing Technologies for Rural Development, March 22, 2007, Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto, Toronto, Canada
Designing Appropriate Computing Technologies for Rural Development, March 19, 2007, School of Information, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI
Designing Appropriate Computing Technologies for Rural Development, March 14, 2007, Department of Computer Science, University of California at San Diego, San Diego, CA
Designing Appropriate Computing Technologies for Rural Development, March 13, 2007, School of Information, University of California, Berkeley, CA
Designing Appropriate Computing Technologies for Rural Development, March 1, 2007, Department of Informatics, University of California at Irvine, Irvine, CA
Designing Appropriate Computing Technologies for Rural Development, February 27, 2007, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Washington, Seattle, WA Video
Designing Appropriate Computing Technologies for Rural Development, February 20, 2007, School of Information, University of Texas, Austin, TX
WIRED Nextfest, September 2006, Jacob Javits Center, New York, NY
Technologies for Communities: Managing Information from the Grassroots, UNIDO Bridging the Divide, April 2006, University of California, Berkeley, CA
Technologies for Communities: Managing Information from the Grassroots, People, Computers and Design Seminar, February 2006, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA
Technologies for Communities: Managing Information from the Grassroots, Developing Regions Seminar, February 2006, Intel Research, Berkeley, CA
Technologies for Communities: Managing Information from the Grassroots, October 2005, Google, Mountain View, CA
Technologies for Communities: Managing Information from the Grassroots, August 2005, Human Factors International, Mumbai, India
Technologies for Communities: Managing Information from the Grassroots, Microfinance MIS Workshop: Innovations and Experiences, August 2005, Madurai, India
Technologies for Communities: Managing Information from the Grassroots, July 2005, Microsoft Research, Bangalore, India
Technologies for Communities: Managing Information from the Grassroots, June 2005, Ricoh Innovations, Menlo Park, CA
Technologies for Communities: Managing Information from the Grassroots, UNIDO Bridging the Divide, April 2005, University of California, Berkeley, CA
MobileTeller: A Mobile Phone Application for Capturing Remote Financial Transactions, ICT4B Workshop, August 2004, University of California, Berkeley, CA
Multimedia Localisation in the Indic Context, LRC 2002, November 2002, University College, Dublin, Ireland
Moderator, Indic-Computing Workshop, September 2002, Hewlett-Packard Indian Software Operations, Bangalore, India
HISAAB: An Experiment in Numerical Interfaces, Panel Discussion, Baramati Initiative on ICT and Development, May 2002, Baramati, India
HISAAB: An Experiment in Numerical Interfaces, Demo, UN ICT Task Force Asia Regional Meeting, March 2002, Vigyan Bhavan, Delhi, India

Press

Will Lemke, "Cells Making Cents", Current TV, November 28, 2007
Pierre Prakash, "Le téléphone s'invente au Sud", Libération, November 27, 2007
Sujata Dutta Sachdeva, "Future stock", The Times of India, September 9, 2007
James Surowiecki, "Simple, powerful mobile tools for developing economies", Technology Review, September 2007
Seema Singh, "Connecting to progress", The Telegraph, August 27, 2007
Jessica Marshall, "Smartphones are the PCs of the developing world", New Scientist, August 1, 2007
Frederick Noronha, "Taking hi-tech solutions to poor villages", Indo-Asian News Service, June 21st, 2007
Will Mari, "UW student connects technology, social issues", The Daily, March 8th, 2007
Bellamy Pailthorp, "Cell Phone as Computer", KPLU News, March 8th, 2007
Hannah Hickey, "High tech for global justice: UW computer scientist designs custom cell phones", University Week, March 1, 2007
Alex Hutchinson, "Cellphones answer the call for computers in rural India", Ottawa Citizen, April 27, 2006
Rob Knies, "Making Cellphones Enhance Village Economies in Rural India", Microsoft News and Highlights, March, 2006
Mason Inman, "Welcome to the open source cellphone", New Scientist, March 11, 2006
Frederick Noronha, "Microfinance to Get the IT Edge", Express Computer, July 1st, 2002

Professional Activities

2007

Poster Chair, International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development (ICTD)

2008

Program Committee, Human-Centered Track, ACM Multimedia

2008

Program Committee, Wireless Networks and Systems for Developing Regions (WiNS-DR), ACM MobiCom

2008

Program Committee, Networked Systems for Developing Regions (NSDR), ACM SIGCOMM

2007-8

Program Committee, Developing Regions Track, International Conference on the World-Wide Web (WWW)

2006-7

Program Committee, International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development (ICTD)

2007

Program Committee, AI in ICT for Development Workshop, International Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI)

2006

Program Committee, Asian Applied Computing Conference (AACC)

2005-8

Reviewer, ACM Conference on Computer-Human Interaction (CHI)

2006-7

Reviewer, International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development (ICTD)

2007

Reviewer, ACM Symposium on User Interface Software and Technology (UIST)

2007

Reviewer, Developing Regions Track, International Conference on the World-Wide Web (WWW)

2007

Reviewer, AI in ICT for Development Workshop, International Joint Conferences on Artificial Intelligence (IJCAI)

2006

Reviewer, Information Technologies and International Development (ITID), MIT Press

2006

Reviewer, IEEE Pervasive Computing Magazine

Grants

2006

Understanding and Tracking Fair Trade Coffee Transactions, Ricoh Innovations and Transfair, ORIGINS Project, $25K (co-PI: E. Lazowska)

2006-7

DSH and CAM: Leveraging Low Cost Technology for Rural India, Microsoft Research, Digital Inclusion Program, $100K (co-PIs: T. Anderson, N. Garg, R. Wang, E. Lazowska)

2005-7

A Distributed, Accessible and Open MIS Framework for SHGs and SHG Federations, International Development Research Centre (IDRC), Pan Asia Program, $30K (co-PIs: V.P.S. Aditya, N. M. Velayutham, V.C. Nadarajan, T.R.S. Sunder and S. Olaganathan)

2005

International Mobility Grant; Marc Lindenberg Center for Humanitarian Action, International Development and Global Citizenship, $4K

2003-6

Self-management of SHGs Through an Accessible Paper MIS, SEEP Network, Practitioner Learning Program, $85K (co-PIs: N. M. Velayutham, V.C. Nadarajan, S. Olaganathan and V.P.S. Aditya)

Student Supervision

2008-

Kuang Chen, Ph.D., University of California, Berkeley (in progress)

2007-

Yaw Anokwa, Ph.D., University of Washington (in progress)

2007-

Brian DeRenzi, Ph.D., University of Washington (in progress)

2007-

Neil Patel, Ph.D., Stanford University (in progress)

2006-

Yael Schwartzman, Ph.D., University of Washington (in progress)

2004-6

Paul Javid, B.S., University of Washington

References

Prof. Ed Lazowska Dept. of Computer Science & Engineering University of Washington Box 352350 Seattle, WA 98195-2350 USA +1 (206) 543-4755 lazowska@cs.washington.edu	Prof. David Notkin Dept. of Computer Science & Engineering University of Washington Box 352350 Seattle, WA 98195-2350 USA +1 (206) 685-3798 notkin@cs.washington.edu
Prof. Gaetano Borriello Dept. of Computer Science & Engineering University of Washington Box 352350 Seattle, WA 98195-2350 USA +1 (206) 685-9432 gaetano@cs.washington.edu	Prof. James Landay Dept. of Computer Science & Engineering University of Washington Box 352350 Seattle, WA 98195-2350 USA +1 (206) 685-9139 landay@cs.washington.edu
Prof. Eric Brewer EECS, Computer Science Division University of California, Berkeley 387 Soda Hall Berkeley, CA 94720-1776 USA +1 (510) 642-8143 brewer@cs.berkeley.edu	Dr. Kentaro Toyama Assistant Managing Director Microsoft Research India 196/36 2nd Main, Sadashivnagar Bangalore, Karnataka 560 080 India +91 98866-05310 kentoy@microsoft.com
Prof. Tom Hinckley College of Forest Resources University of Washington Box 354115 Seattle, WA 98195-2100 USA +1 (206) 543-1588 hinckley@u.washington.edu