EcoHouse Research

Mike Fallows

Information Systems Team, EcoHouse Initiative, University of Cambridge

 

The student-led EcoHouse Initiative has been working since 2011 in collaboration with the NGO TECHO in Brazil and Ecuador to improve the quality of life of slum dwellers through transitional housing solutions. Expanding their reach, the Information Systems division was formed to take advantage of readily available IT solutions and turn these into effective tools in the initiative’s development work. 

 

It often comes as a surprise to find electric lighting, mobiles phones and even high-end stereos and TV in basic homes made out of tin and scraps of wood. In slum settlements close or within cities, electricity tends to be abundant legally or illegally. Government schemes are even using TV sets as life-style props to encourage people to stay in rural areas and reduce the influx of city migrants. To take the use of these technologies further, various NGOs have developed programs that enable them to share information better and help to facilitate their work on site. In India, the hole in the wall education program, inserted computers in street walls for passing by children to use and gain exposure to an increasing technologically orientated society. On the medical end of the spectrum, Medic Mobile is a program using frontline SMS to help track if clinics have run out of drugs. But SMS technology can also be used as an alternative currency as is the case in Nigeria to pay for services and goods and to transfer money to remote areas in form of remittances. 

 

The initiative engaged in three different projects: collecting sensor information from prototype houses to improve the design in future iterations; tracking spending behaviours of individuals to create credit histories for loans; and distribute low-cost computing devices such as Raspberry Pi to connect to a TV and use as a learning tool in conjunction with the offline version of the Khan academy. Initial implementation trials show great promise with each of these solutions to improve the lives of the affected people. Additionally, the Initiative is undertaking trials to identify methods to use mobile technology to improve collection of field data through surveys. This includes smartphone platforms as well as SMS based systems such as Frontline SMS. Schemes are using electricity, and consequently technology, as life-style changing move. 

 

Nonetheless, introducing these technologies into slum communities poses challenges in themselves such as the language barrier, the difficulty of building a local team, the availability of components, the time that is needed to spend in the field, the lack of funding, among others. Various technological solutions have now been made available; however, their successful application will still depend on a holistic strategy by the implementers.