My UCI Research Project: Nomatic*Aid Posted in college |
A few summers ago I was privileged enough to get a fellowship to work on a research project when I was attending University of California, Irvine. Professor Patterson who was the professor overseeing my research was a big help in me deciding that I really enjoyed the culture of working in a startup because that is how he made the fellowship feel for me. I was allowed to work for however long I wanted and during the times that I felt were best for me. The only objective I had was to get to a certain stage for the end of the summer presentation (after the jump). I would have few meetings with him throughout the summer to show him my progress, but other than that I was on my own. In the beginning it was very overwhelming and scary because I had no idea where to begin, but overtime it became easier and a lot of fun. I would work late hours on my own free will just because I wanted to get to a certain point in the my to-do list. It made me realize how most startups require you to work late hours and have flexible schedules, which I enjoy a lot. Also, the fact that even though it was Professor Patterson’s research project he gave me the responsibility of doing it how I felt was best as long as the project got done and did not have any bugs.
I admit my experience with research at a university might have been a lot different than it normally is for most people, but I would highly recommend anyone who thinks they want to work in a startup environment to try and obtain a research opportunity. I feel that it is a safe and secure environment for someone to test the waters of a startup environment and see if they feel like it is for them.
Here is a brief summary of the research that I did and the video of my presentation at the end of the fellowship:
Nomatic*Aid consists of a hand-held geo-tagging photo device that enables coordination between human relief workers during, as well as in the weeks and months after, crises. For an effective crisis response, spatial and temporal information about the resources (e.g. water, arable land, vaccines) and displaced people has to be collected and collated by the team of responders working on the field. The information garnered needs to be disseminated and collated by a central server. Since a network infrastructure may not be available after a crisis, the hand-held devices are expected to form a mobile delay tolerant network. Such a system uses the idea of parasitic data transport by encouraging nodes to physically carry data for others when network connectivity is not available.
This project intends to use camera cell phones equipped with a Global Positioning System (GPS) to tag, store, and communicate “capsules” of context-based data. The hand-held devices will serve both as data collection and storage devices as well as communication nodes. Since the devices have limited transmission range, unpredictable mobility, and limited battery power, routing algorithms that exploit these unique challenges will be designed.
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- 03 Sep 2009 16:53
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