IBM works on mobile interfaces for illiterates

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IBM has taken the academic route collaborating with the Indian Institute of technology (IIT) in Bombay on research in mobile phone interfaces. IBM said it aims to develop user-friendly mobile device interfaces for illiterate consumers who mostly hail from India’s rural areas.
IIT Bombay is one of the top academic technology institutions in India and IBM is the second big name in tech after Microsoft to work with the institute.
The collaboration has taken place under the IBM’s Open Collaborative Research program.
The collaboration, of which the core focus is on developing simple, inexpensive mobile phone user interfaces for everyone, regardless of geography or education level, aims to introduce new levels of ease to mobile phone interaction via open source software that will be made available to the general public.
“IBM believes that close collaborative innovation with world-class academic institutions such as IIT Bombay, is the key to finally bridging the digital divide and putting the power of information sources and services in everyone’s hands,” said Manish Gupta, director of IBM Research India.
“Over the last few years, it has become clear that the next generation innovations in the ICTs will be directed towards solving the problems of developing countries like India,” he declared.
“Many of our design students and researchers enjoy working on such problems. The collaboration between IIT Bombay and IBM gives us the opportunity to explore and apply some of the newest technologies for this purpose. It is not only mutually beneficial but also intends to address larger socio-economic challenges,” said Prof. Anirudha Joshi, Associate Professor of IIT Bombay.
The projects with IIT Bombay and NID are part of IBM’s five-year, $100 million investment to advance mobile services and capabilities for businesses and consumers worldwide. Through these initiatives, IBM is aiming to drive new intelligence into the underpinnings of the mobile web to create new efficiencies in business operations and people’s daily lives.