Bridging the Quality of Life Gap through Ubiquitous Connectivity and Services

A large part of our world still does not have meaningful Internet connectivity. The gap between those who have quick and easy access to information versus those who do not has created an information divide, which is leading to a quality-of-life divide. Those who have access to information make better decisions about their well-being. As a community, it is important for us to take on this issue and pursue research that bridges the information divide. In this talk, I will present a set of research challenges and promising directions for enabling ubiquitous connectivity and services. These range from connecting rural villages in remote areas to monitoring the health of individuals and improving social interactions between people. I will describe a programmable mobile platform that enables researchers to build and distribute such applications quickly. The problem space is large and complex; to succeed, we have to work together towards empowering the individual to bridge this divide.