Today Tapan S. Parikh from the University of Washington gave a talk at UCL about his work on CAM. CAM is a mobile application framework that aims to help building applications for the developing world with possible use in microfinance, governmental services, health care or education.
The project works together with people in rural India and iteratively developed an application with them that supports bookkeeping in microfinance. They use forms with 2D barcodes printed on them that can be scanned using mobile phones with built-in cameras. Mobile phones are getting more and more popular in India and are therefore a good choice for an input device as people are used to them. Bookkeeping information is then aggregated and can be sent off using, for example, text messages. This video is a short demo of CAM.
Another application of CAM allows farm inspectors to collect multimedia data in order to do quality control or aid the certification process of small cooperatives. For example, inspectors could monitor the farmers compliance with organic or Fair Trade standards. The data could also be used to establish direct linkages to consumers.
For more information visit the project website.