M I L L E E
Mobile and Immersive Learning for Literacy in Emerging Economies
People:
Matthew Kam is a
Ph.D. candidate in Computer Science at the University of California,
Berkeley (USA) affiliated with the Berkeley Institute of Design. His
research integrates his interests in economic development, education and
information technology. For his doctoral dissertation, Matthew is working
on educational computing using smartphones to improve English language
learning for children from the rural areas and urban slums of India.
Matthew previously participated in a third-party field evaluation of a
microfinance transaction technology developed and piloted by
Hewlett-Packard in Uganda, under the auspices of a fellowship program
between the United Nations and UC Berkeley. For his M.S. thesis, Matthew
developed and conducted learning assessments of Livenotes, a cooperative
note-taking system to promote small-group learning in large lectures via
wirelessly-connected handheld devices. For his B.A. honors thesis in
economics, he worked with non-profit organizations in the USA and his home
country Singapore to evaluate the socioeconomic and educational impacts of
computer donations on low-income households.
As a child, Matthew was a robotics enthusiast who was fascinated that
computers could “think.” But living on the other side of the digital
divide meant persisting through numerous obstacles, including the lack of
a home computer, to learn computer programming. Moreover, growing up in an
environment which is not conducive to the professional development of the
engineer made him dream of becoming an outstanding development economist
instead. Matthew's aspirations shifted after he encountered John Canny's
human-centered computing initiative at UC Berkeley as an undergraduate
there. This is a fertile intersection where he can finally reconcile his
disparate academic interests.
Matthew graduated in 2001 with a B.A. in Economics and a B.S. in
Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences from UC Berkeley. He has
completed graduate classes on literacy theory, reading science and second
language acquisition at UC Berkeley's Graduate School of Education. He is
also completing a part-time diploma course in Teaching English as a
Foreign Language.
Divya Ramachandran is a Ph.D. student in
Computer Science at the
Over the summer of 2005, she worked as an intern at Mitsubishi Electric
Research Labs (MERL) where she designed a user-interface in the Tamil
language for the speech-operated voice mail Combadge device, which was
specifically designed by MERL to target inexperienced and/or illiterate
users of technology. Following this, she conducted fieldwork in the village
of Pudupalayam
in the state of Tamil Nadu,
Divya graduated magna cum laude from the University
of Utah
with a B.S. in Computer Engineering in May 2004. In 2002, she
co-founded the Salt Lake City
Ruth Alexander is a graduating senior at the University of California, Berkeley majoring in psychology. She enjoys being able to work with students from other majors on the same project and contributing to the interdisciplinary approach of the MILEEE project. Ruth has past experience working with children and is glad to be applying that knowledge to mobile and immersive learning.
Anjali Koppal is a graduating senior in Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences at the University of California, Berkeley. She is an international student, and has lived in India and Kuwait before coming to Berkeley on a Regent’s and Chancellor’s scholarship. Anjali is passionate about technology and its applications to solving real-world problems. She is graduating in Spring 2007, and hopes to attend graduate school in Fall 2007. Anjali is fluent in English, Hindi and her native language Kannada.
Anand Raghavan
is a Regent’s and Chancellor’s scholar at the University
of California,
Priyanka Reddy is in her sophomore year at the University of California, Berkeley, where she is working towards a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences. She has always been interested in Computer Science and enjoys being involved in the MILLEE research project because it combines her passion for computer science with her interest in helping others. Although Priyanka moved from India to the United States in her childhood, she visits India regularly in order to maintain her knowledge of the Indian culture and values. Priyanka is also a participant in the Intel Undergraduate Research Program administered by UC Berkeley's College of Engineering.
Anuj Tewari is an undergraduate student at the Dhirubhai Ambani Institute of Information and Communication Technology (DA-IICT) in India, pursuing his third year of B.Tech in Information and Communication Technology (ICT). His primary interests are in the fields of programming languages, computer networking, operating systems, graphics design, human-centered learning and analog electronics. Anuj is currently also working in the field of operational amplifiers and MOSFETs. Anuj worked under the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), in the summers of 2005 and tried to understand the social setup of Indian villages. He also conducted a survey in a village called Kantekur aimed at recording the different means of livelihood in Indian villages. He spent almost one month living in villages and working with NGOs and was awarded a certificate by the Panchayat in recognition of his work.
Community Partners
Babu Mathew started his career in marketing. After serving Bata India for more than 10 years, he moved to Saudi Arabia to take up the job of a Recreation Manager. During his 9 year stint in Saudi Arabia, he planned and executed several events for the group of American consultants and their families based there. As a Pygmalion volunteer Babu contributed enormously to spreading the project far and wide. He meticulously planned and installed hundreds of computers in rural schools. Truly, Babu is the face of project Pygmalion! Babu Mathew is one of the founders of Mysooru Literacy Trust, a new not-for-profit initiative to promote literacy among the poor.
N.S. Soundara Rajan (aka
Soundar) is one of the founders of Pygmalion, a project to
complement the work of English teachers at Government-run schools in
Karnataka, India. The teaching methodology was evolved out of the one
developed and practiced by Soundar, a couple of years ago. The methodology
comprises among others multi-media based lessons, curriculum and
non-curriculum, specially developed for 5th, 6th and 7th standards.
Project Pygmalion is being implemented in dozens of schools in the state
of Karnataka, in India.
As a columnist Soundar hosts weekly columns related to freeware and
Internet in 'Deccan Herald,' a leading English news daily published from
Bangalore. He is one of the founders of Mysooru Literacy Trust, a
new initiative to promote literacy among the poor. This not-for-profit
trust is a key local collaborator in India for the University of
California, Berkeley’s MILLEE project to enhance English Language skills
among the poor students in rural schools.
M.L. Ramanarasimha (aka RN) has served as an English language teacher for 30 years in Primary and Higher Secondary Schools, Junior Colleges, and Teachers Training Institutions in India. Trained in Language Teaching Methods at the Regional Institute of English, Bangalore, RN, a professional ELT consultant, has conducted several English Language Training Courses for middle and upper level management personnel in many Industries, in and around Mysore. As a Pygmalion volunteer RN has contributed a lot to the development of the teaching methodology. He is also the main author of the curriculum developed for imparting English skills at Rural Community Learning Centres. RN is one of the founders of Mysooru Literacy Trust, a new not-for-profit initiative to promote literacy among the poor.
Urvashi Sahni has been widely recognized
for her efforts to reform education in
Her other accomplishments include: initiating and managing a school reform
project involving 62 schools, 16,000 students, and 258 students in rural
areas of UP; launching an innovative in-service program for the United
Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) with 30,000 kindergarten and
first-grade teachers in 28 districts within Uttar Pradesh; working as the
director of an action research project to bolster girls’ education and
serving on the UP state government’s Girl Child Mission to promote
girls’ education; founding and running the highly regarded Study Hall
school in Lucknow (UP) and its affiliated afternoon school for girls from
the urban slums in Lucknow.
Urvashi received her Ph.D. in 1994 from the Graduate School of Education
at the
Maksim Lirov graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in December 2006 with a B.S. degree in Electrical Engineering & Computer Sciences (focus in Computer Systems). Maksim joined the MILLEE research project because he is interested in learning about foreign language teaching as well as participating in the process of developing English language learning games on the smartphone platform. As an immigrant to the United States, Maksim himself went through the process of learning the English language and is interested in applying his own experiences with English acquisition to the MILLEE project.
Vijay Rudraraju graduated from the University of California, Berkeley in December 2006 with a B.S. in Engineering Physics. He believes strongly in the ability of technology and a free internet to become a global democratizing force and reduce the barriers to education and economic power in developing regions around the world. Vijay currently works at Seeqpod Inc. as a developer for their array of web services and applications.
