UNICEF to implement undergraduate computer science project

Colin Ponce ’10, Peter Schulam ’11 and Woongcheol Yang ’10 developed a cell phone-based survey system in COS 597E: Advanced Topics in Computer Science: Civic Technologies. The three are collaborating with UNICEF to implement the system in regions that lack effective infrastructure, such as Africa. Yang is a former associate photography editor for The Daily Princetonian.

The system aims to provide an alternative to the surveying method generally used in such regions, which requires information to be gathered in person.

“Right now ... you have to send a person there to conduct the survey,” Ponce said. “It’s very slow and expensive, so this is a big improvement.”

Ponce added that, if the survey questions are politically sensitive, the current method is prone to bias since there is no guarantee of anonymity.

The students’ system, called Beepvote, capitalizes on a practice called “flashing” or “beeping,” where the caller hangs up before a connection is made. This practice has become widespread in developing countries because neither party is charged for the call. Though internet access in developing countries is scarce, most people do own cell phones, Ponce explained.

Through Beepvote, each possible response to a survey question is assigned a different phone number. When callers dial the number corresponding to their response, the server records the vote but hangs up before the connection is made. A previous system developed by UNICEF relied on text messages to record votes, but that required respondents to pay to send the message.

“Using Beepvote, polls can be run using phone networks instead, solving the issues of time, cost and privacy,” Yang said.

The system would be most useful for unofficial surveys where groups wanted to get a sense of public opinion, Ponce explained.

“It doesn’t have the kind of security you would need for government elections,” he added. “It would more be used for surveys within a community, like if a nonprofit wanted to ask people which of their programs they think is most effective or what the next project should be.”

The students performed a live test on campus in January and had organized a trial run in Senegal over winter break through the Jokko Initiative, a partnership between UNICEF and the organization Tostan. The test fell through due to a series of unexpected problems, including customs holdups, but the team is already developing new plans.

“We’re definitely still involved and definitely going to be setting up at least one test and getting some real users in Kenya,” Ponce said.

The three students stressed the importance of the collaboration with UNICEF, which allowed them to better understand the issues surrounding the system’s practical applications.

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“If it had just been us three, it never would have happened,” Ponce explained. “They told us what the capabilities were in developing countries. Without that, we wouldn’t have had a reasonable understanding of what we could expect from the people there and how they would want the system to work.”

Schulam said that while the development process was frustrating at times, it was a very rewarding experience. All three had primarily worked with web-based applications before, and none had experience working with the kind of technology used for the project.

“It was a completely new field,” Schulam said. “It was a little tough to figure all that out, but it was difficult in an enjoyable way and it was a lot of fun.”

In COS 597E, students learned how to “organize an engineering team, incorporate users’ needs into the design process and ... work with outside partners,” Edward Felton, the course’s professor, explained in an e-mail.

“There are some engineering lessons that are best learned by designing products for real customers,” he added.