Progress in 2007 - new project funding secured from Intel

Jo Tacchi and Jerry Watkins were invited by Intel Research to conduct a one-week workshop at their headquarters in Portland, Oregon. An extremely intensive exchange of research and ideas laid a strong foundation for an ongoing relationship between Intel and CCI. The workshop culminated in a major presentation on ‘Creative Engagement for Digital Inclusion’, presented to Intel’s main Portland campus.

This new relationship has been cemented through the decision by Intel Research to fund Tacchi and Watkins’ research project ‘Moving Content: Creative Engagement in Marginal Spaces’. This study will explore whether mobile ICT initiatives can support community participation in content creation programs. Sites of enquiry will be selected from the route of India’s new ‘Golden Quadrilateral’ highway.
We are looking for ‘bottom-up’ rather than ‘imposed’ instances of creativity within underserved communities – the latter identified by lack of infrastructure, rather than by economic conditions. Specifically, we will examine how active individuals and communities use mobile technologies and/or technological networks to tell and exchange stories and to enhance interaction both among community members and with their peers in other groups. Examples of content creation that leverage both analog and digital ICT will therefore be closely examined. The CCI team of Tacchi, Watkins, M.S. Kiran and Tripta Chandola is collaborating with Intel researchers Kathi R. Kitner, Susan A. Faulkner and Jay Melican. Initial funding of USD 75,000 has been granted for 12 months. Intel has indicated that it will support the project for up to three years, subject to satisfactory annual progress. Both CCI and ICI have contributed seed funding to further develop this relationship.

Tacchi and Watkins were invited to give the keynote presentation ‘Participatory Research and Creative Engagement with ICTs’ to a workshop on ‘Sensing on Everyday Mobile Phones in Support of Participatory Research’, part of the prestigious ACM Sensys Conference held in November in Sydney.