P. Dauenhauer, D. Frame, S. Strachan, M. Dolan, Million Mafuta, D. Chakraverty, J. Henrikson
{"title":"Remote monitoring of off-grid renewable energy Case studies in rural Malawi, Zambia, and Gambia","authors":"P. Dauenhauer, D. Frame, S. Strachan, M. Dolan, Million Mafuta, D. Chakraverty, J. Henrikson","doi":"10.1109/GHTC.2013.6713718","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/GHTC.2013.6713718","url":null,"abstract":"Increased understanding of off-grid renewable energy technology (RET) performance can assist in improving sustainability of such systems. The technologies for remote monitoring of RET deployments in developing countries are promising with various configurations and usages being tested. Recent applications of remote monitoring technologies in Malawi, Gambia, and Zambia are presented along with their respective strengths and weaknesses. The potential for remote monitoring applications to improve sustainability of off-grid RET is explored along with some theoretical directions of the technologies.","PeriodicalId":168082,"journal":{"name":"2013 IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC)","volume":"32 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-10-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129948801","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"On-board solar power for small-scale distant-water fishing vessels","authors":"S. Babu, J. Jain","doi":"10.1109/GHTC.2013.6713644","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/GHTC.2013.6713644","url":null,"abstract":"The last two decades have seen the emergence of a specialized fishing fleet of small-scale fishermen that operate over large swathes of the central-western Indian Ocean. This fleet undertakes extended voyages of 30-45 days in order to conserve fuel, and targets specific varieties of pelagic fish. In order to improve their sustainability as well as to cut down their costs, these fishers are in the process of adapting solar energy for their lighting, communications and other on-board needs. This paper documents the initial iterations of the adoption process, which holds significant promise for the future in terms of energy & cost savings and for the promotion of sustainable fishing operations.","PeriodicalId":168082,"journal":{"name":"2013 IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC)","volume":"51 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"115123426","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The IEEE Actionable Data Book: A platform for inclusive education","authors":"E. Arenas, T. Richards, A. Barr","doi":"10.1109/GHTC.2013.6713655","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/GHTC.2013.6713655","url":null,"abstract":"The phenomenal growth in the adoption of mobile cellular devices in the developing world has open the opportunity to develop a global platform for connected learning - a software and data infrastructure that will serve as the foundation for the many systems that we build to realize the idea of equal access to educational services. In this paper, we argue that the most challenging factor for the deployment of this platform is the development and implementation of an engineering standard specification grounded in new learning theories and principles. We propose the IEEE ADBook that has the potential to become the first truly global framework for connected learning supporting inclusive education in developing countries.","PeriodicalId":168082,"journal":{"name":"2013 IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC)","volume":"36 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116970429","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"Design of a hybrid renewable energy system for a northern ontario community","authors":"Marielle Magtibay, D. Wong","doi":"10.1109/GHTC.2013.6713648","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/GHTC.2013.6713648","url":null,"abstract":"Renewable energy alternatives for off-grid northern communities are investigated via a specific case study of Fort Hope, Ontario. The current energy systems in most off-grid communities consist of diesel generators, which can be both financially and environmentally unsustainable. In lieu of this, a hybrid system comprised of a 636 kW run-of-the-river hydropower, existing 650 and 375 kW diesel generators, and 150 kg hydrogen storage and 100 kW fuel cell system is proposed. The design achieves a renewable energy penetration of 54%, a levelised cost of energy 41% less than the baseline model, and a reduction of 2,000 tonnes in annual diesel generator emissions. The HOMER model developed for the design is compared to RETScreen results; total power output deviated by 2%, however, renewable energy penetration varied largely due to monthly versus hourly modelling techniques and different controls on the dispatch strategy in each modeling software. Total capital costs and annual operating costs of the proposed design are $4.6 million and $990,000, respectively. Renewable energy systems can be considered a solution to humanitarian concerns due to increasing utility costs, emissions and load constraints. Renewable energy systems in remote communities require further research and development to lower equipment costs and enhance policy to achieve financial viability.","PeriodicalId":168082,"journal":{"name":"2013 IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC)","volume":"109 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127307355","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Donato Amitrano, G. D. Martino, A. Iodice, D. Riccio, G. Ruello, M. Papa, F. Ciervo, Y. Koussoube
{"title":"Synthetic Aperture Radars for humanitarian purposes: Products and opportunities","authors":"Donato Amitrano, G. D. Martino, A. Iodice, D. Riccio, G. Ruello, M. Papa, F. Ciervo, Y. Koussoube","doi":"10.1109/GHTC.2013.6713729","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/GHTC.2013.6713729","url":null,"abstract":"In this paper we present the available products and the future opportunities derived by the use of Synthetic Aperture Radar data for humanitarian projects. A set of images relevant to an area of the Sahel, in Burkina Faso have been used for supporting the proposed claims. Along with the technical problems related with the image interpretation, we focus on the economic accessibility of the data, that mainly limited the use of SAR images in low income countries. The future availability of free access data makes their use very attractive, provided that appropriate knowledge is available for interpreting the images.","PeriodicalId":168082,"journal":{"name":"2013 IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC)","volume":"25 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"122081528","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"CHATAKA: An open data initiative for the water sector","authors":"K. Santosh, Subrat N. Rout","doi":"10.1109/GHTC.2013.6713706","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/GHTC.2013.6713706","url":null,"abstract":"The packaged water segment in India has been witnessing rapid growth over the last decade as a result of increasing urbanization, skewed spatio-temporal distribution of freshwater resources and limitations in the municipal water supply infrastructure. However, growing demand for retail (<;5L bottles) and bulk water (20L bottles) packages has also been accompanied by a rise in several thousands of new unregistered manufacturing units. Even for government certified manufacturers, weaknesses in the supply chain networks are being widely exploited by distributors and dealers to flood the market with poor quality imitations of leading bottled water brands. The paper describes the application of ICT in the form of task-based contextual QR-codes to promote the availability and consumption of healthy packaged water products. The proposed scheme improves end-to-end supply chain visibility for the certified manufacturer, enhances regulator's ability to catch potential licensing and quality violations, and empowers consumers with tools that rapidly detect fraudulent offerings.","PeriodicalId":168082,"journal":{"name":"2013 IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC)","volume":"10 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"129433436","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"StreetConnect: SMS announcements for homeless people","authors":"S. Figueira, Natalie Linnell, Nicholas Fong","doi":"10.1109/GHTC.2013.6713736","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/GHTC.2013.6713736","url":null,"abstract":"Cellular phones are bringing computing to underserved communities. As people in these communities across the globe lack access to information, but do own cellular phones, apps are filling the gap by delivering meaningful information to improve lives. In this paper, we present StreetConnect, a tool created by students from Santa Clara University to serve the homeless population in our area. This tool provides a way for organizations serving the homeless to send announcements to registered users via text message, and for registered users to filter the messages they receive based on their interests, such as employment, food, or shelter. The tool has been deployed at a local organization and has the potential to be generalized and used in other scenarios as well.","PeriodicalId":168082,"journal":{"name":"2013 IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC)","volume":"44 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"114633668","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"The case for interdisciplinarity: Lessons from the field","authors":"S. Sterling, J. Bennett","doi":"10.1109/GHTC.2013.6713730","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/GHTC.2013.6713730","url":null,"abstract":"This paper identifies certain impediments that engineers encounter when creating and deploying humanitarian technologies, which we argue can be addressed by the adoption of shared vocabulary across disciplines, a commitment to “demand-side” development, and an awareness of myriad social factors that may not be obvious but underlie every development intervention. Understanding the limitations to our ingenuity and good intention is the key to filling the gaps in domain-specific areas. This paper presents examples of avoidable failures as well as actionable strategies for appropriate, sustainable community development from the standpoint of an engineer and social scientist team.","PeriodicalId":168082,"journal":{"name":"2013 IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC)","volume":"28 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"116490982","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
{"title":"A modular simulation platform for testing hybrid DC/AC future grid solutions for remote areas","authors":"Eleder Araneta Estala, M. Molinas, E. Tedeschi","doi":"10.1109/GHTC.2013.6713649","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/GHTC.2013.6713649","url":null,"abstract":"Lack of electricity in remote areas has become a challenge to be solved in order to improve the welfare of people living there. The improvement of technologies based in renewable energy sources (RES) in recent years has contributed to the electrification of remote areas. Traditional fossil fuel generators have given way to micro-grids based on RES, which have been proved to be very competitive solutions. Hybrid DC/AC micro-grids are very common solutions for off-grid power infrastructures in remote or rural areas. Furthermore, it seems to be that hybrid DC/AC systems will be part of the future grid solutions due to their efficiency. This paper proposes a modular simulation platform to test such systems. The micro-grid implemented for the analyzed simulation consists on a photovoltaic array, energy storage system based on batteries and a DC load tied to the DC side whereas just an AC load is tied to the AC side. The simulation results with changing solar radiation conditions and different load requirements are presented and explained to observe that the implemented system is stable.","PeriodicalId":168082,"journal":{"name":"2013 IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC)","volume":"4 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"127774011","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Deep Shah, P. Patel, Patrick Kudo, Aaron Steinberg, William Herold
{"title":"Feasibility of rainwater harvesting on Scott Laboratory","authors":"Deep Shah, P. Patel, Patrick Kudo, Aaron Steinberg, William Herold","doi":"10.1109/GHTC.2013.6713712","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1109/GHTC.2013.6713712","url":null,"abstract":"Water conservation has risen to be an important issue in today's society. We analyzed the applicability of a rainwater collection system on a major building in the north academic core of The Ohio State University. This was done by doing environmental and economic analyses on the tanks that would be placed at Scott Laboratory. The economic analysis determined the system's financial profile by comparing projected costs of utilizing varying tank sizes, while the environmental impacts were determined through use of Sustainable Minds' Life Cycle Assessment software. It was found that over the course of a year, over 1,700 lbs. of CO2 would be prevented from being released into the atmosphere and that the tanks' initial cost would break-even in less than 2 years as a result of the building's reduced water usage.","PeriodicalId":168082,"journal":{"name":"2013 IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC)","volume":"67 1","pages":"0"},"PeriodicalIF":0.0,"publicationDate":"2013-10-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"130279985","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}