Distributed Systems for Societal Information

The mission of the Social Entrepreneur Center is to promote the use of technology for social issues by creating sustainable enterprises. This will be achieved by

(i) creating an undergraduate major (and minors linked to existing majors) in social entrepreneurship well integrated with information and technology education,

(ii) fostering an internship program where students can add value to a company, an NGO (non-governmental organization), or a non-profit organization within US or in a foreign country by leveraging technology,

ECAI is a part of International and Area Studies at UCB. It is an international association of scholars, librarians, and technicians who are researching ways to create, preserve, and use digital data relating to cultural studies. The research focus is on the ways to

Because electricity cannot be practically or economically stored in large quantities, the electricity generation and distribution system must match supply and demand on a minute-by-minute basis. Delivery of electricity for residential use has traditionally been done by matching the supply to the demand, with little or no control over the demand. This causes severe distortions in the system operation and economics when the demand hits unusually high peak values. When these peaks

The Wikipedia is a source of information widely used in homes, schools, and offices across California, and across the nation. The Wikipedia is also the most successful, and influential, example of collaborative content creation. Most Wikipedia articles can be edited by anyone. This openness has been a key factor in the success of the Wikipedia, but it also poses challenges. Rogue, misinformed, or misguided contributors can corrupt articles with incorrect information, and it is difficult for readers to judge the reliability of the information they are presented.

We propose to develop an open federation (to be called the SMETE Open Federation) to integrate and support the National Science, Mathematics, Engineering, and Technology Education (SMETE) Digital Library (NSDL).With headquarters at UC Berkeley, the group leading the development and providing the integrative core of the SMETE Open Federation is comprised of two lead organizations:
(1) the SMETE.ORG Alliance, with over twenty participating partners covering a broad range of SMET disciplines in K-12 and higher education, and

To meet the objectives of the California Energy Commission (CEC) to create inexpensive and "smart" thermostats and electricity meters that could be installed in all residences in California to help conserve energy via demand-response "real-time" electricity pricing, we will combine CITRIS efforts in BSAC (Picoradio), BSAC(Smart Dust) and TinyOS (NEST) to meet the following goals:
>> Cost targets of $30 for the thermostat, $10 for the temperature node, and $50 for the electricity meter

There are thousands of stand-alone projects that aim to bring information and communication technology (ICT) to developing regions, but nearly all depend on existing hardware and infrastructure developed for affluent regions. These imported technologies fail to address key challenges in cost, deployment, power, and support for semi-literate users. This proposal develops the key technologies and infrastructure to enable these projects, and many new applications that were previously intractable.