Moving forward: We are back!

For all those who thought we have been missing, we are back. As I can see the last post is from 2007, which means that the blog failed to capture any activity in 2008. So here is a quick update on what MILLEE accomplished in 2008:

1. In Spring 2008, we held a full fledged deployment at a private school in Kanaar (a village near the city of Nawabs, Lucknow). Aside: The place is famous for mangoes! :)
2. In Summers 2008, we did an ethnographic study with help from a new team member Deepti (a master's student at the Berkeley i-school). The goal of the study was to look at the usage patterns for cellphones. We had a lot of interesting observations from the same, go bug Deepti if you want some details.
3. In December 2008, we worked down South in Andhra Pradesh with the Byrraju foundation. The aim was to set the ground to go full throttle, i.e. to hold a large scale study with 400 odd kids, which would happen sometime in 2009.
4. In Spring 2009, the goal is to do an out-of-school deployment at our site near Lucknow, and try to understand the belief systems and the usage patterns around cellphones.

For an update regarding the people who used to be involved with MILLEE:

• I, Anuj Tewari, am now a graduate student in CS at UC Berkeley.
• Neha Kumar is also a PhD student now at the Berkeley i-school.
• Dave is done with his PhD and working for Accenture. He owns a nice condo (I know that since he invited me to a party there!).
• Aish has become a globe trotter. :)
• Anuj and Akhil are in their final year now, and continue to be valuable pair of hands for MILLEE
• Sid is also in his final year and works in network security now.
• And last but not the least, Matt is now a Assistant Professor at the HCI institute at CMU.
  

As we move forward, I will keep this blog updated.