Read more about the award.

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Learn more about the Mozilla Research Grants and other recipients.

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In Lesotho, an organization called Riders for Health uses motorcycles to access remote health facilities and collect biological samples. The samples are then delivered to laboratories and tested for diseases such as HIV/AIDS.

However, the paper-based system traditionally used to track samples is vulnerable to human error. Mixed-up or lost samples can lead to delays, causing considerable stress to patients, or worse — a vital diagnosis being missed altogether.

Led by Assistant Professor Nicola Dell, the students worked in partnership with The Clinton Foundation HIV/AIDS Initiative (CHAI) and the Lesotho Ministry of Health to develop a digital system to replace the outdated paper-based one. Their innovative solution is expected to be deployed nationwide in August after successful completion of a mini-pilot.

Student researchers Sean Herman and Xiaoyang Ma, both MS in IS, Connective Media, ’16, believe that a collaborative approach was key to the success of the project. They also made sure their solution was tailored to the local context.

“We got in touch with the Riders for Health,” Herman said. “We spoke with people at health facilities and laboratories, and some Ministry of Health staff, basically doing interviews and talking to them about their workflow.”

The system they delivered digitally tracks biological samples — such as blood and sputum — as they travel in two directions: first from medical facilities to laboratories, and then back to the medical facilities when the results are returned.

Riders collect samples using a mobile app to scan a bar code on a form. The form also has an adhesive copy of the bar-code, which is peeled off and attached to the sample. The form and the sample are then linked to the same bar-code to be tracked.

Ma developed the mobile app and data-entry system for the project. Mindful of local challenges, she also built on software specifically designed for low-connectivity environments.

Meanwhile, Herman worked on the back-end server that collects the information. A web front-end then makes the data available for users. Once the team had developed the system, they carried out a mini-pilot, tested the workflow, fixed any bugs and created training manuals.

Not only does the digital tracking system cut down on lost samples and spoiled forms, it also allows problems to be fixed efficiently when they do occur. For example, if results are sent to the wrong facility, the mix-up can be quickly identified and resolved. In the past, such an error might have led to long delays, or worse — cases in which people never received their results at all.

Herman explained that this had a two-fold negative impact on patients, not only personally frustrating individual patients, but also discouraging other people in the area from being tested in the first place. These are huge issues “when you are trying to increase access to diagnostic services for patients who may have spent a day trying to travel to this remote health facility,” Herman added.

As part of the project, Herman traveled to Maseru, the capital of Lesotho. There, he met with information services professionals at the Ministry of Health and visited the National Reference Laboratory, where he was walked through the diagnostic workflow. Then at a local health center, he observed samples being handed off and results being delivered. His personal highlight? Meeting and talking with the Riders for Health themselves.

Herman explained that the team always intended the system to be transitioned to theMinistry of Health in Lesotho. He thinks that meeting face-to-face with the people who will be running the system, and understanding any doubts they may have, was invaluable.

“One of the biggest challenges from the very start has been getting a clear picture of all the facilities that we would be servicing,” Herman said. “Seeing them engage with us and invest in the success of this project was really exciting.”

Cornell Tech’s focus on research with real-world impact was one of the things that attracted Herman and Ma to the Connective Media program in the first place. Assistant Professor Dell, whose research focuses on creating and deploying technologies to empower underserved populations said that by partnering with local organizations, Herman and Ma were able to deliver a system that does exactly that.

“We are not health professionals and the health expertise that they bring to the table is hugely important,” said Dell. “We know about technology and how to build technical systems, but they know how those systems might fit into the broader health landscape that exists in Lesotho.”

Photo Credit: Sean Herman

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The Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech and Stanford University today released new research about self-disclosure and anonymity in social media. Self-disclosure is rewarding and provides significant benefits for individuals, but it also involves risks of over-exposure and privacy violations. A study led by Jacobs Institute PhD student Xiao Ma, with Jacobs professor Mor Naaman and Stanford professor Jeff Hancock, uncovers insights into the impact of anonymity on the sharing of personal information online. Researchers presented their findings today at the ACM CHI 2016 human-computer interaction conference in San Jose, California.

More and more apps like Yik Yak or the now-defunct Secret are allowing people to communicate anonymously with friends (Secret) or people nearby (Yik Yak). Social scientists found in the 1970s that in face-to-face settings, intimate content is more difficult to share, and those feelings are maintained online. “We show experimentally for the first time that this difficulty persists, even online, and even when anonymous,” said Jacobs Technion–Cornell Institute professor Mor Naaman. “This study was also an opportunity to consider the factors that impact a person’s willingness to share, and shows the need for creating comfortable spaces for people share their frustrations and difficulties.”

The team ran an online experiment four mock-up apps to analyze people’s reactions to and feelings about revealing personal information of varying intimacy, including opinions, economic status, physical appearance, sexual experience, work, and interests. In the experiment, the team studied the relationship between content intimacy and willingness to self-disclose in social media, and how identification (real name vs. anonymous) and audience type (social ties vs. people nearby) moderate that relationship.

A key finding in the work is that lift in sharing provided by anonymity was even more significant for content that reflects negatively on the individual – the kind of confessions that are hardest to make. Professor Jeff Hancock said of this finding, “it is important for people to be able to share negative experiences, and anonymity could be critical to enable this kind of benefit.”

While not discussed in the publication, the findings suggest that men and women had different reactions to the topics they were asked about. Generally, women rated information as more intimate, particularly economic and social status, physical appearance and personal relationships, while men were more hesitant to share information about their work, studies, tastes and interests.

The results are critical to understanding the dynamics and opportunities of self-disclosure in social media services that vary levels of identification and types of audience. It also highlights the need for creating spaces for people to feel supported when sharing sensitive information and experiences online.

Cornell Tech

Cornell Tech develops pioneering leaders and technologies for the digital age. Cornell Tech brings together faculty, business leaders, tech entrepreneurs, and students in a catalytic environment to produce visionary results grounded in significant needs that will reinvent the way we live in the digital age. Cornell Tech’s temporary campus has been up and running at Google’s Chelsea building since 2012, with a growing world-class faculty, and about 150 master’s and Ph.D. students who collaborate extensively with tech-oriented companies and organizations and pursue their own start-ups. Construction is underway on Cornell Tech’s campus on Roosevelt Island, with a first phase due to open in 2017. When fully completed, the campus will include 2 million square feet of state-of-the-art buildings, over 2 acres of open space, and will be home to more than 2,000 graduate students and hundreds of faculty and staff.

Stanford University

Stanford University, located between San Francisco and San Jose in the heart of California’s Silicon Valley, is one of the world’s leading teaching and research universities. Since its opening in 1891, Stanford has been dedicated to finding solutions to big challenges and to preparing students for leadership in a complex world. Stanford’s program in Communication was one of the pioneers of the field, formed by Chilton Bush and Wilbur Schramm in the 1950’s. The program focuses on cutting edge research that is not only academically rigorous, but which also produces real world change in government, media, and industry. 

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The Immersive Recommendations technology is the first to emerge from the Connected Experiences Lab, an endeavor of the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech in collaboration with AOL.

Traditional recommendation systems are reaching diminishing returns and do not address the cold start problem. At the same time, content consumption is constantly on the rise. The Immersive Recommendations algorithm builds individual user preference profiles on their behalf — with the user’s authorization — based on their multi-channel online activities. The user-centric model is then leveraged to tailor online services from events to travel and restaurants. This method is likely to benefit not only users, but also upstart and local services that do not already have rich, detailed information about user activity.

“People’s digital traces provide a wealth of information about preferences and behavior. Users should be able to unlock their personal data for many purposes, including curating content based on their interests,” said Deborah Estrin, Professor of Computer Science at Cornell Tech.

“We’re excited to continue working with AOL on this effort through the Connected Experiences Lab, which is setting a new standard for how industry and academia can work together to advance and commercialize new research,” said Mor Naaman, Associate Professor of Information Science at the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute and Director of the Connected Experiences Lab. “The idea for this research came about when the team at Cornell Tech first brainstormed potential AOL-relevant research directions. In a short time, with support from AOL, we have implemented and built this technology, leading to AOL exploring use of these ideas in product.”

The researchers put together two demonstration systems: Newsfie, which recommends articles from Medium.com and Grouplink, which recommends meetups. From a large-scale offline evaluation and a smaller-scale user study, they found that immersive recommendations improved the recommendation performances by up to 57% and 42% for news and meetups respectively over the state-of-the-art approaches, and showed clear potential in helping users discover more diverse information.

The Immersive Recommendations technique also provides potential privacy benefits. The current implementation of the tool gives users the control over whether and which services they authorize to share and use their data. Moreover, the technique allows for a privacy-conscious summary of each user’s interests to be shared with a new service, rather than requiring divulging of detailed user traces the default as it is in most current recommender systems.

As part of the ongoing collaboration, AOL will continue to support the research through testing and use of opt-in data across its network, and is exploring integration of the Immersive Recommendations tool into a number of product groups. AOL, the parent company to content brands like The Huffington Post, TechCrunch, Engadget and MAKERS, has made large investments in distributing and engaging content and advertising across the internet, beginning with its 2014 acquisition of the content optimization and personalization company, Gravity. The company is looking to increase engagement with its content across all channels, including its owned and operated properties, as well as social and off-platform destinations of content consumption. Through its partnership with Cornell Tech and the Connective Experiences Lab, AOL plans to support research through testing and use of data across its network.

AOL is particularly interested in this research not only due to its large cross-platform O&O properties, but also from the increased focus on leveraging the mobile footprint they have with Verizon, the wireless telecommunications company that acquired AOL in June of 2015.

“Capturing signals across as many channels as possible leads to better targeting and syndication of content, especially in mobile settings,” said William Pence, AOL Chief Technology Officer. “We are interested in how these techniques can be applied to create more relevant and ‘immersive’ ad experiences, specifically in video and in VR.”

AOL also has plans to include quality scores for content and ads, and intends to use user-supplied explicit feedback, like that from this research, to tune recommendation algorithms.

The work is the result of an AOL-funded research initiative at Cornell Tech. The Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute at Cornell Tech and AOL founded the Connected Experiences Lab which started operations in June 2015 to explore and create technologies at the forefront of the digital ecosystem – including analytical techniques that fuse diverse personal data streams into actionable insights; content personalization that works across delivery platforms; and connectivity tools that deepen and sustain engagement within families and communities. The lab is made up of faculty, postdocs, and PhD students from Cornell Tech, the Jacobs-Technion Cornell Institute, and the Technion, along with other collaborators.

Cornell Tech

Cornell Tech develops pioneering leaders and technologies for the digital age. Cornell Tech brings together faculty, business leaders, tech entrepreneurs, and students in a catalytic environment to produce visionary results grounded in significant needs that will reinvent the way we live in the digital age. Cornell Tech is home to the Jacobs Technion-Cornell Institute, which embodies the academic partnership of Cornell University and the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.

Cornell Tech’s temporary campus has been up and running at Google’s Chelsea building since 2012, with a growing world-class faculty, and over 150 masters and Ph.D. students who collaborate extensively with tech-oriented companies and organizations and pursue their own start-ups. Construction is underway on Cornell Tech’s campus on Roosevelt Island, with a first phase due to open in 2017. When fully completed, the campus will include 2 million square feet of state-of- the-art buildings, over 2 acres of open space, and will be home to more than 2,000 graduate students and hundreds of faculty and staff.

About AOL Inc.

AOL is a media technology company with a mission to connect consumers and creators through open marketplaces. AOL uses data to disrupt content production, distribution and monetization. The company connects publishers with advertisers across its global, programmatic platforms, tapping into Microsoft inventory and original content brands like TechCrunch, The Huffington Post and MAKERS which reach over 500 million monthly global consumers. Within its mobile advertising network alone, AOL has a reach of roughly 800 million users. A subsidiary of Verizon, AOL is shaping the digital future.

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Azenkot and her team of researchers created a program to make everyday tasks easier for those with low vision using augmented reality. With Oculus Rift, customizable visual cues can enhance people’s vision, helping them with everything from shopping to wayfinding.

“There’s nothing tragic about being blind or having low vision,” Azenkot said. “It’s just a question of equal access.”

See the full story on CBS.

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