Assistant Professor Hope Chidziwisano had a very busy summer working on multiple research projects very close to his heart. He traveled across the world to his home country of Malawi to see if his research could improve the lives of those there.
Chidziwisano grew up in Malawi and completed his undergraduate studies at the University of Malawi. He then came to the United States to pursue a master’s in human-computer interaction at Michigan State University. Chidziwisano stayed at Michigan State, where he earned his PhD, and then proceeded to his post-doctoral fellowship at Carnegie Mellon University.
“I was born in Malawi,” he said. “Malawi is a country in the southern part of Sub-Saharan Africa, neighboring Zambia, Tanzania, and Mozambique. I lived there for over twenty-five years before moving to the United States. So I have seen some of the challenges these resource-constraint settings face.”
Tech for Raising Chickens
While back home, Chidziwisano focused on two specific research projects, both dealing with user experience design and human-computer interaction in underrepresented communities.
“My research is starting from the ground up, understanding the user problems, what challenges they are facing, and then moving up to design solutions that can support their needs rather than starting with designing a solution without understanding people’s needs and challenges,” he explained.
His first research project focuses on diseases in chickens and how farmers can identify certain viruses in their flocks.
Chidziwisano stated, “My mother has had chickens for a long time. Growing up, I had chickens all over the home. I’ve seen some of the challenges farmers face with raising chickens, and it has been my motivation to use technology as a tool to solve some of the challenges facing these regions.”
Newcastle disease is one of the most common diseases found in chickens. It is highly contagious and caused by a virus found in birds. Newcastle disease can also be transmitted to humans, which can be a huge issue as many farmers rely on their flocks to feed their families.
“This project builds upon the previous research projects I conducted as a PhD student and as a postdoc,” Chidziwisano explained. “I conducted multiple projects in Kenya and Malawi, especially with households. One of the challenges that they were facing was trying to understand the different diseases that their chickens suffer from.”
Agricultural extension officers are sometimes available to help farmers identify and solve problems with their flocks. However, in rural areas like Malawi, agricultural extension officers rarely visit. As a result, farmers have to figure out issues and solutions for their crops and livestock on their own.
The clinical symptoms of Newcastle disease in chickens include coughing and the production of greenish droppings. Chidziwisano is using machine learning and audio recording to collect data on the sounds chickens make when they have this virus. With the help of research assistants, they are listening to the recordings to identify the specific sounds that chickens with Newcastle disease make. This research aims to help farmers recognize the signs of the disease more easily.
Chidziwisano says that, although Malawi is only one small country dealing with this issue, he believes his research can help a broader audience dealing with Newcastle disease and other animal-transmitted diseases like it.
“Over time, we can collect data from various chicken coops and analyze the distribution of chicken diseases across different regions. Agriculture extension officers or veterinary officers can then access this data and prioritize areas to visit. By creating a dashboard, we can display the data from chicken coops, enabling users to identify regions with a high prevalence of diseases. This will help in deciding which areas to prioritize for disease control efforts in situations where there aren’t enough extension officers available,” he explained.
Smart Home Tech for Immigrant Women
Chidziwisano’s second project deals with immigrant communities within the Knoxville area.
“There are a lot of immigrant women here and some of them have moved from African countries including Tanzania, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Rwanda, Kenya, and Uganda. I conducted some projects with women in Sub-Saharan Africa, and I was trying to understand how smart home technologies can affect their daily lives,” he said.
In numerous Sub-Saharan African communities, women lack access to smart home technologies. Consequently, when they move to the United States where such technologies are part of everyday life, many women believe that smart home devices are primarily used by men to control and monitor their activities.
“In Africa, they are using different technologies primarily to prepare meals. So when they come to the United States, they’re exposed to new technologies they have never used in their home country. I was more interested to learn how they adapt to these technologies, including some of the challenges they face as they are using them,” he explained.
The main goal he has when it comes to smart home devices is to influence designers to include women from underrepresented communities in their design process.
“I feel like talking about this and getting their perspectives can also influence the way they think about using these kinds of technologies,” he said. “These women have different ways of doing things and different ideas about how these technologies can be redesigned to suit their communities.”
Chidziwisano has already spoken to some of these women about how they would like to see some of these technologies be used and said they’ve come up with some great ideas that make them feel more protected in their homes.
“They suggested that we design context-aware cameras, or cameras that can be activated when they are taken outside the home. However, when you take it inside the home, it should be able to sense the environment and turn itself off because they feel like most of the private activities take place inside the home,” he explained.
Chidziwisano said he plans on designing and deploying these types of cameras to these women to see how they work and if they feel more comfortable using them compared to other smart home devices.
Chidziwisano hopes his research will help both groups live better lives and feel safer in their communities.
Chidziwisano is currently teaching classes in human-computer interaction and user experience. He explains to his students that they should always realize that users should be placed at the center of the design process.
“Designers who come from schools like the University of Tennessee go to work for big companies and participate in the design of different technologies. So, if they understand how people from underrepresented communities feel about these technologies, they will have a good background and not forget them in the design process,” he said.