Abstract
The United Nations has developed 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) to transform our world. Smart Computing aims to combine advances in Information and Communication Technologies including Internet of Things, cloud computing, mobile computing and social computing to create smart systems to make human life better. Smart Computing is providing a new approach to address many of the complex and challenging problems and is a valuable tool to support progress towards many SDGs. The lack of a suitable framework to handle the complex multi-disciplinary nature of these applications is hindering sustainable development. Based on a series of solutions we have developed for agriculture domain to address the first three SDGs (i.e., No Poverty, Zero Hunger, and Good Health and Wellbeing), we proposed a smart computing framework centered on user and societal empowerment. This framework consists of six dimensions: Economics, Domain Knowledge, Interaction Design, User Interface Design, User Empowerment and Societal Empowerment. As a way of validation, we adopted this framework to design a mobile-based information system to address “Hidden Hunger” in African countries and carried out a preliminary evaluation. Having the framework to guide our thinking and designing of the solution helped us to frame a holistic solution centered on user and societal empowerment. The proposed framework can be adopted to develop effective and innovative solutions to address many SDGs.
This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution.
Buying options
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Learn about institutional subscriptionsReferences
Bartels, A.H.: Smart computing drives the new era of IT growth. Forrester Inc. (2009)
Kennedy, G., Nantel, G., Shetty, P.: The scourge of “hidden hunger”: global dimensions of micronutrient deficiencies. Food Nutr. Agric. 32, 8–16 (2003)
Yalew, S.G., van Griensven, A., van der Zaag, P.: AgriSuit: a web-based GIS-MCDA framework for agricultural land suitability assessment. Comput. Electron. Agric. 128, 1–8 (2016)
Yan-e, D.: Design of intelligent agriculture management information system based on IoT. In: 2011 Fourth International Conference on Intelligent Computation Technology and Automation, pp. 1045–1049 (2011)
Kamilaris, A., Gao, F., Prenafeta-Boldu, F.X., Ali, M.I.: Agri-IoT: a semantic framework for Internet of Things-enabled smart farming applications. In: 2016 IEEE 3rd World Forum on Internet of Things (WF-IoT), pp. 442–447 (2016)
Hoppen, N., Klein, A.d.C.Z., Rigoni, E.H.: Sociomaterial practices: challenges in developing a virtual business community platform in agriculture. BAR – Braz. Adm. Rev. 14, 1–22 (2017)
Janssen, S.J.C., et al.: Towards a new generation of agricultural system data, models and knowledge products: information and communication technology. Agric. Syst. 155, 200–212 (2017)
Woodard, J.: Big data and Ag-Analytics: an open source, open data platform for agricultural & environmental finance, insurance, and risk. Agric. Finance Rev. 76, 15–26 (2016)
http://venturesafrica.com/these-10-apps-will-boost-agriculture-in-africa/
Kshetri, N.: The economics of the Internet of Things in the Global South. Third World Q. 38, 311–339 (2017)
Ginige, A., et al.: Digital knowledge ecosystem for achieving sustainable agriculture production: a case study from Sri Lanka. In: The 3rd IEEE International Conference on Data Science and Advanced Analytics Montreal, Canada (2016)
Vlacheas, P., et al.: Enabling smart cities through a cognitive management framework for the internet of things. IEEE Commun. Mag. 51, 102–111 (2013)
Bellagente, P., Ferrari, P., Flammini, A., Rinaldi, S.: Adopting IoT framework for Energy Management of Smart Building: a real test-case. In: 2015 IEEE 1st International Forum on Research and Technologies for Society and Industry Leveraging a Better Tomorrow (RTSI), pp. 138–143 (2015)
Lu, Y., Cecil, J.: An Internet of Things (IoT)-based collaborative framework for advanced manufacturing. Int. J. Adv. Manuf. Technol. 84, 1141–1152 (2016)
De Silva, L., et al.: Interplay of requirements engineering and human computer interaction approaches in the evolution of a mobile agriculture information system. In: Ebert, A., Humayoun, S.R., Seyff, N., Perini, A., Barbosa, Simone D.J. (eds.) UsARE 2012/2014. LNCS, vol. 9312, pp. 135–159. Springer, Cham (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-45916-5_9
Ginige, T., De Silva, L., Walisadeera, A., Ginige, A.: Extending DSR with sub cycles to develop a digital knowledge ecosystem for coordinating agriculture domain in developing countries. In: Chatterjee, S., Dutta, K., Sundarraj, R. (eds.) Designing for a Digital and Globalized World, vol. 10844, pp. 268–282. Springer, Cham (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-91800-6_18
Ginige, A.: Systems engineering approach to smart computing: from farmer empowerment to achieving sustainable development goals. In: International Conference on Smart Computing and Systems Engineering 2018, Colombo, Sri Lanka (2018)
De Silva, L., Goonetillake, J., Wikramanayake, G., Ginige, A.: Towards an agriculture information ecosystem. In: 25th Australasian Conference on Information Systems. ACIS (2014)
Ginige, A.: Digital knowledge ecosystems: empowering users through context specific actionable information. In: 9th International Conference on ICT, Society and Human Beings (ICT 2016), Madeira, Portugal (2016)
Bandura, A.: Self efficacy mechanism in human agency. Am. Psychol. 37, 122–147 (1982)
Zimmerman, M.A.: Psycological empowerment: issues and illustrations. Am. J. Community Psychol. 23, 581–600 (1995)
Deci, E.L., Schwartz, A., Sheinman, L., Ryan, R.M.: An instrument to assess adults’ orientations toward control versus autonomy with children: reflections on intrinsic motivation and perceived competence. J. Educ. Psychol. 73, 642–650 (1981)
Akombi, B.J., Agho, K.E., Merom, D., Renzaho, A.M., Hall, J.J.: Child malnutrition in sub-Saharan Africa: a meta-analysis of demographic and health surveys (2006–2016). PLoS One 12, e0177338 (2017)
Hendriks, S., et al.: The current rain-fed and irrigated production of food crops and its potential to meet the year-round nutritional requirement of rural poor people in North West, Limpopo, KwaZulu-Natal and the Eastern Cape. Water Research Commission Project number K5/2172/4 (2016)
Swindale, A., Bilinsky, P.: Household dietary diversity score (HDDS) for measurement of household food access: indicator guide. Food and Nutrition Technical Assistance Project, Academy for Educational Development, Washington, DC (2006)
Gelderblom, H.: Report on the Usability Evaluation. Informatics Design Labs, University of Pretoria, South Africa (2018)
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to specifically acknowledge the participation and contribution of Prof. Helene Gelderblom, from the University of Pretoria’s Department of Informatics, who passed away on the 7 April 2018. This research has been partially supported by funding from the Australia-Africa Universities Network (AAUN) and the South African National Research Foundation.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 ICST Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering
About this paper
Cite this paper
Ginige, A., Javadi, B., Calheiros, R.N., Hendriks, S.L. (2019). A Smart Computing Framework Centered on User and Societal Empowerment to Achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. In: Bassioni, G., Kebe, C., Gueye, A., Ndiaye, A. (eds) Innovations and Interdisciplinary Solutions for Underserved Areas. InterSol 2019. Lecture Notes of the Institute for Computer Sciences, Social Informatics and Telecommunications Engineering, vol 296. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34863-2_14
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-34863-2_14
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-030-34862-5
Online ISBN: 978-3-030-34863-2
eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)