Signal Processing - May 2017 - 112
in the spotlight
Kush R. Varshney
Signal Processing for Social Good
Digital Object Identifier 10.1109/MSP.2017.2673878
Date of publication: 26 April 2017
112
© Adobe Stock
C
ommunication, speech processing,
seismology, and radar are wellknown applications of signal processing that contribute to the betterment
of humanity. But is there a more direct
way that signal and information processing can reduce poverty, hunger, inequality, injustice, ill health, and other causes
of human suffering? The member states
of the United Nations ratified 17 sustainable development goals in 2015, which,
if achieved by the targeted year 2030,
will end or greatly curtail these problems. Achieving the global goals, however, will require cooperation from all,
including the signal processing community. Let me tell you how.
In December 2016, I visited Barauli, a
small village in District Aligarh, India
(Figure 1), where I had tea at the well-lit
home of a Simpa Networks customer. A
social enterprise, Simpa provides pay-asyou-go solar panel systems to households
with inadequate access to power from the
grid. The company installs a solar panel
with lights and a fan-an alternative to
unhealthy and unsafe kerosene lamps-
for a very small down payment. Through
a simple financing plan, customers can
fully repay the cost of the system in
monthly installments over two or three
years. As a result, clean, reliable energy
(and the well-being and economic opportunity that comes with it) is now within
reach of people at the bottom of the pyramid-like the customer I visited, a driver
and smallholder farmer.
Figure 1. Kush R. Varshney visits Barauli, a small village in District Aligarh, India.
Signal processing is the science
behind Simpa's sustainability. Two years
ago, I led a team on a pro bono project to
develop a predictive model of customer
repayment behaviors based on signals
captured in an application form.
IEEE Signal Processing Magazine
|
May 2017
|
Specifically, we wanted to assess the risk
of an applicant's system being eventually
repossessed due to payment delinquency,
thus allowing Simpa to make better
(continued on page 108)
1053-5888/17©2017IEEE
Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of Signal Processing - May 2017
Signal Processing - May 2017 - Cover1
Signal Processing - May 2017 - Cover2
Signal Processing - May 2017 - 1
Signal Processing - May 2017 - 2
Signal Processing - May 2017 - 3
Signal Processing - May 2017 - 4
Signal Processing - May 2017 - 5
Signal Processing - May 2017 - 6
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Signal Processing - May 2017 - Cover3
Signal Processing - May 2017 - Cover4
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