Project

Building Ecosystem for Coastal Community Resilience

Overview: The project envisioned building digitally empowered coastal fishing communities by seamlessly connecting them to the wider world and their businesses booming. This vision directs us to device technology and participatory approaches to tackle the digital divide. The project goes beyond just providing internet access to the ocean. It also envisioned integrated technology platforms that empower coastal communities by providing a digital ecosystem connecting them to essential communication tools, valuable market information, exciting business opportunities, and collaboration.

Project Description: Projects envisioned to bridge the gap in the digital divide exist in the coastal fisher community and the mainstream community by providing integrated technology platforms for communication and business. The project aims to build an ecosystem for the fishing community to flourish in their livelihood and business by utilising the IoT and other ICT subsystems. Along with technology, the project focuses on the essence of coastal community collaboration for enhanced well-being, focusing on economic prosperity, education, and disaster preparedness. Communication with the coastal fishing community, learning from them and collaborating with them on various ecosystem-building initiatives. Studying their problems, challenges during fishing, and challenges the family and the community face. Devising holistic solutions encompassing technology and social aspects for improving well-being by putting stepping stones and guidance on building technological solutions. In short, coastal community collaboration for enhanced well-being through technology, community participation and policy generation. Integrating coastal communities into the mainstream, everyone benefits.

Technology and Community Engagement

• Internet of Things (IoT): To provide connectivity and storage, to track fish populations, enhancing business and sustainable practices.
• Network connectivity: Reliable internet access bridges the digital divide, empowering education, remote healthcare, and e-commerce, leading to economic growth and improved livelihoods.
• Community-driven policy generation: Surveys, public forums, and working groups can ensure policies reflect the voices and priorities of the people they impact.
• Data-driven decision-making: Utilizing data collected through technology and community engagement can inform effective policies for disaster preparedness, resource management, and economic development.
• Public-private partnerships: Collaboration between government, businesses, and NGOs can leverage each other’s strengths and resources for impactful solutions.

Proposed Future Work Details

• Community Engagement at Alappad and nearby coastal villages for capacity building and digital empowerment of the community.
• Addressing potential concerns about technology adoption and data privacy.
• Emphasising the long-term benefits of investing in community-driven solutions.
• Building local stories and voices for the technology adoption by the community.

Publication Details

• Anand, Sruthy, Dhanesh Raj, AM Abhishek Sai, Sethuraman N Rao, and Maneesha Vinodini Ramesh. “Techno-Social Synergy for Disaster Resilience in Coastal Communities: A Sustainable Approach.” In Proceedings of the 24th International Conference on Distributed Computing and Networking, pp. 366-371. 2023.
• Anand, S. and Vinodini Ramesh, M., 2021, January. An IoT Based Disaster Response Solution for Ocean Environment. In Adjunct Proceedings of the 2021 International Conference on Distributed Computing and Networking (pp. 19-24).
• Rao SN, Balakrishnan A. Harnessing low-cost marine internet for collision avoidance of vessels at sea. In 2017 International Conference on Wireless Communications, Signal Processing and Networking (WiSPNET) 2017 Mar 22 (pp. 2147-2152). IEEE.
• Rao SN, Ramesh MV, Rangan V. Mobile infrastructure for coastal region offshore communications and networks. In2016 IEEE Global Humanitarian Technology Conference (GHTC) 2016 Oct 13 (pp. 99-104). IEEE.