Lucespera network

Problem:

Farmers have been the principal base of the production chain in any country around the world. Nevertheless, the low priorities of the political economy displaced their role in modern society, and consequently, they lack essential services and production plans. Marginalization, poverty, malnutrition, forced migration, violence, uprisings, and narcotraffic are some aftermaths caused by this social situation.  

Partial solution

There are no straightforward solutions to overcome this complex problem, but there are small alternatives to alleviate the living conditions of millions of people in rural areas. We believe organization, cooperation, and technification inside the communities are basic keys for the communities development. For this reason, the project objectives are focused on creating links, bridges, and shared mechanisms through a supply chain. This entity will work in the returning of the essential services related to the production chain (health, technification, and marketing) inside of a self-sustained environment.

The social situation of rural areas in American countries is worsening every year. Currently, many farmers are living below the poverty line causing a deep crisis around the continent, and even the entire world. In countries like United States, Salvador, Panama, and Colombia, for example, the poverty in rural zones is reaching rates of 17%, 38%, 27%, and 19% respectively. In countries like Guatemala and Honduras,  poverty is reaching alarming rates of 76%, and 68% respectively where are causing massive exodus.

There are several factors that preclude adequate development.  Some of them are described as follows:
1. Violence (insurgent groups)
2. Poor development programs by the government
3. Production at a losses
4. Poor infrastructure (transport media, communications, health coverage, energy)
5. Low technification (it requires a lot of money)
6. Poor knowledge about agronomy issues
7. Poor access to markets
8. Lack knowledge about the markets behavior
8. Weather changes
9. High expenses related to education, housing,  health, food, e.t.c.)
10. Illiteracy

For many farmers, illegal activities like narcotraffic and illegal mining are the only profitable solutions because they require low efforts and low investment to get high incomes. Nevertheless, these activities contribute to the rising of insurgent groups and violence.

The project is based on a model of research and development that provides bridges between rural communities and universities (nonexistent until now). The goal is the development of technologies and strategies for the improvement of the social conditions on these communities.
The project has four targets:
- Farmers, who are looking for productivity and sustainability
- Indigenous communities, who are looking for health assistance and agro solutions
- People with/without physical disabilities, who require health assistance in rural or urban sectors
- Rural schools, who are looking for improvements in education

Part of the research was the understanding of the social problems in rural sectors, the strategies required for the implementation of solutions, and the technologies required for those actors.  

About the problematic behind of those communities, it depends on several interrelated variables that make difficult the implementation of solutions.For example, the marginalization of communities in terms of communication channels, knowledge base, and services, are affected by socio-cultural factors, geo-climatic variables, and regional conflicts.
 
All the information about the crisis of rural zones comes from different sources as follows:
- personal experiences
- the experiences of indian communities  
- newspapers
- research articles
- data provided by organizations like Doctors without Borders

The goal of this project is the returning of essential services in order to increase productivity, savings and reduce the expenditures in the production process with the use of a  supply chain.

The supply chain will provide with tools and information services to local farmers.  In this way, farmers will only invest a small portion of their budgets. The entity is based on a social plan for its operation. The social plan is about the organization of the communities into clusters guided by leaders (volunteers). This plan also defines the roles of the subcommunities (clusters) with their leaders, the network distribution,the local authorities, and the supply chain. Leaders are provided with a User Interface (UI) attached to a  communication module.  They are instructed about how to use the system.

To reach that goal, the project is split into three essential components:

First, the construction of a low-cost communication network called LUCESPERA that will create links between the communities, markets, health providers, and external supply chains. LUCESPERA is based on a wireless cognitive network and is the core of the whole system.

Second, the development of the user interfaces (UI) who will facilitate the internal operation in the supply chain and the interaction of the entity with the communities. This system is designed for people with/without physical disabilities.

Third, the creation of a distributed supply chain who will offer tools and services. 

Currently, there are certain prototypes of  the UI and LUCESPERA.

When a farmer requires support, he attends to the local leader who gives instructions about how to use the UI. Every farmer logs in the system with his ID. Depending on the request, LUCESPERA decides whether the user needs personal assistance or it can provide with the request automatically. A set of professionals in agriculture and medicine will give the support for specific solutions or give specific information about certain topics. For example, if the user is illiterate  and he wants to register in the subsidiary system, the medical assistant will help to him in all the process.    

Organization:
The project is stirred by a profit startup. This startup will work together to local authorities and communities about how to use the entire system for their sakes which are stipulated by the social plan. Universities and educational institutions will have a critical role in the project. They will provide with research, workforce, and a start place for students in final year.

According to the dictionary, innovation is related to better solutions to the existing ones. Under this concept, LUCESPERA is innovative because the project pretends radical changes in the welfare of marginal communities with simple keys like organization, cooperation, technification and defined objectives. Lucespera will provide with links, bridges and strategies by using an information network based on smart desicion making.

The last year more than 30 children died of malnutrition in the north of the country (a country rich of natural resources), and more than 700 farmers die in natural disasters that could be avoided with the use of technology and sense of belonging of the national government (there are poor management in the prevention/development programs).
 
The technology behind of this project is friendly, inclusive and cheap. Nevertheless, the pinpoint of this innovation are the bridges bettwen universities and communities where is currently nonexistent. Universities and the necessities of the nation are moving in opposed directions.

Lucespera is composed of three components:

1. A low cost wireless cognitive network.

This is based on star topology with a set of towers dubbed OT's. The OT has four modules: a communication module, a control module,  I/O module, and a solar power supply.  In the I/O module are attached the User Interface (UI), and a set of sensors used for the monitoring of the surrounding area, for example, soil sensors for landslide detection, water quality sensors (illegal mining are contaminating the rivers with high levels of mercury), e.t.c. Every tower is placed outdoors around 2Km from the next OT.The network covers approximately a radius of 20 Km.

2. Central Terminal (CT).

This is the brain of the system. It gathers all the information of every OT, and analyses the data by checking for anomalies or deciding what kind of information the user requires. The CT is composed of a communication interface, a powerful server, a router, a switch, and a solar power supply. Assistants are connected by the LAN.

3. User Interface (UI)

The UI is used to interact with Lucespera. There are two versions:
a. Client-side interface. This is an electronic device composed by a touch display, a diagnostic module, a control panel, and an I/O module.

b. Technician-side interface. This is a software used only by the technicians.

These two versions are currently in development with an advance of 50% (client-side) and 30%.

The goal is the improvement of productivity and sustainability of rural sectors. Its realization follows three strategies such as:  

- Organization: Communities are divided into sub-communities, who are subject to organizational plans based on a set of strategies. The objective is to define roles, clear goals/objectives, and behaviors during a case of emergency, or a production plan. The strategies maximize the production according to the market's behavior and minimize the harmful effects of external variables.

- Cooperation and synergy between the actors(communities, universities,authorities): The objective is to bring sustainability based on new mutualistic perspectives about how the farmers will solve a problem. This perspective is based on successful examples where communities reached the total sustainability in a small scale.

- Technification: It comprises of three areas of action:
1. Education. Unfortunately, our farmers are poorly educated affecting their productivity. Lucespera will provide access to relevant information about their fields that are used by them in the design of new strategies for their projects.

2. Production. Farmers lack resources or infrastructure for their projects. The start-up will provide access to shared tools reducing their expenses.

3. Services. Farmers lack health services affecting their productivity. Usually, these services require extra expenses in terms of money and time. Users spend between 1 to 3 days filling formalities before to get special services. The start-up will work together with health providers to bring certain services to the start-up's office and avoid the extra cost.

Currently, the project is between the concept and the experimental phase. The development time of lucespera is one year, and it is expected to serve more than 9.0K users by Km^2 in the next three years. The project is limited to operate in certain regions due to social conflicts. The project will operate on a small scale and then, propagate to new regions or neighboring countries.

The project is split in three stages of development as follows:

- Stage 0. Design and development of Lucespera network

- Stage 1. The Start-up

- Stage 2. Commercialization and expansion

Stage 0.

Its complexion will bring limited services to the users. For example, access to suppliers chain, information about crops, weather, health service providers. (Complexion time: 1.4 years)

Stage 1.

Its complexion will bring additional services such as:

- Personal assistance for agronomy issues or health assistance

- Definition of the social plan and the strategies related to emergencies or production plan

-  Limited peer to peer communication

-  Research activities for the fostering of communities with Universities

- Shared tools

-  Markets analysis and data analysis for EWS systems

-  Online test results from laboratories

-  Remote diagnostics

(Complexion time: 1 year)

Stage 2.

The goal is related to the commercialization and expansion to new regions or neighboring countries. Furthermore, the project will work in the reduction of the production cost of its elements.

(Complexion time: 1 year)

The proposed solution has some limitations related to the proposed technology, federal data, social acceptance, the business model and regional conflicts.

About the technology,  the proposed system has some weakness:
First, the system is highly affected by weather conditions.

Second, the system is highly prone to cyber attacks.

About federal data, the project requires the accessing to sensitive data, for example, the registration and personal checking of the users with the health providers.

About social acceptance, the success of the project depends enormously on the communities. If they do not have a sense of belonging for the system and the social plan, the project will fail. On the other hand, the violence by insurgent group in rural sectors is a big problem in the development of any social project.

About the business model, a subsidiary system brings a management challenge, and then, it poses certain limitations regarding the objectives of the startup expansion. Due to the model will offer free services with the best quality, a considerable part of the revenue will be devoured for such
services, and then, a low income is expected.

Finally, the project should face the big problem: the regional conflict. Nowadays , insurgent groups are pressuring to farmer to avoid the substitution of crops of marihuana or amapola.

Some of the mentioned barriers are straightforward to overcome, but others remain in the uncertainty.

About the communication quality by the weather conditions, it is not a big problem for certain regions. Fortunately, the weather conditions in tropical lands are stable more of 90% of the time. Heavy rains and fog are not common (only in winter and the beginning of the summer). Nevertheless, there is pending research about where the project will start.

About cyber attacks, the project requires the support of experts in the field.  

About the social acceptance and the violence in the rural sectors are two cumbersome tasks. Nevertheless, a good campaign (cost-benefit) in the communities can increase their acceptance of new technologies. On the other hand, there are peaceful regions where is possible its implementation.

Finally, the business model requires also of the support of experts in social projects and business.

Fortunately, there are rural regions free of conflicts where is possible the implementation of the project in small scale. Previous research have selected some peaceful regions.

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The project is composed of different parts in hardware and software. Initially, four people worked in the implementation of a component of the user interface that it will integrated into the user interface.

We are two professionals in the fields of electrical and computing engineering and industrial engineering. We have more than six years of experience in the design of networking systems, the application of cognitive algorithms for a diversity of computational problems, and the experience in administration.

The project still does not have partners but is required in the next stage of development. Initially, we tried get partnership with IBM or Intel but was not possible.

The goal of the business model is the return of basic services to farmers and aborigenes (the beneficiaries) through a startup. The startup is based on a service subsidization model where people or institutions (the customers) paid for services to fund the social programs in rural areas.

There are three incomes from different sources:

- Public entities (government, health providers)

- Private entities (universities, research institutions, farming companies)

- Natural persons (anyone in urban areas).

The start-up will offer services such as:

- Online test results

- Agronomy solutions

- Delivery system (test samples delivery or medicines)

- Health statistics, sensors data, personal guidance, and technological products (EWS, diagnostic devices, and communications modules for the monitoring of crops). The start-up will have two or more offices in near cities and rural sectors.

Due to the necessities of the country, the project finds  different "opportunities":

- Colombia is a country prone to natural disasters. During six years, the government allocated more than $6M USD for prevention programs. For certain reasons, more than 1000 people died in natural disasters, and 80 children died of starvation in the last two years.

- The digital divide in rural areas is bigger compared to developed countries. It is likely that 100 companies only 5 have full access to technology.   

- Currently, the country produces 70% of the global production of cocaine and many farmers are looking for profitable alternatives, the illegal activities.

The project is designed to sell services and technological products to fund social programs and pay its expenses.  

Nevertheless, the development process (from the point of view of  infrastructure and the startup) needs funding from grants and donations at the beginning. For example, the usage of designing tools for electro-mechanic systems are ridiculously expensive.

One of the barriers of the business model is the high expenses carried by the social program. The expenses are related to the provision of services caused by infrastructure, information processes, transportation, tools, hiring labor, water/energy, and maintenance. Fortunately, many of them are fixing cost that can easily payable by the revenues in the long term if the number of customers remains high.

The implementation of Lucespera in rural areas does not require expensive infrastructure, and it is designed to be self-sustained.

The project faces several barriers described in previous sections. These barriers are related to startup implementation and security of the system. These topics are far of our experience.

For this reason, the project finds an opportunity in Solve to get guidance from experts for those topics, and moreover, get partnerships in the development of new technologies or access to fabrication facilities.

Research groups in cognitive systems and medical devices

One of the project's objectives is to get a relationship with companies or research groups and involve them in the design process to get a robust product of high quality.

Years ago, we tried to contact with research directors at IBM or Intel who are working in the same topic but was not possible.

The project works in different areas of technology such as cognitive networks, computing systems, ag-technology. medical devices.

Potential partners are listed below:

Cognitive systems:

- Watson Research Center - IBM

- Intel

Reconfigurable systems:

- Xilinx

Agro-tech:

- John Deere

- Monsanto

- Cargill

Medical devices

- Diagnostics for all - Organization

- RLE laboratory -MIT

Universities (Group of intelligent systems-Purdue or any university)

Lucespera network is based on a cognitive system. This system will be used for different purposes:

First, to analyze the data gathered from the sensors network looking for patterns in potential anomalies, for example, disease outbreaks, landslides, or contamination in the water supply. The goal is the forecasting of potential risk for the EWS system, and then, to  alert the communities.

Second, the analysis of data related to markets behavior for a specific product. This feature will be used by farmers to design strategic plans to reduce production losses.

Third, the systems should interact with the user's request to provide the best solutions without personal assistance. This feature will reduce the number of assistants to get higher revenues.

The development cost of this systems is $9600 USD  in one year.

Nevertheless, topics related to cybersecurity is far from our experience. Due to the project require access to federal data (personal information from health providers), the project needs support in this area so that the information will be safe. In that way, the prize will help to develop algorithms

The goal of the project is to increase the social status of farmers, who work daily more than 9 hours in the crops fields and live in the extreme poverty . People in urban areas live thanks to their hard work.(completely unfair situation)

This proposal is focused in the implementation of lucespera. The project is looking for GRANTS, support in the development of social projects and the use of fabrication facilities.

The total cost of the project with a minimum configuration is estimated to $29K USD and it can increase to $42K USD with eight OT's (it includes the CT). These costs takes into account variables such wages (approximately 60% of the total cost), raw materials, toolboxes,instrumentation, transportation and office expenses. The wages include three researchers: an engineer in electronics (system design), and engineer in computer science (design of the UI and the computing platform), and an engineer in microdevices (optional)

The total cost can be reduced %20 working together with a partner university, who can provide with instrumentation, measuring equipment, and toolboxes.

The total cost with only raw materials and equipment is estimated to $9K USD and it increases to $17K USD with 8 OT’s respectively (it includes the CT). The use of evaluation boards and equipment have 52% of the total cost, but it can be reduced with  a partner university who can provide with this boards. There are reasons to use them: reduce the implementation/testing process, and reusable.

The goal of the project is the creation of the supply chain. Nevertheless, this proposal is focused only in the implementation of the lucespera network. The project is looking for GRANTS, support in the development of social projects and the use of fabrication facilities.

The total cost of the project with a minimum configuration is estimated to $29K USD and it can increase to $42K USD with eight OT's (it includes the CT). These costs takes into account variables such wages (approximately 60% of the total cost), raw materials, toolboxes,instrumentation, transportation and office expenses. The wages include three researchers: an engineer in electronics (system design), and engineer in computer science (design of the UI and the computing platform), and an engineer in microdevices (optional)

The total cost can be reduced %20 working together with a partner university, who can provide with instrumentation, measuring equipment, and toolboxes.

The total cost with only raw material and equipment is estimated to $9K USD and it increases to $17K USD with 8 OT’s respectively (it includes the CT). The use of evaluation boards and equipment have 52% of the total cost, but it can be reduced with  a partner university who can provide with this boards. There are two reasons to use them: first, they reduce the implementation time and testing process strongly, and second, they are reusable for the next stages. Nevertheless, the final design will reduce the production cost with the use of custom-made circuits based on the design process of the Stage 0.