Aaditeshwar Seth


I completed my PhD under Dr.S.Keshav and Dr.R.Cohen in Sept 2008, and I am now working with IBM Research in India. My research areas are:

- Information sharing on social networks
- Hybrid wireless networks
- Delay tolerant networks
- Collection and mining of geo-tagged sensor data from cellphones
Office Address:
Tetherless Computing Lab
Univ of Waterloo
200 University Avenue West
Waterloo, ON
Canada - N2L 3G1.



I did my BTech from the Indian Institute of Technology at Kanpur in Computer Science and Engineering, and my high school from La Martiniere College at Lucknow, India. In winter 2005 I did an internship at Sprint Labs in California.

I recently founded Gram-Vaani, a non-profit organization to enable media services using community-radio in rural areas of India. I also make semi-frequent postings to my blog about the vision I have for social developments in India, and work with a voluntary student organization called Udai to demonstrate sustainable and replicable models for helping grassroot NGOs in developing countries.
Email: a3seth -at- uwaterloo -dot- ca

Home Address:
25 Westmount Rd N
Apt 702
Waterloo, ON
Canada - N2L 5G7.

"Writing a book is a horrible, exhausting struggle, like a long bout of some painful illness. One would never undertake such a thing if one were not driven on by some demon whom one can neither resist nor understand." - George Orwell, 1946.


Current work

I have a strong belief that information asymmetry is responsible for many evils in the world. This information asymmetry is present not because of a lack of information, but because "noncontextual" and "incomplete" information is provided by news agencies or media companies. The new forms of Internet based participatory media such as blogs and wikis can bridge the "context" and "completeness" gap, but (a) rural and marginalized communities do not have access to them, and (b) the current services such as Google, Slashdot, Digg, Amazon, Youtube, etc do not do a great job in searching and recommending relevant content. My take:

1. Information sharing on social networks can solve many problems [Participatory-media].
2. Opportunistic communication on cellphones can provide low-cost and efficient methods to access this information [OCMP].
3. Information from rural community radio stations can be accessed through mechanical backhaul communication infrastructures [KioskNet].

Just send me an email if you want to know more.

Information sharing on social networks

A Social Network Based Approach to the Evolutionary Analysis of Participatory Messages - A. Seth.
Web Intelligence, 2008

A Subjective Credibility Model for Participatory Media - A. Seth, J. Zhang, and R. Cohen
AAAI Workshop on Recommender Systems, 2008

A Multi-Disciplinary Approach for Recommending Weblog Messages - A. Seth, J. Zhang, and R. Cohen
AAAI Workshop on Enhanced Messaging, 2008

Design of a Social Network Based Recommender System for Participatory Media Content - A. Seth
Manuscript, University of Waterloo, 2008

A Social Network Based Approach to Personalized Recommendation of Participatory Media Content - A. Seth and J. Zhang.
ICWSM, 2008

Understanding Participatory Media Using Social Networks - A. Seth
CS-2007-47, Technical Report, University of Waterloo, 2007

An Infrastructure for Participatory Media - A. Seth
AAAI Workshop on Recommender Systems, 2007


Opportunistic and low-cost communication

A Proposal to Provide Media Services in Rural Areas in India - A. Seth
Knight News Challenge, 2008

Design and Implementation of the KioskNet System - S. Guo, M.H. Falaki, E.A. Oliver, S. Ur Rahman, A. Seth, M.A. Zaharia, U. Ismail, and S. Keshav.
ICTD, 2007

Policy Oriented Architecture for Opportunistic Communication on Heterogeneous Wireless Networks - A. Seth, M. Zaharia, S. Bhattacharya, S. Keshav
Manuscript, University of Waterloo, 2006

Opportunistic Scheduling in Ferry-Based Networks - S. Guo, M. Ghaderi, A. Seth, S.Keshav.
QShine Workshop on Networking in Public Transport (WNEPT), 2006

Low-cost Communication for Rural Internet Kiosks Using Mechanical Backhauls - A. Seth, D. Kroeker, M. Zaharia, S. Guo, S. Keshav.
ACM MOBICOM, 2006

Practical Security for Disconnected Nodes - A. Seth, S. Keshav.
ICNP Workshop on Secure Network Protocols (NPSec), 2005. A newer version is available too, co-authored with U. Hengartner.

An Architecture for Tetherless Communication - A. Seth, P. Darragh, S. Liang, Y. Lin, S. Keshav
Discussed in Disruption Tolerant Networking, Dagstuhl, 2005

Mobility Decisions in Heterogeneous Wireless Access Networks - A. Seth, N. Ahmed, S. Keshav
Course report for CS-856, Tetherless Computing, Fall 2004


Others

The Use of Mobile Devices as Sensors for Efficient Wireless Monitoring and Resource Utilization - A. Seth
Manuscript, University of Waterloo, 2006

Achieving Privacy and Security in Radio Frequency Identification - A. Seth, M. Beg.
Privacy, Security, Trust, 2006

Hubs of Chaos in Software Architecture - A. Seth, M. Askari
Course report for CS-746 Software Architecture, Winter 2004

Throughput Maximization of Bluetooth Scatternets by Topology Rearrangements - A. Seth, A. Kashyap, D.Sanghi.
BTech Thesis (IIT Kanpur, India), 2002.

A Simulation Tool for Bluetooth Scatternets: Extensions to Bluescat - A. Seth, A. Kashyap, D. Sanghi
BTech Thesis (IIT Kanpur, India), 2001.

An Extended AODV Protocol for Ad Hoc Networks with Unidirectional Links - A.Seth, L.Zhou, R. R. Pillai.
Technical Report, KRDL Singapore, 2001.

Performance Study of High Bandwidth Applications over Bluetooth - A. Seth, A. Kashyap, R. K. Ghosh.
ADCOM, 2001.


Random news

Oct 2008: I have joined IBM Research in India.

Sept 2008: I successfully defended my thesis on September 8th! It's available right here.

May 2008: My proposal to enable media services in rural India by using community-radio has been accepted for funding in the Knight News Challenge. The project is called Gram-Vaani, standing for voice-of-the-village.

Aug 2007: Nitin and Parul from Udai at UCSD put together NGO Post, a website to promote news-stories about NGO activities.

Jun 2007: I wrote the first version of an open-source OMR (Optimal Mark Recognition) software, suitable for social development organizations to conduct low-budget community surveys.

Jan 2007: The Udai Waterloo Chapter shipped 3000 children's books to The Bakul Foundation in Orissa, to help set up a library for rural and slum children.
Pictures from library inauguration     More pictures

May 2006: The Udai Waterloo Chapter organized Odyssey -- an exhibition/info-session on health, education, fair trade, and disaster relief.
Coverage in Imprint     Report     More pics

May 2006: I made a trip to India in May 2006 to set up our systems for rural connectivity at a village kiosk in the Vishakapatnam district of Andhra Pradesh.
Details     Pics     More pics     Notes

Some awesome books I've read

Non-fiction: Schumacher's Small is Beautiful, McLuhan's Understanding Media, Hayek's The Road to Serfdom,
Shashi Tharoor's India: From Midnight to the Millenium, Jared Diamond's Guns, Germs, and Steel,
Neil Postman's Amusing Ourselves to Death, Habermas's The Structural Transformation of the Public Sphere,
Ian Smille's Mastering the Machine, Sainath's Everybody Loves a Good Drought

Fiction (authors): Steinbeck, Orwell, Huxley, Antony Burgess, Harper Lee, Camus, JD Salinger, Kafka, Faulkner,
DBC Pierre, JM Coetzee, Douglas Adams, Scott Fitzgerald, Marquez, Maugham, Ian McEvan, Cormac McCarthy,
Ralph Ellison

If you get the track of what I like reading, feel free to recommend other books and authors to me.

Random pictures

My school     IITK     Singapore     Rock climbing at Nainital     Khajurao     Bangalore
Tadianmol Trek     Kumar Parwat Trek     Skiing at Auli     Point Pelee     Abbotsford
Waterloo     Stein River Trek     24th Birthday     Shaweta's Birthday     Ellora Gorge
Ottawa     Montreal     Banff Hiking     Lake Louise Hiking     Jasper Trek
Bruce Peninsula Hiking     Killarney Winter Trek     Pinnacles Climbing     California Hiking
Beausoleil Canoeing     Algonquin Canoeing     Massasauga Kayaking    
Manali to Leh motorbike ride     Cologne visit     Roopkund trek     Gayatri Joshi     Pin-Parbati trek    


Udai

Udai is a voluntary organization to promote awareness about social issues concerning developing countries, and to provide a platform for synergizing active efforts for their remediation. To subscribe, please visit the main list, and the list for the Waterloo chapter.

Last updated April 2008