Omidyar Fellow

Santa Fe Institute (Santa Fe, NM)

My goal is to repurpose this ubiquitous infrastructure of mobile phones in ways that better serve both the billions of individuals who carry them and ultimately the societies in which they live.

As our sample size inevitably expands into the billions of people, it is important to consider the implications of planetary behavioral data and comparisons across cultures and continents. At first glance, it appears that particular types of information spread through a village in Kenya in a very similar way it spreads through Greater London. Mobility patterns in the Dominican Republic look similar to how Rwandans move within their country, which bear striking parallels to movement around San Francisco. While we may be at the verge of making claims about universal laws of human behavior, I believe the harder questions occur after we fit the distribution and declare an understanding of a complex social system – how can we use these data and insights to actively improve life? While I am thrilled to be broadening the impact of one of the most influential technologies of our time, there is much more to be done.

2006-2009 Research Scientist (MIT Research Faculty)