The GAIUS Experience: Powering a Hyperlocal Mobile Web for Communities in Emerging Regions

Rohail Asim, Arjuna Sathiaseelan, Arko Chatterjee, Mukund Lal, Yasir Zaki, Lakshminarayanan Subramanian

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingConference contribution

Abstract

Despite increasing mobile Internet penetration in developing regions, mobile users continue to experience a poor web experience due to two key factors: (i) lack of locally relevant content; (ii) poor web performance due to complex web pages and poor network conditions. In this paper, we describe our design, implementation and deployment experiences of GAIUS, a mobile content ecosystem that enables efficient creation and dissemination of locally relevant web content into hyperlocal communities in emerging markets. The basic building blocks of GAIUS are a lightweight content edge platform combined with a mobile application that collectively provide a Hyperlocal Web abstraction for mobile users to create and consume locally relevant content and interact with other users via a community abstraction. The GAIUS platform uses MAML, a web specification language that dramatically simplifies web pages to reduce the complexity of Web content within the GAIUS ecosystem, improve page load times and reduce network costs. In this paper, we describe our experiences deploying GAIUS across a large user base in India, Bangladesh and Kenya.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationICTD 2024 - Proceedings of the 2024 International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development
PublisherAssociation for Computing Machinery, Inc
Pages236-246
Number of pages11
ISBN (Electronic)9798400710414
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 11 2025
Event2024 International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development, ICTD 2024 - Nairobi, Kenya
Duration: Dec 9 2024Dec 11 2024

Publication series

NameICTD 2024 - Proceedings of the 2024 International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development

Conference

Conference2024 International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development, ICTD 2024
Country/TerritoryKenya
CityNairobi
Period12/9/2412/11/24

Keywords

  • Advertisement Ecosystem
  • Cloud Computing Infrastructure
  • Content Creation
  • Developing Regions
  • Edge Systems
  • Hyperlocal Ecoystem
  • Sustainable Computing
  • User Experience
  • Web Accessibility
  • Web Simplification

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Computer Networks and Communications
  • Information Systems

Fingerprint

Dive into the research topics of 'The GAIUS Experience: Powering a Hyperlocal Mobile Web for Communities in Emerging Regions'. Together they form a unique fingerprint.

Cite this