Section: New Results

Applications

Participants : Nicolas Anciaux [correspondent] , Luc Bouganim, Philippe Pucheral.

In 2014, we proposed a new paradigm, that we call Folk-enabled Information System (Folk-IS), based on a fully decentralized and participatory approach, where each individual implements a small subset of a complete information system without the need for a shared networked infrastructure [5] . Folk-IS builds upon the emergence of highly secure, portable and low-cost storage and computing devices, called hereafter Smart Tokens. Here however, the focus is on low-cost of ownership, deployment and maintenance, and on the absence of a networked infrastructure. With Folk-IS and thanks to their smart tokens, people will transparently and opportunistically perform data management and networking tasks as they physically move, so that IT services are truly delivered by the crowd. Following this work, we collaborate with researchers and doctors from Cameroon to study the specific case of diabete follow-up. Indeed, there are currently more than half a million diabetes cases in Cameroon and the deaths caused by diabetes complications will double before 2030. Diabetes complications mostly occur due to a bad follow-up of patients. Based on an analysis of the current situation, we proposed a new IT architecture for diabetes follow-up and introduce the bases of a new distributed computation protocol for this architecture. Our approach does not require any preexisting support communication infrastructure, can be deployed at low cost, and provides strong privacy and security guarantees. This work, published in AFRICOM [20] envisions an experiment in the field we plan to conduct under the authority of the Cameroonian National Center for Diabetes and Hypertension, with a potential for generalization to other diseases.