The LUMS Neighborhood for Emerging World Technologies (NEWT) Lab was established in Jan 2006 by Dr. Umar Saif to pursue a cross-disciplinary research thrust in developing-world technologies. Research projects at NEWT are specifically aimed at bridging the “digital divide” between the developed and the developing world. The reason for this “digital divide” is that traditional research in ICT technologies is based on assumptions suited to the affluent world, such as affordability of high-end computing devices, broadband communication infrastructure, uninterrupted power supply, computer savvy users, to enlist a few. Therefore, technologies derived from such assumptions often fail to address key challenges of cost, deployment, power consumption, and support for semi-literate to illiterate users in the developing world. Research at NEWT covers diverse areas such as distributed systems, network protocols and architecture, wireless access, sensor networks, ad-hoc and low-configuration communication infrastructure and alternate user interaction paradigms.

NEWT was established with seed funding from Microsoft Research’s (MSR) Digital Inclusion program in Jan 2006. NEWT’s project was one of the 17 projects funded by MSR from the 162 proposals submitted from 34 countries. This was also the first project funded by Microsoft Research (MSR) in Pakistan. NEWT has also initiated several research proposals with local and international grant programs, including USAID, Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB), Higher Education Commission (HEC) and Cisco URP.