SummIT

SummIT removes high bandwidth content from any given website, reducing download sizes by > 92%. SummIT was designed for use in internet-poor areas and created to increase internet accessibility.

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What it does

My project is titled SummIT - it’s a website that, when given a link to another website, removes high bandwidth content from the website to lower bandwidth consumption and create faster loading times. SummIT works for most non-image or video based sites, but is primarily designed for accessing news.

Why?

Many rural communities or communities in developing countries lack reliable and fast internet, thereby hindering their access to online information. Increasing accessibility for online news was made the focus of this project as accessing important information is vital for all communities. It’s important for communities to have access to reliable and current information, as this helps combat misinformation. This increased accessibility becomes even more so critical during emergency situations, such as natural disasters or threats to public safety.

In addition to increasing internet accessibility by reducing bandwidth consumption and creating faster load times, SummIT can reduce user's internet costs as they are consuming less bandwidth. Also, carbon emissions generated by server farms, which produce on average 4% of global greenhouse gasses, see a decrease when users use SummIT.

The numbers

From the data I’ve gathered through multiple tests I've run*, SummIT can reduce upload and download sizes of websites by over 92%! This results in 92% faster load times, 92% less bandwidth used, 92% reduced carbon emissions generated by server farms, and 92% cheaper internet costs.

All these benefits are reaped while all the text-based information on the site remains readable. The reason SummIT is able to accomplish this is because it isn’t only removing images and videos. It’s also removing a lot of backend components that the user can’t necessarily see, but that still consume a lot of bandwidth. This includes things like cookies, ad trackers, and JS files. Removing these components along side images allowing for all communities to stay connected with important online information.

*data from the tests is attached in the 'Additional Info' section (only available for judges).

How it's built

The backend of SummIT processes the website that needs to be stripped. The backend is programmed using Python and the HTML parsing library "BeautifulSoup4." The frontend of the site is made using simple HTML + CSS + JS. The site was published using Amazon Web Services' Elastic Container Service (ECS).

What's next for SummIT

As of now, I plan to keep SummIT public and freely accessible so that people can continue to benefit from the service.

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