Venue: Millennium Resort Patong Phuket, Thailand

About the Conference

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have had a profound impact on the socio-economic, political and cultural spheres of nations. The result is that there is growing interest to incorporate ICTs to achieve key development goals in the domains of health, education, livelihoods, and gender empowerment.

The “Global Dialogue on ICT for Development” brought together specialists from academia, industry, social welfare organisations and government to discuss and debate ideas to resolve challenges in the field of ICTD. It was a great opportunity to network and collaborate with researchers and scholars in the field of ICTD.

Emerging researchers from eight countries in Asia presented their papers on pertinent issues surrounding the use of ICTs for development in livelihood, education, employment, health and the environment. These sessions provided an overview of the type of projects that are part of the Strengthening ICT Research Capacity in Asia (SIRCA) grant programme administered by the Singapore Internet Research Centre (SIRC), under the auspices of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) of Canada.

The “Global Dialogue on ICT for Development” coincided with the launch of the Media Asia journal, Vol. 38, No. 1. The aim of this special issue is to publish cutting-edge research in the area of ICTD in Asia. The special issue seeks to publish findings and exchange knowledge on broad-based high-quality multidisciplinary research in ICT development, e-services, new media use and social impact, and policy for the benefit and advancement of individuals, organisations, nation and society.

For more information, please view the SIRCA Conference Programme.

Presentations made at the event are available for download:

• Agricultural market information services: Implications on the rural community in Bangladesh (Sirajul Islam)
• Empowerment of farming communities through the use of ICTs: A study in the Indian Himalayan region (V.L.V. Kameswari)
• Mobile phone application development for rural Cambodia (Phal Des)
• Lifeline online: E-counseling and the well-being of overseas Filipino workers and their families (Regina Hechanova)
• Internet for learning and knowledge building: Students’ perceptions and utilization in Cambodian higher education (Peou Chivoin)
• The Filipino blogosphere: An emerging alternative venue for political participation in the Philippines (Grace Mirandilla)
• Erosion and landslide hazard mapping in Vietnam (Huynh Van Chuong)
• An impact assessment framework to evaluate ICT-led development projects in Bangladesh (Mahfuz Ashraf)
• Nature of work, quality of employment and working conditions in ICT sector: A case of India (Balwant Singh Mehta)
• Communities, participation and technology in India (T.B. Dinesh)
• Evaluating the impact of the One Laptop Per Child project on the psychological empowerment of primary school children in rural India (Komathi Ale)
• Acculturation of migrants in work sector: Identifying the facilitative role of mobile phones (Rajiv Aricat)
• Mobile phones for healthcare in rural Thailand (Thanomwong Poorisat)

• Objectives
• Desired Outcomes
• Workshop Programme
• Downloads

Objectives:

The SIRCA Workshop 1 aims to:

1. Equip Principal Investigators (PIs) with a clearer understanding of literature and methodological issues with regards to their projects;
2. Equip PIs with a clearer understanding of how their project relates and contributes to the broader ICTD discipline;
3. Provide PIs with necessary information to adhere to the SIRCA Secretariat compliance;
4. Highlight practical issues and challenges in fieldwork.

Desired Outcomes:

PIs should achieve the following objectives:

Objective 1

• Obtain feedback on literature review, theory and methodology in order to refine their research questions and hypothesis with:
  • A theoretical framework
  • Tighter focus
  • The aim of filling gaps in discipline
• Understand various research methods and choose the appropriate method/s for their project based on:
  • Benefits/appropriateness
  • Drawbacks and limitations
  • Ethical issues
  • Validity

Objective 2

• Understand the positioning of their project in relation to the larger field ICTD research;
• Be informed about the opportunities and challenges within the field; therefore positioning project for the future to fill research gaps and for longevity;
• Understand the multidisciplinary nature of the ICTD field;
• Learn about the breadth and depth of the various projects through peer sharing and interaction;
• Know the various dissemination opportunities:
  • Conferences
  • Networking
  • Publication
  • Marketing

Objective 3

• Understand the required format and expectations of various documentation (reports/forms);
• Learn to prepare a financial report and about the common pitfalls of budgeting and tracking of spending;
• Understand process to apply for further grants.

Objective 4

• How to conduct rigorous fieldwork in difficult situations:
  • Access to field sites and participants
  • Interview skills
  • Training
  • Pre-tests
  • Test/control
  • Translation
  • Transcripts
  • Review Board
  • Ethics

Workshop Programme:

Participants at the Workshop will take part in various capacity activities including two panel sessions where issues of ICTD research theories and ethics will be discussed. These panel sessions will be chaired by the SIRCA Assistant Director and Trainer, Dr. Arul Chib.

Day 1: The workshop will focus on the theorising aspect of ICTD research. A seminar will be conducted by Dr. Alexander Flor. This will be followed by group topical exercises and group consultations where PIs will be divided into groups based on the topics of their research.

Day 2: The workshop seeks to cover ICTD research methods. Two seminars will be conducted by Dr. Czarina Saloma-Akpedonu and Dr. Rahul De on qualitative and quantitative research methodologies respectively. Each seminar will be followed by group consultations where PIs will engage in group discussions with follow researchers employing similar research methods.

The workshop will conclude with a SIRCA Compliance and Feedback Forum.

Downloads:

• Theorizing ICTD Research [Zip file | 1.38MB]
• Workshop Materials [Zip file | 12.7MB]

Made possible by the National Science Foundation (grant number SES-0848097), Indiana University’s Poynter Center for the Study of Ethics and American Institutions and the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics.

This two-day workshop will convene an international meeting of experts in PAIT, ethicists well versed in practical ethics, and other stakeholders.

Rationale
Key Areas
Likely Cross-cutting Themes
Workshop Format
Registration
Rationale:

Technologies are being developed today using very small, relatively inexpensive, wireless-enabled computers and autonomous robots that will most likely result in the near-omnipresence of information gathering and processing devices embedded in clothing, appliances, carpets, food packaging, doors and windows, paperback books, and other everyday items to gather data about when and how (and possibly by whom) an item is used. The data can be analyzed, stored, and shared via the Internet. Some of these pervasive technologies will also be autonomous, making decisions on their own about what data to gather and share, which actions to take (sound an alarm, lock a door), and the like.

The potential benefits of pervasive and autonomous information technology (PAIT) are many and varied, sometimes obvious, sometimes obscure, as are the ethical implications of their development and deployment. The history of information technology suggests that long-standing issues including usability, privacy, and security, among others, as well as relatively new phenomena such as ethically blind autonomous systems, are best addressed early enough to become part of the culture of researchers and engineers responsible for identifying needs and designing solutions.

Key Areas:

The PAIT Workshop Planning Committee has initially identified the following key areas for discussion:

health and wellness (health monitoring, elder care, nagware)
everyday life (GIS, cell phones, PAIT in the home and car and on the body)
situations of limited human autonomy (in hospitals, the justice system, schools, the workplace)
autonomous systems and robots
Likely Cross-cutting Themes:

Law and policy
International issues
Access and the digital divide
Uses of data beyond original intent (repurposing) and data aggregation
Informed consent, transparency (end-users’ knowing the technology is in use and what it is doing), voluntary and involuntary use of data, the ability to “opt out”
Privacy, data security, anonymity
Managing data (lots of user interface questions here)
Balance of power among various stakeholders (parents/kids, elders/adult children, patient/provider, employee/boss, etc….)
Malicious uses, covert uses, surveillance, espionage
Workshop Format:

This working meeting will feature discussions of previously-prepared case studies describing actual and anticipated uses of PAIT, invited presentations on key issues, working groups to identify and categorize ethical concerns, and other activities aimed at community-building and formulating ethical principles and other resources that will help researchers and designers of such systems recognize and address ethical issues at every stage, from design to deployment to obsolescence.

Results of the workshop will be published in journals and in one or more books, presented at academic and industry conferences, and distributed via the Internet.

A limited number of travel subsidies are available for members of underrepresented groups in science and engineering.

Registration:

The workshop registration form, travel subsidy policy, and travel subsidy application form can be found at http://poynter.indiana.edu/pait/registration.shtml.

Please note that space at the workshop is limited. If the number of registrations exceeds expectations, we reserve the right to select among registrants to ensure balance. Please do not make travel plans until you have received confirmation of acceptance.

For more information, please see http://poynter.indiana.edu/pait/ or get in touch with Glenda Murray, Poynter Center, Indiana University, 618 East Third Street, Bloomington IN 47405-3602; (812) 855-0262; FAX: 855-3315; glmurray@indiana.edu.

Prospective participants are encouraged to consider registering for and attending the annual meeting of the Association for Practical and Professional Ethics immediately following the PAIT workshop, March 5-7, 2010, at the same hotel.

The Association’s keynote address will be delivered by Marc Rotenberg, Executive Director of the Electronic Privacy Information Center in Washington, D.C. at 8:30 am, Friday, March 5, and a mini-conference on “Engineering Towards a More Just and Sustainable World” will be held Saturday afternoon, March 6 through Sunday, March 7, 2010, at noon.

Please see http://www.indiana.edu/~appe/annualmeeting.html for details.

With usership crossing the four billion mark, mobile communication increasingly incorporates broad aspects of contemporary human life, potentially impacting not just the work and play of advanced users in developed markets, but also the daily lives of those in the developing world.

At one end of the spectrum, the rapid diffusion of mobile phones in developed countries offer an extended range of integrated functions and applications such as communication, information, entertainment, internet surfing, transactions, and political participation. At the other, there is rising adoption of mobiles in developing countries, both organic and planned, with the pursuit of basic development objectives such as livelihood generation, education, and health.

The Mobiles preconference workshop aims to foster discussions around how developments in emerging markets reflect the trends in mature markets, as well as assess potential for the cross-pollination of information and communications technologies for development and/or empowerment.

The workshop examines innovations in a variety of societal contexts highlighting different phenomena of mobile phone uses. With advancements in functionality and transmission technologies, mobile phones not only serve as a distribution platform, but also enable content production and consumption anytime, anywhere.

Juxtaposed with the engagement of social media, the extent and effects of mobile communications are amplified, for instance through the use of Twitter, Facebook and YouTube in U.S. and Iran elections, as well as in the demonstration for religious freedom by Uighur Muslims in China.

Day 1 (21st June 2010)

Day 2 (22nd June 2010)

Presentation Slides:

• Day 1 [rar file | 13.7MB]
• Day 2 [rar file | 11.5MB]