E-Newsletter

ICA 2010 Mobiles Preconference, “Innovations in Mobile Use”

The ICA 2010 Mobiles Preconference, which will be held at the National Library of Singapore, from 21st-22nd June 2010, examines innovations in a variety of societal contexts highlighting different phenomena of mobile phone uses.
Organised, and partially supported, by the Singapore Internet Research Center (SiRC), the workshop essentially aims to foster discussions around how developments in emerging markets reflect the trends in mature markets, and assess potential for the cross-pollination of information and communications technologies for development and/or empowerment.

Under the banner of the SIRCA program, which aims to facilitate emerging ICTD (Information and Communications Technology for Development) researchers in Asia, SiRC will organise short poster sessions, in addition to paper sessions. These poster sessions will provide an opportunity for Asian SIRCA scholars to discuss work-in-progress studies with international mobile communication scholars.

A Call for Papers was issued in October 2009, to researchers in various universities, research centres, NGOs, associations and groups relating to the field of ICT and mobile communications. Researchers were invited to submit abstracts focusing on the social scientific understanding of mobile communication, including the following themes:

  • Social impacts of mobile phones use
  • Mobile communication for development
  • Trends in mobile media systems and social contexts
  • Public sphere, social networks, and mobile communication
  • Mobile communication policy and regulation
  • Mobile broadband
  • Theoretical and methodological perspectives on mobile communication research

A total of 53 submissions were received; the genres ranged from mobiles intersecting with gender, learning, the public sphere, and development. Patterns of use and social impacts of mobiles were also analysed, against a converging media landscape.

Of these, 25 papers were selected for presentation through a blind review process. The review panel comprised seven senior scholars and practitioners: Dr. Arul Chib (Nanyang Technological University); Dr. James Katz (Rutgers); Dr. Jonathon Donner (Microsoft Research); Mr. Laurent Elder (IDRC); Dr. Richard Ling (Telenor Research and Innovation); Dr. Rohan Samarajiva (LIRNEasia); and Dr. Trisha Lin (Nanyang Technological University).

Congratulations to the following SIRCA grant awardees for their outstanding research achievements!

Balwant Singh Mehta (India) has presented his paper, titled “Decent Work in ICT Sector: An Indian Case” at the E-Asia Conference, Colombo, Sri Lanka, (2 – 4 December 2009). His paper, “Mobile Phone and Impact on Status of Women in Rural India” has also been selected to be presented at the ICA 2010 Mobiles Preconference (21 – 22 June 2010).

Balwant was selected from 4 Fellows in Asia and among 12 in Africa, Asia and Europe, to be part of the Amy Mahan Research Fellowship Program to Assess the Impact of Public Access to ICT (2010-11).

Mahfuz Ashraf (Bangladesh) has presented his paper titled ‘Evaluating health behaviour outcomes of an ICT project, results from research in three villages in Bangladesh’ at the IEEE International Conference on e-Health Networking, Application and Services (Healthcom2009), Sydney, Australia (16-18 December 2008).

He has also published his research findings in the Journal of eHealth Technology and Application ISSN: 1881-4581, Volume 7, Number 2, December 2009.

Peou Chivoin (Cambodia) has been awarded Australia’s Endeavour Award for PhD study at the University of Melbourne with research emphasis on Internet and youth issues.

Regina M. Hechanova (Philippines) has presented her paper, titled “Issues, Coping and Responses of Male Filipino Migrant Workers to Online Counselling” at the Migration Conference in the University of the Philippines (10 January, 2010). She has also presented “OFW Online: Supporting the Filipino Overseas Worker using ICT” at the Living the Information Society Conference in Ateneo de Manila University (28 October, 2010).

Sirajul Islam (Bangladesh) has presented his paper titled “Factors influencing the adoption of mobile phones among farmers in Bangladesh: theories and practices” at the 4th Annual Conference of the International Network for Postgraduate Students in the Area of ICT4D, London, UK (11 – 12 September 2009).

Read more about SIRCA’s grant awardees and their research.

March 2010

Join us in welcoming Ms Yvonne Lim, who has joined the Singapore Internet Research Centre (SiRC) as Senior Manager. She will oversee the administration of the center together with the centre director Prof Ang Peng Hwa.
Yvonne holds a 2nd class upper honours degree majoring in Japanese Studies from the University of Malaya, Malaysia. After five years of working life, she returned to her studies full time. She obtained her master’s degree from the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences (FASS), National University of Singapore, researching on the differences in project managers’ practices in project management implementation in Japan and Singapore. Her research interest derived from her keen interest in Japanese management studies, coupled with her project management background in her past working experience.

Upon her graduation from NUS, Yvonne was employed by FASS to help the faculty in setting up the Research Clusters in various areas regarded as strategic to FASS’ future research development. These clusters offer special opportunities for collaboration within NUS and/or with international research partners. Most recently, she has been with the National Institute of Education, assisting the Head of Academic Group (aka Department) in managing the overall operations of the group.