ICTD 2009

3rd IEEE/ACM International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development (ICTD2009)

April 17-19, 2009
Carnegie Mellon Doha, Qatar
http://www.ictd2009.org
CALL FOR PANELS

The 3rd IEEE/ACM International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development (ICTD2009) will be held 17-19 April 2009 at Carnegie Mellon's state-of-the-art campus in Doha, Qatar. This conference will act as a focal point for new scholarship in the field of ICT and international development. Confirmed speakers include a Keynote by William H. Gates, Chairman of Microsoft Corporation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

For the first time in the history of ICTD, we are inviting proposals for panels.

Panel Proposals

The organizers of ICTD2009 would like to spur more reflective dialogue among researchers and between researchers and development practitioners. Therefore a small number of panels will be chosen to be added to the program.

ICTD2009 remains a single track conference, and the panels will not conflict with the plenary sessions in which original research papers will be presented. Rather they will be held in parallel with open times in the program.

We invite panel proposals that will add to the emerging ICTD discipline by having multiple points-of-view reflect on issues that affect the practice of ICTD research and its relationship to development practice. Therefore key assessment criteria we will use to evaluate the panel proposals are:

1. Does it reflect on a novel or unresolved issue in the practice of ICTD research.
2. Does it reflect on a novel or unresolved issue in disseminating or scaling the results of ICTD research into general practice.
3. Does it introduce challenges in the practice of development that ICTD research has yet to address adequately.

Panel proposals will also be evaluated on the quality of the panel participants experience to address the topics being proposed.

Panel proposals need to include:

1. Title for the Panel
2. Summary of what the panel will cover (max 500 words)
3. Names, affiliations, and contact information of 3-5 panelists who have made a commitment to participate
4. Abstract of each panelist’s position statements (max 500 words)
5. Brief biography of each panelist

Proposals will be reviewed by the Panel and Workshop Committee.

All submissions should be emailed to panels@ictd2009.org

For the latest information, please see the conference website at http://www.ictd2009.org.

Please also address questions of other e-mail correspondence to panels@ictd2009.org.

Important Dates

(Please check the conference website for latest information.)

Conference Focus

ICTD spans information and communication technologies (ICT) and their role in global socio-economic development. Every sector is involved – governments, academia, small start-ups, large corporations, inter-governmental organizations, and non-profits and non-governmental organizations. In spite of the tremendous energy and resources behind these projects, scientifically sound research in this space is just beginning to emerge: What is the actual impact of ICTD projects? What novel technology is required to meet development needs? What methodologies lead to the success or failure of a project?

The goal of the ICTD conference is to provide a forum for academic researchers and scholarly practitioners working with ICT applied to development. The conference will be scientifically rigorous and multi-disciplinary – papers reporting high-quality original research are being solicited. The conference will bring together researchers and reflective practitioners in both the social and technical sciences, with anticipated representation from anthropology, sociology, economics, political science, computer science, electrical engineering, industrial design, and the like., in addition to domain specialists in various development fields such as healthcare, agriculture, enterprise, education, governance, etc.

For the purposes of this conference, the term “ICT” will comprise computing devices (e.g., PCs, PDAs, sensor networks), technologies for voice and data connectivity, the Internet, and related technologies. Application domains include, but are not restricted to, education, agriculture, enterprise, healthcare, poverty alleviation, general communication, and governance.

Venue

Qatar is a rapidly growing economy in the region and the world which has set its targets of moving beyond a hydrocarbon economy into becoming a regional and global leader in knowledge and information. Qatar is a modern, stable nation with a vibrant international population, and hosted the Asian Games in 2007. Education City brings leading educational and research institutions to Qatar, including Cornell, Georgetown, Texas A&M, and Carnegie Mellon in Qatar offers degree programs in Computer Science, Business Administration, and Information Systems. This provides an ideal venue for hosting ICTD2009, in a geographic location close to major population centers around the world, easily accessible by direct flights.