Mobile Tech 4 Social Change includes interactive discussions, hands-on-demos, and collaborations about ways to use, deploy, develop and promote mobile technology in health, advocacy, economic development, environment, human rights, citizen media, to name a few areas. Participants for Mobile Tech 4 Social Change barcamps include nonprofits, mobile app developers, researchers, donors, intermediary organizations, and mobile operators.

The Universitat Oberta de Catalunya (UOC) is pleased to invite you to participate in the Conference on Development and Information Technologies. Mobile Phones and Internet in Latin America and Africa: What benefits for the most disadvantaged?

The Conference, organized by the UOC and cofinanced by the Agència Catalana de Cooperació al Desenvolupament, will take place on 23 and 24 October at the Internet Interdisciplinary Institute Building (IN3) located in Castelldefels (Barcelona).

It will be an excellent opportunity to exchange the results of the empirical research and to debate about the influence of the diffusion of the Information and Communication Technologies, specifically the mobile phones and Internet, they can have in the social and economic development in Latin America and Africa, and specially, among the most vulnerable segments of the population.

Through this document we are pleased to announce to the researchers, PhD students and practitioners the call for research papers about the following topics:

1. Migrations, interconnection and interdependence
2. New communicative habits: families and interpersonal relations
3. Technologies and entrepreneurship
4. Communications at the bottom of the pyramid: access strategies
5. Mobile communications and development: microeconomic perspective
6. E-banking, access to financial services, …: local use and remittances

If you are interested in presenting a paper, please send the abstract before 24 April 2009 pointing out to which category belongs the communication. The accepted papers will be published in book format with ISBN. Please find below the instructions.

If you have any question, please do not hesitate to contact the organizing committee: jornadesitd2009.in3@uoc.edu (Mireia Fernández-Ardèvol, Scientific Committee)

In the coming all the information about practical issues and the contents will be available at the website of the Conference (http://www.uoc.edu/activitats/jornadaitd/index.html).

INSTRUCTIONS FOR SENDING ABSTRACTS

Rules on the presentation of the abstract:

1. Title

2. The name and affiliation of all the authors/writers and the contact data of the author are required.

3. Key words (up to 4)

4. Summary (300-500 words)

When?

    Before 24 April 2009

How?

1) Send the document to the following email address: jornadesitd2009.in3@uoc.edu

2) Please indicate on the subject of the email: JDTIC-BCN: submissions.

3) Preferred formats: *.doc (MS Word), *.odf (Open Oficce Writer), and PDF.

4) Thematic area:

1. Migrations, interconnection and interdependence
2. New communicative habits: families and interpersonal relations
3. Technologies and entrepreneurship
4. Communications at the bottom of the pyramid: access strategies
5. Mobile communications and development: microeconomic perspective
6. E-banking, access to financial services, …: local use and remittances

Acceptation

The acceptation of the paper will be communicated to the authors by 15 of May.

Papers may be in the form of empirical research studies and should be 5000 – 7000 words (in English).  The priority will be given to those papers which contribute with empirical knowledge about the reality of the regions selected in this conference (Latin America and Africa).

Please send the complete text of the communication before 10 September 2009.

Following on two successful workshops hosted with ACM SIGCOMM in 2007 and 2008, the 3rd Workshop on Networked Systems for Developing Regions (NSDR ‘09) will provide a venue for researchers to present ideas and results concerning the design, implementation and evaluation of new computing and communications technologies serving developing regions. NSDR 2009 will be held with SOSP 2009 at the Big Sky Resort, Big Sky, Montana on October 11th, 2009.

The role of Development Informatics (DI) is supportive facilitation. In summary, DI seeks out easy to use, appropriate, accessible, affordable, etc. solutions for total global connectivity and access to information. ICT experts need to create systems that will enable communities to empower themselves. Experts alone cannot empower communities, and neither should the experts impose on communities — communities themselves should help to determine their own needs.

A part of mLife 2009 Conference and Exhibitions,

mDevelopment 2009 aims to explore the impact of the mobile technologies on economic and social development and invites all professionals from public, private, non-profit and third sector org organizations to create a prime platform for knowledge exchange and dissemination.

ICT4D is an international conference focusing on Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) innovation and impact for developing countries. It provides a unique forum where academic and economic actors of the developing world can meet and exchange. The conference is organized by the SAP/Meraka UTD in Pretoria South Africa in collaboration with CREATE-NET (Italy).

Web4Dev - Innovation for Access aims to promote innovation in three cross-cutting areas by sharing resources and expertise, and laying the foundation for future collaboration across academia, the development, and private sectors.

El Symposium de las Tecnologías para la Acción Social y el Desarrollo Humano, también llamado, e-STAS, es un evento de carácter internacional y multisectorial donde Administración, Empresas y ONG´s se dan cita para intercambiar experiencias y conocimientos con el fin de erradicar la brecha digital.

El objetivo de e-STAS es impulsar, fomentar y adaptar el uso de las Nuevas Tecnologías en pro de la acción social y el desarrollo humano
La temática la dividimos en dos ejes. Uno por temática:

* Las TIC´s y los Objetivos del Milenio
* Infraestructuras y herramientas de bajo coste
* Contenidos y Servicios tecnológicos que propician la inclusión sociodigital
* RSC, ONG´s, voluntarios y TIC´s
* Programas y proyectos ejemplo de buenas prácticas de trabajo multisectorial usando las Nuevas Tecnologías para la Acción Social y el Desarrollo.

COOPERACIÓN 2.0 es un espacio para el encuentro internacional, la reflexión y sensibilización acerca de la necesidad de impulsar, fomentar y adaptar el uso de las TIC en las políticas, programas y proyectos para el desarrollo.

It is widely recognised that ICTs have potential to contribute to meeting development goals such as basic health care, poverty reduction and education. It is often argued that countries harnessing the potential of ICTs can expect accelerating economic growth, improving human welfare and the fostering of good governance practices. The role of development goals in policy making is an important area of academic study and practical application. For instance, the millennium development goals (MDGs) developed by the OECD have been adopted by the governments of several countries as a focus on achievement of measures by 2015. ICT has also been a key element of various economic development and public sector reform agendas’ around the globe. The conference will explore the contribution of ICTs to the achievement of sustainable development.

We invite papers that describe, critique, develop arguments, and draw conclusions from the multitude of development projects on the role of ICTs in achieving development goals and addressing challenges to sustainability.

The event includes a Doctoral Colloquium to offer PhD students from the ICT for Development (ICT4D) community a unique opportunity to present and discuss their research with leading specialists, scholars and peers in an international setting.