This conference will bring together a fine mix of practitioners and academicians in the area of ICTs for sustainable development. There is a growing body of research that point to the critical role of information and communication technologies(ICT) in improving the socio-economic and political status of developing nations in general and sub-Saharan Africa(SSA) in particular.

This session aims at exploring the potential of Mobile Technologies to foster social and economic development. It is a small inter-disciplinary forum gathering web experts, mobile
experts, academics from developed and developing regions, NGOs and civil society
representatives with field experience and expertise to identify the key issues of exploiting
mobile phones and other mobile devices as an ICT-platform. Among the issues, the session
will particularly be focusing on:
- technical issues related to specific types of applications (m-health, mEducation, …)
- technical issues related to the mean of deployment (sms, voice, web,…)
- technical issues related to accessibility for illiterate people
- Social issues: how to capture the real needs from the targeted populations, how to have a
bottom-up approach that will integrate NGOs into international organization agenda and work
- Social issues related to empowerment: how to enable local people to master the technology to develop and deploy the applications they need, how to leverage local content and
applications development
- Social issues related to sustainability, entrepreneurship

This is a special session at the Mobile Life conferences and exhibitions:

• mSociety 2008, the 1st International Conference on Mobile Society
• Euro mGov 2008, the 3rd European Conference on Mobile Government

We welcome presentations within all “m” areas: m-government, m-health, m-banking, m-policy, … All are relevant to M4D. While the “m” in this context often implies low tech it is also noteworthy that wireless connections have promises for the development of broadband networks Special session on “Wireless Broadband Networks for developing regions”.

The Center for Human IT at Karlstad University has become a reference in the field of ICT4D, so this event should be a sure bet.

The Pan-Commonwealth Forum on Open Learning [...] will explore how open and distance learning can help achieve international development goals and education for all. The conference theme is “Access to Learning for Development” with a focus on children and young people, health, livelihoods, governance, conflict and social justice.

The Forum features the workshop Learning To Design Technology Enhanced Learning For Rural Livelihoods, which at the moment already has a wiki and an associated library of case studies (in progress).

Thanks for the tip, Josh.

ICT4D research symposium entering in its third edition this year, targeted to master-level and PhD students in the field, though other researchers in the field are usually welcome.

This is a cannot-miss event for anyone interested in what is the cutting edge research on subjects like the digital divide, e-readiness, e-learning for development, telecenters, technologies for access to ICTs in developing countries, delivery of e-services in developing countries, e-inclusion and e-empowerment, etc.

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 solicited. Submitted papers will be subjected to double-blind peer review, and a full proceedings will be published at the time of the conference. 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.

The African ICT Best Practices Forums serve as a practical way for high level officials from across Africa to share their own specific experiences and demonstrate practical examples of successful technology solutions in their respective countries. They also allow for such solutions to be more easily replicated, particularly given the skills shortfall in the region.

Alternative Channel, the international Web-TV on sustainable development and humanitarian causes, and Iwith.org organize the first Alternative Channel Forum. This international event will take place in Barcelona, April 30, 2008. Its goal is to be a meeting point for:

- social network, information technologies and Web 2.0 experts

- social communication professionals

eINDIA2008 is an inclusive, consultative and constructive ICT for Development forum – the largest and only one of its kind in India – promoting and propagating the use of ICT4D through its seven seminal thematic track conferences.

Tracks / parallel events:

• eGov, on e-Government
• digital LEARNING, on e-Learning and ICT in learning
• Telecentre Forum, on telecentres
• mServe, on mobile connectivity and services
• eHealth, on e-Health
• eAgriculture, on rural development