April 2011 - change - Mailing Lists

TASCHA Talk -- TOMORROW -- Technologies of choice? Chilean national ICT policies seen through the eyes of microentrepreneurs in rural communities
by Karen Hirst 11 Apr '11

11 Apr '11

TASCHA Talk: Dorothea Kleine -- Technologies of choice? Chilean national ICT policies seen through the eyes of microentrepreneurs in rural communities April 12, 2011, from 3:30 to 4:30pm Roosevelt Commons Building, fourth floor multi-purpose room In the early 2000s, Chile was considered a leader in Latin America in terms of its comprehensive and integrated national ICT policy, the Agenda Digital. Action lines included a campaign for digital literacy, networks of telecentres, access in schools, e-government initiatives, favorable import conditions for hardware, and an appropriate regulatory framework. Dorothea will discuss her recent paper, which draws on research that combined interviews with key civil servants leading each of the action lines at the national level with five months of ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with microentrepreneurs - from one of the most economically disadvantaged parts of the country - at the local level. Dorothea's research draws on Amartya Sen's capability approach, which positions development as the process of "expanding the real freedoms that people enjoy to lead the lives they have reason to value" (1999:3). In Dorothea's study, she operationalized this approach for ICT for development (ICT4D) through a choice framework. By asking whether state ICT policies have increased the freedom of local people, Dorothea's research uncovers contradictions between the generally freedom-enhancing, multi-purpose intervention that telecentres represent, and the more pre-determined technology of the state e-procurement system, which frequently reduced the choices of microentrepreneurs. She argues that these contradictions are inherent in the contrasting ideologies embedded in these different technological systems and configurations. The paper, like Dorothea's forthcoming book, Technologies of Choice (MIT Press), asks where decisions on technology and system design should be taken and how they could be made in more participatory and democratic ways. About Dorothea Dorothea Kleine is Lecturer in Development Geography at the UNESCO Chair/Centre in ICT4D at Royal Holloway, University of London. Her work focuses on the relationship between notions of "development", choice, and technology. She has worked as a consultant and advisor to EuropeAid, DFID, GTZ, and to NGOs. She is the author of Surfen in Birkenstocks (Oekom, 2005), a book on the potential of the internet for the fair trade movement, and has recently been managing action research using smartphones to assist socially and environmentally responsible consumption choices (see fairtracing.org<http://www.fairtracing.org>). Currently, Dorothea is completing her new book (Technologies of Choice, MIT Press), which offers an operationalisation of the capabilities approach for evaluation and project design in ICT4D. Dorothea is director of the new one-year Masters in Practising Sustainable Development (ICT4D specialism) at Royal Holloway. TASCHA Talks are bi-weekly sessions to share, discuss, and advance new ideas around topics related to technology and social change. Learn more at tascha.uw.edu/taschatalks<http://tascha.uw.edu/taschatalks>.

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understanding mturk in india
by Yaw Anokwa 10 Apr '11

10 Apr '11

kurtis heimerl (former uw cs ugrad, current berkeley grad) interviewed an indian rural crowdsourcing firm to see how they use mechanical turk. http://tier.cs.berkeley.edu/drupal/node/183

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interesting video
by Gaetano Borriello 07 Apr '11

07 Apr '11

Got this from Carl Ebeling. I thought it may be interesting to some of you. About what motivates.... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u6XAPnuFjJc

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TASCHA Talk -- April 12 -- Technologies of choice? Chilean national ICT policies seen through the eyes of microentrepreneurs in rural communities
by Karen Hirst 06 Apr '11

06 Apr '11

TASCHA Talk: Dorothea Kleine -- Technologies of choice? Chilean national ICT policies seen through the eyes of microentrepreneurs in rural communities April 12, 2011, from 3:30 to 4:30pm Roosevelt Commons Building, fourth floor multi-purpose room In the early 2000s, Chile was considered a leader in Latin America in terms of its comprehensive and integrated national ICT policy, the Agenda Digital. Action lines included a campaign for digital literacy, networks of telecentres, access in schools, e-government initiatives, favorable import conditions for hardware, and an appropriate regulatory framework. Dorothea will discuss her recent paper, which draws on research that combined interviews with key civil servants leading each of the action lines at the national level with five months of ethnographic fieldwork and interviews with microentrepreneurs - from one of the most economically disadvantaged parts of the country - at the local level. Dorothea's research draws on Amartya Sen's capability approach, which positions development as the process of "expanding the real freedoms that people enjoy to lead the lives they have reason to value" (1999:3). In Dorothea's study, she operationalized this approach for ICT for development (ICT4D) through a choice framework. By asking whether state ICT policies have increased the freedom of local people, Dorothea's research uncovers contradictions between the generally freedom-enhancing, multi-purpose intervention that telecentres represent, and the more pre-determined technology of the state e-procurement system, which frequently reduced the choices of microentrepreneurs. She argues that these contradictions are inherent in the contrasting ideologies embedded in these different technological systems and configurations. The paper, like Dorothea's forthcoming book, Technologies of Choice (MIT Press), asks where decisions on technology and system design should be taken and how they could be made in more participatory and democratic ways. About Dorothea Dorothea Kleine is Lecturer in Development Geography at the UNESCO Chair/Centre in ICT4D at Royal Holloway, University of London. Her work focuses on the relationship between notions of "development", choice, and technology. She has worked as a consultant and advisor to EuropeAid, DFID, GTZ, and to NGOs. She is the author of Surfen in Birkenstocks (Oekom, 2005), a book on the potential of the internet for the fair trade movement, and has recently been managing action research using smartphones to assist socially and environmentally responsible consumption choices (see fairtracing.org<http://www.fairtracing.org>). Currently, Dorothea is completing her new book (Technologies of Choice, MIT Press), which offers an operationalisation of the capabilities approach for evaluation and project design in ICT4D. Dorothea is director of the new one-year Masters in Practising Sustainable Development (ICT4D specialism) at Royal Holloway. TASCHA Talks are bi-weekly sessions to share, discuss, and advance new ideas around topics related to technology and social change. Learn more at tascha.uw.edu/taschatalks<http://tascha.uw.edu/taschatalks>.

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Adnan Mahmud on the Jolkona Foundation
by Eleanor O'Rourke 06 Apr '11

06 Apr '11

This Thursday at Change we will be hosting a talk by Adnan Mahmud, co-founder of theJolkona Foundation <http://www.jolkona.org/>, a non-profit that connects users with global philanthropic opportunities and shows the impact of their donations. *Jolkona’s giving platform makes it easy for non-profits around the world to show donors how every gift is being implemented on the ground. Jolkona launched little over a year ago and they have already distributed over $100,000 to over 100 projects around the world. Adnan Mahmud is a co-founder of Jolkona and currently, heads up Jolkona’s R&D team. Adnan will share thoughts around how the Jolkona platform has evolved over the past year and how some of the recent initiatives by his team sets up Jolkona well for the future.* Please join us for sandwiches, and to learn more about the Jolkona Foundation! *What: *Adnan Mahmud on the Jolkona Foundation *When:* Thursday, April 7th at noon *Where:* Paul Allen Center, Room 203

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Fwd: Mobiheld 2011 - In conjunction with SOSP 2011
by Yaw Anokwa 06 Apr '11

06 Apr '11

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Lakshminarayanan Subramanian <s.lakme(a)gmail.com> Date: Wed, Apr 6, 2011 at 04:48 Subject: Mobiheld 2011 - In conjunction with SOSP 2011 To: sig-dev(a)googlegroups.com Hi all, If you are working on cool mobile applications in the context of emerging regions, please consider potentially submitting to MobiHeld 2011, a workshop on mobile handhelds systems and applications. This year Mobiheld is held in conjunction with SOSP. The past couple of years, it was held in conjunction with SIGCOMM. The CFP is attached. cheers Lakshmi [Please accept our apologies if you received multiple copies of this call] CALL FOR PAPERS MobiHeld 2011 - The Third ACM Workshop on Networking, Systems, and Applications on Mobile Handhelds In conjunction with ACM SOSP 2011 Cascais, Portugal Sunday, October 23, 2011 http://sosp2011.gsd.inesc-id.pt/workshops/mobiheld IMPORTANT DATES FOR PAPERS Paper submissions due: Wednesday, June 1, 2011 Notification of acceptance: Friday, July 15, 2011 Camera ready version due: Thursday, Aug 25, 2011 Workshop date: Sunday, October 23, 2011 Mobile handhelds are the computing and communications devices that will pervade the lives of users worldwide, much more than desktop-based systems. Mobile handhelds come in many forms, including traditional cellular phones, smart phones, music players, electronic book readers, and watch computers. In recent years, the use of mobile handhelds has grown tremendously, as has the functionality for programmers. This platform will likely change the computing and communications landscape in radical ways in the years to come. With the increasing capabilities of these devices come increasing challenges spanning a wide range of domains: in the design of effective networking mechanisms, in application design, in user interface design, in energy efficiency, and in management of these devices. The goal of the second MobiHeld workshop is to bring together researchers and practitioners to investigate challenges in designing and utilizing this platform for the Internet of tomorrow. TOPICS Topics of interest include, but are not limited to, the following (all of which are in the context of mobile handhelds): * Wireless protocols and services, especially dealing with limited power, limited bandwidth, and unpredictable connectivity of mobile handhelds * Design, implementation, and evaluation of services for mobile handhelds * Security, privacy, and trust for mobile handhelds * New applications for mobile handhelds * Mobile handheld management * Energy management * Virtualized services * Cloud-based services * Emerging applications, including media applications * Social networking using mobile handhelds * User interface issues * Operating systems and middleware support * Multi-radio mobile handhelds * Platforms and testbeds for experimenting with mobile handhelds * Mobile services in emerging regions SUBMISSION INSTRUCTIONS Submissions must be no greater than 6 pages in length and in pdf format. Reviews will be single-blind: authors names and affiliations should be included in the submission. Submissions must follow other formatting rules here. http://sosp2011.gsd.inesc-id.pt/submission-guidelines To facilitate authors to better illustrate various aspects of their systems, we are encouraging authors to create easy-to-view videos demonstrating their system, and to post them on either public websites (such as YouTube) or private ones (in their own webspace). The authors can indicate the URL of such videos in the submitted papers if they would like the reviewers to view them, as part of the evaluation process. In addition, authors are also encouraged to submit their work to the demo session. Authors of accepted papers are expected to present their papers at the workshop. ORGANIZERS MobiHeld Steering committee Victor Bahl Microsoft Research Redmond Suman Banerjee University of Wisconsin Madison Jon Crowcroft University of Cambridge Lars Eggert Nokia Research Finland Dan Siewiorek Carnegie Mellon University PC Chair Lakshminarayanan Subramanian New York University Publicity Chair Venugopalan Ramasubramanian Microsoft Research Silicon Valley PC Members Suman Banerjee University of Wisconsin Madison Ramon Caceres AT&T Ranveer Chandra Microsoft Research Redmond Byung Gon Chun Intel Labs Berkeley Landon Cox Duke University Deborah Estrin University of California Los Angeles Bryan Ford Yale University Ramakrishna Gummadi University of Massachussets Amherst Jonathan Ledlie Nokia Jitendra Padhye Microsoft Research Redmond Jeff Pang AT&T Venugopalan Ramasubramanian Microsoft Research Silicon Valley Antony Rowstron Microsoft Research Cambridge Romit Roy Choudhury Duke University Lakshminarayanan Subramanian New York University Alec Wolman Microsoft Research Redmond

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phd studentships in computer science at uct capetown
by Yaw Anokwa 01 Apr '11

01 Apr '11

uct has a fantastic group of researchers. if you are interested in getting a phd in ict4d, find out more at http://www.cs.uct.ac.za/news-and-events/2011/phd-studentships-in-ict4d

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Fwd: MSR India's TEM group is hiring
by Gaetano Borriello 31 Mar '11

31 Mar '11

---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: Ed Cutrell <cutrell(a)microsoft.com> Date: Thu, Mar 31, 2011 at 9:10 PM Subject: MSR India's TEM group is hiring To: Ed Cutrell <cutrell(a)microsoft.com> Hello! I hope you will forgive the shameless spam, but I’m targeting you because I believe you’re involved in teaching a course or a program related to information and communication technology for development (ICT4D). As such, I’m hoping that you might be in contact with people who might be interested in coming to India to work with us at Microsoft Research India. If I’m mistaken, I’m very sorry; please delete forthwith. But I hope you’ll read on and pass on to any colleagues or students who might be interested. Ed Cutrell Research Manager, TEM group, MSR India The Technology for Emerging Markets (TEM) group at Microsoft Research India is hiring! We are looking for one or more individuals to join our team, as Researchers or Postdocs, to conduct cutting-edge research in information and communication technologies for development (ICTD/ICT4D). Come work with us to study, design, build, and evaluate technologies and systems that can address the needs and aspirations of people in underserved communities around the world. http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/groups/tem/hiring.aspx Printable version (for sharing or posting): http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/um/people/cutrell/MSRIndia-TEM-hiring.p… Please share with anyone you know who might be interested! *Position: Full-time Researcher or Postdoc Location: Microsoft Research India (Bangalore)* The Technology for Emerging Markets<http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/groups/tem/>(TEM) group at Microsoft Research India is hiring! We are looking for one or more individuals to join our team, as Researchers or Postdocs, to conduct cutting-edge research in information and communication technologies for development (ICTD/ICT4D). Come work with us to study, design, build, and evaluate technologies and systems that can address the needs and aspirations of people in underserved communities around the world. ICT4D is an inherently multidisciplinary domain, requiring contributions from—and collaborations between—researchers in computer science, engineering, human-computer interaction and design, public health, public policy, and a variety of social sciences including development studies, anthropology, psychology, economics, communication, and sociology. For this call, the departmental affiliation on your academic degree is not as important as the quality of your research and your sustained commitment to the domain. Successful candidates will have demonstrated a passion for tackling the hardest questions in ICT4D in a thoughtful and rigorous way. Those without previous experience in ICT4D should be able to demonstrate how their past work will inform their transition to ICT4D research. Researchers are expected to define their own research agendas and publish their work in top international venues. If you are interested in applying for a full-time Researcher or Postdoc<http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/jobs/fulltime/researcher.aspx>position, please submit your CV or résumé, a cover letter/research statement describing how your research relates to ICT4D, two publications you feel represent your best work (one publication is sufficient for postdoc applicants), and at least three references. The minimum educational requirement is a PhD, though exceptional researchers with master’s degrees will be considered from some fields such as economics or public policy. Please apply online<http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/jobs/fulltime/apply_researcher.aspx>, listing Ed Cutrell as your primary contact. Review of applications will begin on April 15, 2011. *About the Technology for Emerging Markets group* The Technology for Emerging Markets (TEM) group seeks to address the needs and aspirations of people in the world's developing communities. Our research targets people who are increasingly consuming computing technologies and services as well as those for whom access to computing remains largely out of reach. TEM is a multidisciplinary group engaged in a range of technical and social-science research. By combining a variety of backgrounds and training, we are able to engage deeply with some of the complex problems associated with poverty and scarce resources. Our goal is to study, design, build, and evaluate technologies and systems that are useful for people living in underserved rural and urban communities. TEM is based in Bangalore with Microsoft Research India<http://research.microsoft.com/en-us/labs/india/>and we enjoy a remarkably open and collaborative environment. The center of India’s tech boom, Bangalore is a cosmopolitan, world-class city, with a vibrant energy unlike anywhere in the world. Our location in Bangalore gives us excellent scope for direct interaction with a range of low-income urban and rural communities, and we work closely with a variety of partners, including NGOs, universities, government, private companies, and groups within Microsoft. However, our emphasis is on rigorous research and exploratory pilots rather than product or business development.

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