FYI Sent from mobile device ---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: "Aaditeshwar Seth" <aaditeshwar@gmail.com> Date: Sep 23, 2013 11:12 PM Subject: Fwd: CFP: Technology, accountability & democracy conference To: <act4d@googlegroups.com> Cc: -------- Original Message -------- Subject: CFP: Technology, accountability & democracy conference Date: Mon, 23 Sep 2013 10:23:12 -0700 (PDT) From: Vivek Srinivasan <vivekdse@stanford.edu><vivekdse@stanford.edu> To: 'Aaditeshwar Seth' <aseth@cse.iitd.ernet.in> <aseth@cse.iitd.ernet.in> Dear Aadi, I request you to forward the call for papers for the ‘Technology, accountability and democracy’ to any relevant people or mailing lists. The complete CFP can also be downloaded from http://liberationtechnology.stanford.edu/news/bombay_conference. Thank you, ** ** Warm regards ** ** S Vivek ** ** Technology, accountability and democracy in South Asia and beyond**** Seasoned activism meets technical imagination *Dates*: January 17-18, 2014 *Location*: University of Mumbai Over the last few years, there has been unprecedented focus on corruption and accountability across South Asia. Accountability movements have resulted in a variety of initiatives including special monitoring bodies, transparency laws, monitoring mechanisms, judicial reforms and refining government processes. These initiatives bring different understandings of problems and approaches, with varied strengths and weaknesses. Despite these differences, they are increasingly converging on the use of technology to augment a growing set of accountability strategies. The availability of new devices, the power of the Internet, the reach of mobile phones, and citizen activism give us reason to believe that the use of technology has real promise in advancing the accountability agenda. Yet the claim of technology’s promise is not without its critics. The use of technology has created new avenues for corruption despite claiming to combat it. Technologies rolled out in the name of advancing citizenship also create avenues for greater surveillance and disenfranchisement. Many initiatives are not controversial, but their effectiveness is yet to be evaluated rigorously. Finally marginalized people, who need tools for accountability more than anyone else, have significantly lower levels of engagement with it. The promises and problems of technology’s relationship with accountability require closer examination. This conference proposes to bring together people who are engaged in these questions as activists, officials, academics and innovators to examine how technology is currently being used for accountability projects and to build meaningful platforms for the future. We specifically seek to bring together people with experience in accountability movements (with or without the use of technology), young innovators and researchers in order to promote rich multidisciplinary conversation and to build new collaborations. Seasoned activism meets technical imagination One of the most persistent criticisms of technology for democracy projects is that they focus heavily on the tools without paying attention to the complexity of their use and the fact that accountability is a political project steeped in power relations. In order to ensure that technical imagination goes hand in hand with a sophisticated understanding of the problems and strategies necessary to make technology a tool for progressive change, we propose to invite seasoned civil society activists and leaders from the government who have had a successful track record in managing positive change to meet individuals who are just beginning to consider technology as a response to the same problems. The conference will thus foster an exchange of ideas between innovators and experienced activists so that innovators can share their tools and experiences while also deepening their understanding of technology’s relevance and challenges for potential uses on the ground. In turn, experienced political, social and economic leaders will gain ideas on how elements of technology can be introduced into in their work. With this in mind, the conference format provides for opportunities to learn about technology projects, meet with platform creators, and participate in workshops to gain tools suitable for diverse campaign needs. Conference format The conference will involve a mix of paper presentations, talks, posters with speed geeking and workshops. Presentations The conference will host panel discussions on the four broad themes mentioned above. We welcome presentations of both applied projects and academic research on any of these themes. We hope to provide a balance between presentations on successful accountability initiatives and technical innovations in each of these panels. Each presenter will have about 15 minutes and each session will have space for Q&A. Some academic presentations may be solicited by invitation. Others who are interested in presenting academic papers will be asked to send a 2-page summary of their proposed papers before the submission deadline. *While we do not expect a paper from those who are engaged in practical projects, we will also ask them to submit a summary of the project they propose to discuss, and we encourage these participants to collaborate with us in creating a “crowd sourced” handbook based on the experience of individual projects*. We hope that the handbook will provide us with a rich source of information on our collective experience, and will also create the basis for vibrant interaction during the conference. Posters & speed geeking Those with a technology project that has relevance to accountability movements will also be able to apply to participate in *Poster and Speed geeking* sessions. They can submit a project as long as it is relevant for accountability campaigns, even if it has not been used previously in such campaigns. For example, this could be a new voice messaging platform that could be used for citizen engagement or a feminist toolkit for technology creators. Participants will be encouraged to produce one or more posters describing their project, which will be on display throughout the conference for viewing by all participants. Attendees who are interested in learning about how these technologies could be useful to their own projects will have an opportunity to fix 15 minute meetings with the presenters (i.e. speed geeking). Workshops The conference will host two workshops on the panel themes. The workshop would be preceded with a collective writing exercise where the participants and others working in the space can discuss their campaign strategies, how they use technology and other aspects of their work in a Google document. This exercise would begin three months before the conference starts and is intended to generate a collective understanding of accountability strategies and of each other’s work. The process would be led by the theme leader who would start the discussion by posing a set of questions about the project (e.g. what are the core accountability strategies, what proportion of users are women? What kinds of technology are already used in the work? etc.). Starting with the questions, participants would share their experiences on a Google document, where we would collate experiences on each topic. The informal handbook would serve as the basis for the workshop. Who can participate · Innovators who have been building technical tools that could be used by citizens, civil society and the media to make governments, corporations and NGOs more accountable. We also welcome projects that are based on social media, mobile technologies and data journalism, etc. for promoting accountability. ** ** · Leaders from the government who have an experience in the conference themes. These include people who have an experience in election commissions, local administration, procurement process, accountability bodies (e.g. auditors, information commissions, ombudsmen and Lok Pals) and other public bodies that suit the conference theme. The conference is particularly looking for leaders who have made a concerted effort at improving accountability in their sphere of work. ** ** · Civil society organizations that have been working on issues such as clean elections, anti-corruption, improving public services and governance of public resources. We welcome organizations that already use technology as a part of their campaign strategy or those who are interested in understanding how technology could be used in their work. ** ** · Investigative journalists who focus on different aspects corruption and accountability who are interested in using technology for analysis and reporting. ** ** · Academic researchers who have studied accountability projects of interest to the conference. We are particularly interested in studies on the intersection of technology, accountability and democracy. Organisation The conference is led by the *Center for South Asia* and the *Center on Democracy, Development and the Rule of Law* (CDDRL) both at Stanford University. It will be organized in partnership with Department of Civics and Politics, University of Mumbai and the Stanford Alumni Association of India. Application, financial support & deadlines There are no fees for attending the conference and breakfast and lunch will be provided in the venue. There are three different deadlines for application: Nov 1, 2013: For presenters who would like to be considered for financial assistance. Nov 20, 2013: For all those who wish to present papers or posters, and those who wish to participate in a workshop without financial assistance Dec 15, 2013: For those who would like to observe the panels and participate in the workshops. We encourage international participants who require a visa to apply by the Sept deadline so that we have adequate time to complete the visa formalities. In case you are interested in applying for the conference or if you would like to learn more, please send an email to Vivek S. (vivekdse@stanford.edu) or Rachel Brule (rebrule@gmail.com; reb11@nyu.edu). To register, please go to http://southasia.stanford.edu/bombay_conference ** ** -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Appropriate Computing Technologies for Development" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to act4d+unsubscribe@googlegroups.com. For more options, visit https://groups.google.com/groups/opt_out.