We would like to announce a presentation we will be holding with our fellow partners OLPC Austria – a non profit organization supporting the One Laptop Per Child and Sugar Labs projects mainly in Austria and Central Europe. We’ll introduce our organizations and talk a bit about our current projects.

What: ICT4D.at and OLPC Austria Presentation
Where: SBA Research – Theatersaal, Favoritenstrasse 16 (2nd floor), 1040 Wien
When: Monday, 26. April 2010, 16:00

We hope to see you there! You can also RSVP on Facebook.

Inaugural TEDxYouthInspire will bring together those with “A Good Head & A Good Heart”

On Saturday, April 10, 2010, from 8:00AM – 6PM GMT, the inaugural TEDxYouthInspire conference will be held at the Ghana-India Kofi Annan Centre of Excellence in ICT in Accra, Ghana. The free one-day event, a first for young African visionaries ages 14-25, will welcome a host of youth speakers, a Ghanaian dance ensemble and an Academy Award-nominated short film. Organized along the theme “A Good Head & A Good Heart”, taken from Nelson Mandela’s 1995 autobiography Long Walk to Freedom, TEDxYouthInspire will exhibit how radical thought and integrity of spirit combine to create unlimited possibilities for a brighter future. “The outpouring of support for TEDxYouthInspire exemplifies the need for more events like this for young people,” says Raquel Wilson, event curator, “As our speaker line-up suggests, youth everywhere are ready to solidify their contributions towards making the world a better place.” TEDxYouthInspire welcomes the following speakers to give the talks of their lives:

Iyinoluwa E. Aboyeji, 18, a Nigerian teenager with a passion for philosophy, global politics and economics, is President of the Board for University of Waterloo publication Imprint. Using his weekly column “E is for Error” to discuss development and post secondary education, he aspires to be a tenured professor by age 25.

The Asanti Dance Theatre is a dynamic ensemble that combines traditional, contemporary and freestyle dancing along with drumming. Founded in 2003, the group raises awareness of prominent issues facing West Africa and is dedicated to developing and preserving the cultural heritage of Ghana.

Yawa Hansen-Quao, 26, is a women’s empowerment activist and firmly advocates that “one cannot love an Africa one does not know.” Believing that women must play a central role in spurring economic and social advancement in Africa, Yawa supports travel as a tool to “transform people without permission”.

Mac-Jordan Holdbrookes-Degadjor, 25, a social media activist, is passionate about Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D), youth empowerment and ending poverty through education. With three blogs to his credit, he often writes about global events, social entrepreneurship, traveling and how it feels to be a geek in Ghana.

Shirley Osei-Mensah, 18, is an Internet entrepreneur and student at Keystone National High School. Unable to attend a regular classroom, she takes all coursework online and uses her web exposure to inspire others, provide tips about entrepreneurship and advise on earning an income online.

Esi Yankah, 25, is founder and president of The Africa Mentor Network and creative director for Yankah and Associates. Cautious to always live a life that is cheerful and purposeful, she does not believe that entrepreneurs are an extraordinary breed of people; rather, as she explains, “We just back our faith with action.”

Ghana Google Country Manager Estelle Akofio-Sowah will host TEDxYouthInspire.

TEDxYouthInspire is sold out, however, a live web steam of the event will be available online at LiveStream. Individual and corporate sponsorship packages are still available. Additional information about TEDxYouthInspire can be found by visiting www.tedxyouthinspire.org. Follow us on Twitter at www.twitter.com/tedxyouthinspir or Facebook at www.facebook.com/tedxyouthinspire.

This year in December the probably biggest and most important ICT4D / ICTD conference this year will take place in London. Tim Unwin and Dorothea Kleine (both from Royal Holloway University) have gathered people from around the world to help them in pulling in as many opinions and viewpoints as possible from as many individuals and organizations as possible to make the conference a rich and helpful experience for the whole ICT4D / ICTD scene.

It aims to provide a forum for researchers, practitioners and all those with interests in the use of information and communication technologies in development practice to meet to discuss the latest research advances in the field. [from the ICTD2010 page]

Keynote speaker so far announced include Sir Tim Berners Lee (Director of W3C) and Lídia Brito (Director of Science Policy Division, UNESCO), furthermore the who is who of the international ICT4D / ICTD research and practitioner scene will be present there.

We at ICT4D.at are also contributing to the conference – currently by providing technical assistance for the pre-conference activites (to be announced), and at the conference with doing audio, video and web 2.0 coverage of what’s happening there. Furthermore we are advertising the event through our channels – so click the ICTD2010 London web page link here and make sure you attend the conference. Once again the dates:

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What: ICTD2010 conference

Where: Royal Holloway University, London

When: 12. to 16. December 2010

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For everybody interested in ICT4D / ICTD research and networking it’s probably the place to be this year. Registration opens soon, hope to see you there!

Thomas Smyth and others have shared some very valuable compilations of ICT4D-related sessions that will be held at CHI 2010, which starts tomorrow. Below is an edited summary of the events. If you are interested in HCI-related announcements and discussions, join the HCI4D Google group.

MONDAY
11:30-13:00 Panel: Addressing Challenges in Doing International Field Research

TUESDAY
9:00-10:30 HCI and India session, with three HCI4D papers, including one best paper
11:30-13:00 Panel: Computing Technology in International Development
14:30-16:00 Crisis Informatics with papers on Liberia and Iraq
16:30-18:00 HCI for All session with a very interesting paper on Post-colonial computing

WEDNESDAY
9:00-10:30 Storytelling session with some work from Gary Marsden‘s group; also the Social Impact Award session
14:30-16:00 Medical data session with a paper on health and persuasion (also a best paper); also Imagine all the people alt.chi session with paper on Rwanda
16:30-18:00 HCI, Communities, and Politics panel, which is not specific to HCI4D, but very relevant

THURSDAY
14:30-16:00 HCI and the Developing World session

FRIDAY
11.30-14.30 GVU research showcase in the Technology Square Research Building, demonstrating work by the Technologies and International Development lab

Here are a couple of interesting items that I have come across in the past week or so. The first item is a blog on ICT4D by Prof Richard Heeks and should be of interest of doctorate students and researchers interesting in publishing in the field of ICT4D (http://ict4dblog.wordpress.com). If you scroll down you will see further discussion on ICT4D research quality and impact – the good news is that ICT4D research as a subfield of IS is not ‘punching above our weight but neither are we left out in the cold’, not great but not bad either – a bit like my favourite football team

The second item is a webinar that explores opportunities for existing and new players concerning the next-generation broadband in emerging economies and discusses the implications for vendors (http://blogs.yankeegroup.com/2010/03/30/webinar-emerging-markets-next-gen-broadband/).

Stan.

Next Thursday, our monthly Stammtisch meeting takes place at Cafe Benno. The meeting is for curious people in Vienna to find out about ICT4D in general, what we do, how to help and generally just to have a nice evening. We’d be happy to get to know a lot of new people.

What: ICT4D.at Stammtisch

Where: Cafe Benno, Alser Straße 67, Wien

When: Thursday, 8. April 2009, 19:30

If you intend to come it would be great if you could notify us via mail or RSVP on