Centre for Internet and Society

ICT, transaction cost and development: The flip side

radha — 2013-02-05T08:56:35Z

A presentation by Prof. Pradoshnath at CIS, Bangalore on Nov 25th, 2009 from 3.30pm to 5pm

Abstract

The main observation is that the connectivity matters if and only if it connects the right way. The danger of being at the flip side looms large, if connected wrong way.

The conclusion is based on a rigorous theoretical understanding of the role of network technology in general and ICT in particular for augmenting the process of social and economic transformation. The theoretical framework also allows us to discover the danger of flip side of the network technology, and tells us that it is not always hunky-dory between ICT (or any network technology for that matter) and social and economic backwardness. Colonial plundering was possible through the adoption of network technologies in colonies.

ICT is believed to contribute to economic development by reducing the transaction and information cost associated with any economic activities. Transaction cost arises when transactions are made away from the market. There are two streams of arguments here; one, that suggests minimisation of transaction cost as means towards economic efficiency, and the other that considers the act of transactions away from the market is actually the process of value creation of a capitalist enterprise. We argue that both the arguments can be synchronised by partitioning the transaction costs in two broad components of production activities, namely, production (the value creation component, where in lies profit) and procurement. It is in the latter component where transaction cost can be minimised for efficiency, whereas in case of former transaction cost is created by a value creating capitalist enterprise. In reality both the processes are concurrent, and one complements the other.

It is this comprehensive perspective that enables us a fresh look at the ongoing programmes, and, therefore a general observation that ICTisation in less developed economies in effect make market operations friendlier for the capitalist ventures or inroads in the marginal economies, and create new varieties of distortions in the system. We call this distortion – the flip side of ICTisation, because in the absence of factors that enable make use of connectivity for economic and social gains, the marginalised population of a marginal economy runs the risk of falling in to a new dynamics of exploitation.

Profile of Prof. Pradosh Nath

An economist working on issues related to applications of science and technology for social and economic development. He is a scientist at National Institute of Science Technology and Development Studies (NISTADS), New Delhi. At present affiliated to the Centre for Culture Media and Governance, Jamia Millia University, New Delhi as Senior Research Fellow, ICSSR, New Delhi. His present research interest is in the area of application of ICT for social and economic development of the marginal economies. He has published widely in both national and international journals. He has co-authored two books and edited another. He has worked as consultant for IDRC, Canada, WAITRO, Copenhagen, Denmark, and ITU, Geneva. He has been the coordinator of the WAITRO sponsored international programme on ‘Knowledge management for R&D organisation’ conducted in different countries in Asia and Africa.

Videos

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/ict-transaction-cost-and-development-the-flip-side

HasGeek presents The Fifth Elephant

praskrishna — 2012-06-19T06:38:13Z

HasGeek and the Centre for Internet & Society invite you the Fifth Elephant at the NIMHANS Convention Centre, Bangalore on July 27 and 28, 2012.

Why The Fifth Elephant?

Modern technology with ubiquitous connectivity and cloud-hosted computing power is increasingly becoming important for making sense of data. The infrastructure, tools, processes and algorithms for storage, analytics and visualization shape the meanings and value that can be derived from the data. At the same time, these technologies are strongly intertwined i.e., the database infrastructure shapes how data is accessed for processing, as well as the tools you can (or cannot) use to represent the data in certain ways on the frontend. Similarly, the paradigms used for simplifying and storing data — MapReduce, NoSQL, RDBMS — variously enable the morphing of complex data into meaningful formats. Working with each one of them involves limitations and possibilities.

The Fifth Elephant is the first of its kind of events where you will meet different people working with different kinds of data. It is an opportunity for learning about new tools, technologies, platforms, processes and best practices, and engaging with business leaders, IT decision-makers, journalists, analysts and developers. It is also an opportunity to showcase data products, APIs, services and platforms.

A Conference? An Event?

The Fifth Elephant is not simply a series of lectures. It is a space for interactions with a diverse audience to serendipitously explore insights and solutions for your data problems, to understand how hidden meanings in data can be made manifest, and to learn how others are working with data. The event is open to data analysts and scientists, statisticians, geeks, enthusiasts, data-driven product managers and designers, enterprise architects, journalists, researchers, developers and database professionals.

The Agenda

The Fifth Elephant will be held on July 27 and 28, 2012 at the NIMHANS Convention Centre, Bangalore. Day 1 covers the technology track — big data infrastructure, analytics and visualization. Day 2 invites talks from business and industry — finance, retail, health, media, telecom — to showcase the nature of data in each of these sectors and how they are working (and not working) with the data.

Apart from demos, lectures and tutorials, there will be opportunities for open house discussions and presentations on Hadoop, NoSQL versus RDBMS paradigms, and legal and licensing frameworks for data sharing, among others. Hacker corners, a dedicated participant lounge and interactive sponsor booths will further the learning, showcasing and engagement at the event.

For submitting talks and speaking proposals, visit funnel.hasgeek.com/5el.
Corporate tickets available for company delegates and employees. For more information write to info@hasgeek.com
For sponsorship queries, write to zainab@hasgeek.com

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/has-geek-presents-the-fifth-elephant

Habits of Living: Surrogate States, Bodies and Networks, Bangalore

praskrishna — 2012-09-28T12:40:30Z

The Centre for Internet & Society is organising the Habits of Living Workshop in Bangalore from September 26 to 29, 2012.

Schedule

26^th September, Wednesday

9:30 – Registration and Tea

10:00 – Introduction – Wendy Chun, Nishant Shah

11:00 – Pecha-kucha presentations followed by Q&A from all the participants

13:00 – Lunch

14:30 – Akansha Rastogi, Shiv Nadar Museum, New Delhi

16:00 – Oliver Lerone Schulz, Post Media Lab, Lueneburg

19:00 – Welcome Banquet @ Jaymahal Palace with other invitees

27^th September, Thursday

10:00 – Radhika Gajalla, Bowling Green State University, Bowling Green

11:30 – Saumya Pant, Mudra Institute of Communications, Ahmedabad

13:00 – Lunch

14:30 – Deepak Menon, India Water Portal, Bangalore

14:00 - Joshua Neeves, Brown University, Rhode Island

16:30 – Eivind Rossaak, National Library of Norway, Oslo

19:00 – Trip to down-town Bangalore (optional)

28^th September, Friday

07: 30 – Bangalore Heritage Walk (optional)

11:30 – Maya Ganesh (via Skype), Tactical Technologies, Berlin

13:30 – Lunch

14:30 – Rijuta Mehta, Brown University, Rhode Island

16:00 – Wendy Chun, Brown University, Rhode Island

19:00 – Dinner at South Indies, Infantry Road

29^th September, Saturday

09:30 – Maesy Angelina, AusAid, Jakarta

11:00 – Renee Ridgway, NEWS, Amsterdam

12:30 – Lunch

14:00 – Gita Chadha, SNDT Women’s College, Mumbai

15:30 – Open Board: Habits of Living

17:00 – Wrap up and next steps

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/raw/digital-humanities/habits-of-living

GeekUp with Erica Hagen

praskrishna — 2012-02-29T03:00:14Z

HasGeek is organizing a GeekUp with Erica Hagen of the GroundTruth Initiative on 1 March 2012 at 5 p.m. Erica will speak on the theme: "From Information to Empowerment: Unpacking the Equation".

From Information to Empowerment to Unpacking the Equation

In 2010, Erica Hagen and Mikel Maron started GroundTruth Initiative to work towards empowering communities through open data, open information and participatory processes. Erica's and Mikel's work at GroundTruth is informed by their earlier experience of working with the Map Kibera project where they helped the youth and the communities in Kibera to map their geographies and represent information about themselves to the world through citizen media. In the process, Erica and Mikel uncovered several complex dynamics about self-representation by communities, what open data really means to communities and how they apply it to their circumstances, the dynamics between participatory development and participatory technologies, and the process of using community media tools and online methods for talking about issues that matter to them.

In this lecture, Erica Hagen will talk about her work with communities in Kenya, Jerusalem, Nigeria and other parts of the world through GroundTruth Initiative. Specifically, Erica will unpack the relationship between empowerment, information, and storytelling, and what both these elements mean to communities in different parts of the world. How are communities applying the information and data that they collect about their governments and themselves? What are the challenges involved in the process of working with open data, participatory processes and technologies? How can communities apply new media and data gathering tools to achieve local goals? What does empowerment mean in the face of the delicate lines and precariousness that communities and the interveners/practitioners have to tread in the process of data gathering, representation, communication and outputs?

Interested persons need to confirm attendance by registering at http://geekup.in/2012/erica-hagen

Erica Hagen

Erica Hagen is a journalist and international development practitioner working for democracy of information and citizen participation in both online and traditional media. She is the co-founder of Map Kibera and GroundTruth Initiative. Erica has worked in four countries on development communication and evaluation, and in the United States on refugee and immigrant issues, for organizations such as United Nations Population Fund, Concern Worldwide, and Unicef. She holds a Masters Degree in International Affairs from Columbia University, New York.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/geek-up-with-erica

GeekUp with Alan Knott-Craig

praskrishna — 2012-06-29T11:11:52Z

HasGeek and CIS invite you to a lecture by Alan Knott-Craig at CIS office in Bangalore on June 30, 2012, from 5.00 p.m. to 6.30 p.m.

Alan is founder of World of Avatar and CEO of Mxit, Africa’s largest social network. Between 2003 and 2006, Alan co-founded five companies in the mobile services sector. In 2006, he was appointed managing director of iBurst, a broadband network operator in South Africa. In April 2008, he published Don’t Panic, a best selling book aimed at persuading emigrant South Africans to return home. In June 2008, he founded The Trust, an NGO focused on assisting charities access skills and capital. In 2009, he was named as a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum. In June 2012 he published Mobinomics, the story of Mxit and mobile in Africa. Alan is a qualified Chartered Accountant (SA).

The Story of MXit

MXit (pronounced "mix it") is a free instant messaging application developed by MXit Lifestyle (Pty) Ltd. in South Africa that runs on multiple mobile and computing platforms. According to a 2011 study by consultancy World Wide Worx, MXit currently has about 10 million active subscribers, making it the largest mobile social network in Africa.

MXit allows users to send and receive one-on-one text and multimedia messages to and from other users, and in general chat rooms. MXit also supports gateways to other instant messaging platforms such as MSN Messenger, ICQ and Google Talk.

On 1 April 2009, MXit released an open-source plug-in for the libPurple library. This allows applications using the libPurple library such as Pidgin and Adium to connect to the MXit network. This coincided with the release of the MXit Developer Zone web-site and documentation on the MXit client protocol. MXit has been included as a standard protocol in Pidgin since version 2.6.4.

Agenda

17:00 - 17:05	Welcome with Tea, Coffee, and Snacks
17:05 - 17:15	Lightning Talks
17:15 - 18:00	The Story of MXit
18:00 - 18:30	Q & A

For registration, click here

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/geek-up-with-alan-knott-craig

Geekup @ CIS

praskrishna — 2011-12-26T07:39:53Z

CIS is hosting a Geekup tomorrow, December 27, 2011 in its office in Bangalore. Shyam Mani will be giving a talk.

Shyam Mani

Based out of Singapore, Shyam (aka fox2mike on IRC and most of the intertubes) is one of the folks on the Mozilla IT team outside the USA. A geek at heart, he’s a part-time Gentoo developer, loves photography and volunteers as a race official for Formula 1 races in Singapore and Australia.

A peek into Mozilla IT

Mozilla IT manages over 7 datacenters in San Jose, Santa Clara, Phoenix in the US and Amsterdam as well as Beijing and 7 offices in Mountain View, San Francisco, Vancouver, Toronto, Paris, Auckland and Beijing with over 4000 servers and virtual machines. They support Mozilla's mission on a 24/7 basis by making sure critical infrastructure functions as expected and is always available (when they're not being BOFHs). The 45 member strong team is primarily based out of the US and has a person each in India and Singapore.

This talk will provide an insight into Mozilla's Infrastructure in terms of scale and the methods/tools used to manage the same.

We will open with lightning talks from Bangalore's geeks. That means you. Give us a 5-10 minute intro to the tools you use or how your organization's IT is structured. Help get the mood going before Shyam's talk.

Schedule

Welcome with tea, coffee and snacks	18:00 - 18:15
Lightning Talks	18:15 - 19:00
A peek into Mozilla IT	19:00 - 20:00

Register now

The venue has limited capacity

Fill out the form to confirm your participation. We have limited space at the venue and may not be able to accommodate everyone. Registration will allow us to keep you updated about the talk. Do tell us something about yourself so we know whom we are expecting.

Our privacy policy: We do not share your info.

Also see the HasGeek website

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/mozilla-it

Gandhi, Freedom, and the Dilemmas of Copyright

praskrishna — 2012-04-28T04:11:01Z

To commemorate Mahatma Gandhi's death anniversary, the Centre for Internet and Society cordially invites you to a talk by Prof. Shyamkrishna Balganesh of the University of Pennsylvania on Gandhi, Freedom, and the Dilemmas of Copyright on 30 January 2012 at 6.00 p.m.

When the copyright on Rabindranath Tagore's writings were to expire, his estate sought (and got) an extension in copyright term. But when the copyright on Mahatma Gandhi's writings were to expire, the trustees did not seek such an extension, in deference to Gandhi's views on copyright. On the cover of the first English edition of the Hind Swaraj, it states: "No Rights Reserved". Was Gandhi a Wikipedian at heart, and a prophet who foresaw the 'copyright wars' and had his own visions of how far free culture and free knowledge activism could and could not go?

Description

Central to modern discussions of copyright law is the conflict between copyright’s role as a market-based mechanism of cultural production and its detrimental effects on access to knowledge, free speech, and cultural creativity. So divisive is this debate in the world of copyright law today that some have characterized it as the ongoing “copyright wars”. In January 2009, when copyright in all of Gandhi’s works expired, to the absolute surprise of many, the Navjivan Trust,to whom Gandhi had transferred the copyright in his works, chose not to seek a statutory extension of copyright.

The Trust’s firm decision rested in large part on Gandhi’s unease with copyright law, and his reluctant acceptance of its benefits. Gandhi’s opinions on copyright law reveal a rather concerted attempt to grapple with the innumerable public and private trade-offs that are central to the institution, which are today seen as the very basis of the copyright wars. Much like Gandhi’s views on other issues, they reveal a pragmatism, nuance, and creative engagement, which likely emanate from Gandhi’s training as a lawyer. Instead of simplistically rejecting the institution in its entirety, Gandhi saw copyright law for what it is—an important social compromise—and sought to engage with it in a way that tracked his beliefs on other issues.

This talk will argue that the nuances of Gandhi’s engagement with copyright law hold important lessons for thinking about copyright law in society, and for managing its complex trade-offs. Gandhi’s thinking on the topic anticipated many of the modern dilemmas about the structure and function of copyright law--such as the role of exclusivity, the importance of control and integrity, and the costs and benefits of licensing revenues. And while Gandhi may not have had a clear (or unambiguously correct) solution to any of them, he almost certainly asked the right questions.

About the Speaker

Shyam Balganesh’s scholarship focuses on understanding how intellectual property and innovation policy can benefit from the use of ideas, concepts and structures from different areas of the common law. His most recent work tries to understand copyright law’s pre-requisite of “copying” for liability, as a mechanism of pluralistic decision-making that allows it to incorporate both utilitarian and rightsbased considerations into its functioning.

Balganesh received his J.D. from the Yale Law School, where he was an Articles and Essays Editor of the Yale Law Journal and a Student Fellow at the Information Society Project (ISP). Prior to that he spent two years as a Rhodes Scholar at Balliol College, Oxford, and received a B.C.L. and an M.Phil in Law from Oxford University.

His recent publications include: ‘“Hot News’: The Enduring Myth of Property in News,” 111 Columbia Law Review 419 (2011); “The Pragmatic Incrementalism of Common Law Intellectual Property,” 63 Vanderbilt Law Review 1543 (2010); and “Foreseeability and Copyright Incentives,” 122 Harvard Law Review 1569 (2009), among others. He is also currently editing a collection of scholarly essays on the topic of intellectual property and the common law, scheduled to be published by the Cambridge University Press in 2012.

VIDEO

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/a2k/gandhi-freedom-and-copyright

Free Speech Online in India under Attack?

praskrishna — 2012-03-02T03:03:24Z

When the Union Minister for Communications and Information Technology, Mr. Kapil Sibal suggested pre-censorship for a range of popular online platforms and social networking sites, the suggestion was met by a barrage of criticism, which soon forced him to back down. Yet Sibal’s suggestion is not the only threat to free speech on the Internet in India today. Legislation such as the Intermediary Due Diligence Rules and Cyber Café Rules (also jointly known as the IT Rules) issued in April 2011 is equally dangerous for free speech online.

Achal Prabhala, Anja Kovacs and Lawrence Liang will join Sunil Abraham to discuss in more detail some of the direct threats to freedom of expression online in India today including the larger legal and social context of freedom of expression and censorship, control and resistance in which they have to be understood and the steps that can be taken to ensure that substantive protections for freedom of expression online will be put into place.

The Speakers

Achal Prabhala

Achal is based in Bangalore, Karnataka. He is a researcher, activist and writer in the areas of access to knowledge and access to medicine besides being a member of the Advisory board of the Wikimedia Foundation.

Anja Kovacs

Anja works with the Internet Democracy Project, which engages in research and advocacy on the promises and challenges that the Internet poses for democracy and social justice in the developing world.

Lawrence Liang

Lawrence is a researcher and lawyer based in Bangalore, who is known for his legal campaigns on issues of public concern. He is a co-founder of the Alternative Law Forum and works on the intersection of law, technology and culture. He has worked closely with filmmakers and artists in a number of anti-censorship campaigns.

The Moderator

Sunil Abraham

Sunil is the Executive Director of the Centre for Internet and Society, a Bangalore-based non-profit organization. He is also a social entrepreneur and Free Software advocate. He founded Mahiti in 1998 which aims to reduce the cost and complexity of Information and Communication Technology for the Voluntary Sector by using Free Software.

This event is jointly organised by the Internet Democracy Project and the Centre for Internet and Society. Join us at the Centre for Internet and Society in Bangalore, on Wednesday 21 December, at 5.30 pm.

VIDEOS

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/free-speech-online-in-india-under-attack

Free Arduino Workshop (For Beginners)

praskrishna — 2012-04-28T04:07:50Z

The Centre for Internet & Society, Bangalore invites you to a hands-on-free Arduino workshop in its office on 3 March 2012. The workshop will be held from 11.00 a.m. to 3 p.m.

What is Arduino?

Arduino, an Italian name meaning "strong friend", is a popular "open-source electronics prototyping platform based around a microcontroller. It accepts inputs, such as signals from sensors (light, temperature, moisture, etc.) or data from the Internet or wireless devices, and sends output signals to devices, such as LEDS, motors, speakers, MIDI sequencers, computers, and so on."

In simpler terms: It is a ready-to-use creative platform, designed to provide interactivity between humans, smartphones, PCs, sensors and the physical world. It is especially a boon for creative people who don't have a technical background and want to translate their wildest techno-ideas to reality in a snap.

A comic by Jody Culkin, introducing Arduino

What can Arduino Do?

Applications of Arduino could include anything under the sun, from making your LED lights glow in reaction to the weather to interactive punching bags: your imagination is the limit (besides the sensors).

Check what some folk did with a bunch of cameras for an amazing music video all in one day

For other examples, check out the Boing Boing listing

Who can Attend?

The workshop is especially meant for interaction designers, artists or anyone else enthusiastic to get started with creative projects and don't have prior experience with electronics, interfacing and all that hack talk. It would help to have a general understanding of instructional programming languages, but this shouldn't be a problem for starts as you will pick it up as we go along. Besides, we are super-friendly and patient folk who will assist participants to demystify geek code.

Apply Now

We have only 20 seats for this free workshop. Participants will work in groups of two. The workshop will last 4 hours, over a lunch break. All materials will be provided, and it would be great if you could get your laptop.

To apply please send a brief intro about yourself and why you think you will benefit from this to yelena@cis-india.org. Selected participants will be notified shortly.

A map, showing the location of CIS

VIDEOS

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/openness/free-arduino-workshop

Exposing Data: Art Slash Activism

yelena — 2013-03-01T05:44:23Z

Tactical Tech and the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS) invite you to the first round of discussions on the intersection of Art and Activism at CIS office in Bangalore on 28 November 2011. Ward Smith (Lecturer, University of California, LA), Stephanie Hankey and Marek Tuszynski (Co-founders, Tactical Technology Collective), Ayisha Abraham (Film maker, Srishti School of Art Design) and Zainab Bawa (Research Fellow, Centre for Internet and Society) are leading the conversations.

The Exposing Data Project

An NGO sets up a database to track elected representatives’ participation in the Parliament, the spending for their constituency, and keeping a track of their political mandates and promises.

A geographer tracks the movements of US Government satellites and visualises their paths to form curious visuals of ‘State secrets’.

A photographer travels to an island in the Pacific Ocean to take pictures of the plastic debris found in the stomach of a Laysan albatross carcass.

Each of these examples is about how data that serves as evidence can be collected and visualised in different formats. The NGO can output its data as infographics, the geographer creates non-cartographic maps and the photographer’s images serve as testimony to increased pollution levels. We live in database times. Never before in human history have we consumed, produced and shared as much data as we do now in bits and bytes through our digital devices, coded as images and graphs and spreadsheets. The power to do so has allowed individuals and communities around the world to expose and reveal things that have been invisibilised and obscured, robbed of language and articulation.

At the same time, the visual immediacy of such data sets and the ability to manipulate it to construct new ways of looking at our reality, often hides the fact that the production and use of data as evidence is not benign or neutral. While data itself claims a certain objective fact value, the politics involved in identifying something as data are subject to strong power confluences.

The Centre for Internet and Society and Tactical Technology Collective, Bangalore, propose the Exposing Data Project as a series of conversations between people working across art, activism, politics, information science, cartography, geography, social sciences, humanities and technology science to share, learn, discuss, debate and explore processes, methods, challenges and implications of what it means to live in a data-rich world.

Art Slash Activism

The first round of discussions will be looking at the intersections of Art and Activism, but without falling into the usual traps of looking at art as the vehicle of activism or activism as a form of art. Hence, instead of Art and Activism, we are looking at Art Slash Activism exploring how data visualisation, data representation, and new forms of data mapping re-articulate what it means to be political.

The event will bring together professionals such as Ward Smith (Lecturer, University of California, LA), Stephanie Hankey and Marek Tuszynski (Co-founders, Tactical Technology Collective), Ayisha Abraham (Filmmaker, Srishti School of Art Design) and Zainab Bawa (Research Fellow, Centre for Internet and Society). Rather than being a seminar to instil practical knowledge, the aim of Art Slash Activism is to engage participants in a curated conversation on the use of data as evidence and its dissemination through visual depiction as a catalyst for change. We are seeking a variety of perspectives when answering questions such as whether data can have a universal reach through visual presentation; how we can utilize various forms of representation to spread awareness; and what happens when information cannot be represented as data.

Art Slash Activism is a multidisciplinary learning experience that will involve members of the art community, open data activists, designers, and others active in the processes of social change in a creative, playful and innovative manner that will result in textual and visual documentation which will serve as a knowledge corpus for researchers and practitioners interested in these questions.

Bio of the Speakers

Zainab Bawa
Zainab is a PhD scholar at the Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS), Bangalore. Zainab primarily works as an independent researcher on issues of governance, politics, property and how technology is embedded in state-citizen interactions and society. In the course of her work, she is associated with the Centre for Internet and Society and the Centre de Sciences Humaines - New Delhi. Zainab is also a designated partner at HasGeek Media LLP, Bangalore.

Ayisha Abraham
Ayisha Abraham lives and works in Bangalore as an installation artist and short filmmaker. She works at the Srishti School of Art, Design, Technology, as a visual arts consultant and is a member of the BAR1 (Bengaluru Artists Residency).

Stephanie Hankey
CO-founder & executive director, Stephanie has been working to strengthen the use of technology by civil society in the global South since 1998, initially working with the Open Society Institute establishing their Technology Support for Civil Society Program, before co-founding Tactical Tech in 2003. Stephanie has a background in information design, was editor-in-chief of Pulp and worked as a creative director and producer for a number of London-based multimedia companies. She has a Masters in Information and Interaction Design from the Royal College of Art London, and a certificate in Campaigning and Lobbying from NCVO.

Marek Tuszynski
Co-founder & director of programmes & technology, Marek has been working to help advocates use technology since 1995. In the mid-nineties he co-founded the International Network of Contemporary Art Centres and worked with others to create a television programme about independent culture in Poland. He was director of the Stefan Batory Foundation’s Internet programme (Warsaw), sat on the board of Klon/Jawor (a research and infrastructure NGO) and The Second Hand Bank. Marek worked as a consultant to many funding agencies focusing on information and communication strategies for civil society in Central Asia.

Ward Smith
Ward Smith is a librarian who works with academics, activists and artists to design and implement information systems that aid in the development and documentation of their work. He has recently worked with the Atlanta Task Force for the Homeless, the Arts, Computation, Engineering program at UC Irvine, the Southern California Library, the 2009 Digital Arts and Culture Conference, and rhizome.org.

This event is free and open to everyone. However, we would appreciate a confirmation of attendance ahead of time so as to ensure that your space is reserved. To confirm your attendance please write to: yelena.gyulkhandanyan@gmail.com

VIDEOS

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/art-activism

Essay Review: Digital AlterNatives with a Cause

praskrishna — 2012-02-10T05:53:30Z

Hivos and the Centre for Internet & Society (CIS) are pleased to announce the monthly essay review event. It starts from the midnight of February 17 and ends on the midnight of February 26. Hurry! Pick any essay from the four book collective of Digital AlterNatives with a Cause? and send us your reviews.

Hivos and CIS have consolidated their three year knowledge inquiry into the field of youth, technology and change in a four book collective “Digital AlterNatives with a cause?”.

This collaboratively produced collective, edited by Nishant Shah and Fieke Jansen, asks critical and pertinent questions about theory and practice around 'digital revolutions' in a post MENA (Middle East - North Africa) world. It works with multiple vocabularies and frameworks and produces dialogues and conversations between digital natives, academic and research scholars, practitioners, development agencies and corporate structures to examine the nature and practice of digital natives in emerging contexts from the Global South.

The event invites readers from around the world to pick any one essay from the books and review it in the week of 17-26 February 2012.

Previously found reviews can be found here.

For submission guidelines, please get in touch with: Nilofar Ansher (nilofar.ansh@gmail.com)

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/digital-natives/events/essay-review

Enabling Access to Education through ICT

praskrishna — 2011-08-31T10:41:15Z

ICT workshop in Delhi...starts from Wednesday, 27 October 2010...ends on Friday, 29 October 2010.

The Centre for Internet and Society (CIS), Bangalore in cooperation with the Global Initiative for Inclusive ICT (G3ICT), a flagship advocacy organization of the UN Global Alliance on ICT and Development (UN-GAID), the International Telecommunications Union (ITU), UNESCO, Digital Empowerment Foundation, Society for Promotion of Alternative Computing and Employment and the Deafway Foundation is organizing an international conference, Enabling Access to Education through ICT in New Delhi from 27 to 29 October 2010. The event is sponsored by Hans Foundation.

Agenda

EDICT2010: Enabling Access to Education through ICT

How can accessible information and communication and assistive technologies for persons with disabilities be best deployed in schools and universities?

October 27-29, 2010

India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, India

Co-organized by:

Event Sponsor:

Media Partners

Enabling Access to Education through ICTs: How Can Accessible Information and Communication and Assistive Technologies for Persons with Disabilities be Best Deployed in Schools and Universities?

An international inquiry organized by the Centre for Internet and Society in cooperation with G3ict, an advocacy initiative of the United Nations Global Alliance for ICT and Development with the support of UNESCO, the International Telecommunication Union, the DAISY Consortium and the World Intellectual Property Organization

Wednesday, October 27, 2010

08.30 – 09.30 Registration opens

09.30 – 11.00 Opening session

Welcome note from the organizers, CIS, G3ict, UNESCO, ITU and WIPO

Key note address by Smt Vibha Puri Das, Secretary, Higher Education, Ministry for Human Resource and Development

Introductory remarks by Dr.Indrajit Banerjee, Director, UNESCO

– 11.15 Tea break

11.15 – 13.00 Axel Leblois, Executive Director, G3ict: ICT Accessibility and Reasonable Accommodation in the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, Implications of Article 9 and 24 for State Parties and Education Ministries

Why Accessible and Assistive Technologies Matter? – An Overview of ICT Barriers to Access and Solutions

Live examples and case studies of ICT accessibility issues and solutions in education. The topics – (access to websites), (published works and libraries),(classroom materials and tests), (hardware and software) and (K to 12 and university perspectives)

Speakers

Cyndi Rowland, Associate Director, Center for Persons with Disabilities: Visible and Hidden Barriers for Students and Faculty

Dr. Sushmita Mitra, Director, Student Support Services, National Institute of Open Schooling: School Textbooks and Educational Resources – Making Distance Education Work

Dr.Hemalata, Deputy Director, NCDS, IGNOU: Information Communication Technology (ICT) for Inclusion
Mr.S.C.Kunthiya, Joint Secretary Elementary Education, Ministry of HRD: Barriers and Initiatives of the HRD Ministry

James Thurston, Senior Strategist for Global Policy and Standards, Microsoft: Accessibility Guide for Educators

Q & A discussion
Moderator- Ambassador Swashpawan Singh

13.00 – 14.00 Lunch break

14.00 – 15.30 Beyond Accessibility: Implementing Assistive Technologies for Students with Disabilities

Live examples and demos. Topics - (input / output devices), (screen readers), (text to speech and voice recognition), (language support) and)

The need for individual solutions and
Training and support essentials

Speakers

Srinivasu Chakravartula, Accessibility Manager, Yahoo India: World of Assistive Technologies

Prof S R Mittal, Professor in Education, Department of Education, University of Delhi: Challenges faced by Students with Disabilities in Higher Education

Sunil Abraham, Executive Director, Centre for Internet and Society: Open Educational Resources
Arun Rao, CEO, The Deaf Way Foundation: ICT Applications in Deaf Education

Prof Tanmoy Bhattacharya, Coordinator, Equal Opportunities Cell, Delhi University: Education of Students with Disabilities: An Evaluation of the Indian Educational Policies

Moderator: Mrs. Mala Ramadurai

15.30 – 16.00 Tea break

16.00 – 17.30 Shifting Paradigms for Accessible and Assistive Solutions: Can India Schools Leapfrog Current Solutions?

Speakers

Prabir Purkayastha, President, Centre for Technology and Development, Chairperson of Knowledge Commons, Vice President, Delhi Science Forum and Chairperson of Program Review Committee on Perception and Control, ASTeC Programme, Ministry of Information Technology
Mandar Naik, Director - Platform Strategy with Microsoft India: Open Source Software and Proprietary Software, The Need for Interoperability

Susan Schorr, Regulatory Officer of the Regulatory and Market Environment Division of the Telecommunication Development Bureau, ITU: Connecting Schools: Global Challenges and Solutions

Claudio Giugliemma, President, Dominic Foundation (Switzerland): Accessible e-learning

Professor Kenryu Nakamura, Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology
University of Tokyo: 99 Tips in My Pocket In-Class Use of Mobile Phones for Students with Disabilities

Moderator: Noopur Jhunjhunwala

17.30 Adjournment, Announcements for Next Day Program

Thursday, October 28, 2010

09.30 – 11.00 Morning Session – UNESCO-CIS Case Studies Overview Education in ICTs Initiatives in the Asia Pacific Region: Success Stories

Speakers

Nirmita Narasimhan, Programme Manager, Centre for Internet and Society: Presentation on UNESCO case study

James Mathew- Insite, Project Coordinator of Insight: Insight ICT for the Differently abled

Professor Mamoru Iwabuchi, Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology University of Tokyo: Development of ICT based Assistive Technology for Minority Languages

Sachin Malhan, CEO and Co-founder, Inclusive Planet: The Global Social Library for the Visually Impaired

Moderator: Dr.Indrajit Banerjee

11.00 – 11.20 Tea break

11.20 – 13.00 Plenary Session with DAISY Speakers - The New Frontier for Access to Published Works: Success Stories and Roadblocks

Speakers

Hiroshi Kawamura, President, DAISY Consortium: Daisy Consortium Presentation
Viji Dilip, International Program Manager, Bookshare: The Bookshare Success Story

Mr.Andrew Tu, Senior Advisor to Assistant Director General of WIPO: Facilitating Access to Copyright Works for Visually Impaired Persons – The WPO VIP Initiative

Mr. Vivek, Mehra, MD and CEO Sage publications
Dr. Sam Taraporevala, Associate Professor and Head of Department of Sociology, St. Xavier’s College, Mumbai: India’s situation

Discussion and Q & As

Moderator: TBC

13.00 – 14.00 Lunch break

14.00 – 15.30 DAISY Best Practices for Educators

Speakers

George Kerscher, Secretary General of the DAISY Consortium and President of the International Digital Publishing Forum: Latest Technical Developments and Sample Implementations such as in DAISY Mathematics

Prashant Ranjan Verma, Consultant, DAISY Consortium: Over view of Hardware and Software Tools for Authoring and Playback of DAISY Books

Birendra Raj Pokharel, President, National Federation of the Disabled-Nepal, Convener, DAISY Nepal Foundation, Vice Chair, DPI Asia Pacific and Chair, DPI South Asia: Sharing of Experiences on Implementation of DAISY Book Production and Distribution in Developing Countries

Michael Katzmann, Chief of the Materials Development Division, National Library Services for the Blind and Physically Handicapped, USA: Best Practices in Providing Accessible Materials to Persons with Disabilities

Moderator: George Abraham, CEO, Score Foundation

15.30 – 16.00 Tea break

16.00 – 17.30 Break-out Sessions:
Group 1: Primary education

Group 2: Secondary education
Group 3: Tertiary education
Group 4: Vocational and lifelong learning

Each group covers

Covers 2 to 3 case studies presented by field practitioners with Q&As
Discuss key challenges and success factors as described by field practitioners

Agreed on key policy recommendations to be presented in plenary session

Facilitator: Sunil Abraham

Moderators and rapporteurs to be identified for each group

17.30 Adjournment

19.30 Conference Dinne at Gymkhana Club being coorganised by Daisy Forum of India, Bookshare and CIS

Friday, October 29, 2010

09.30 – 11.00 Developing an ICT Accessibility and Assistive Technology Support Eco-system for Educators

The topics – (centers of excellence and peer support), (training the trainers), (employing disabled persons as trainers), (resources for field practitioners), (role of universities), (standards), (public procurement), (international examples), (discussion with selected case studies leaders and participants and India’s Ministry of Education officials)

Speakers

Cyndi Rowland, Associate Director, Center for Persons with Disabilities: Impact of Lack of Accessible ICTs for Students with Disabilities – An International Perspective

Arun Mehta, President, Bidirectional Access Promotion Society: Opportunities and Challenges for Education in a Neuro-Diverse World
Joyojeet Pal, Visiting Assistant Professor, Polytechnic Institute of New York University and a Computing Innovation fellow at University of Colorado Boulder: Developing a curriculum in Disability Studies and Assistive Technology for higher education
Shanti Raghavan, Founder and Managing Trustee, Enable India: Centres of Excellence, Train the Trainers, Employing Disabled Persons as Trainers

Moderator: Geet Oberoy

11.00 - 11.20 Tea break
11.20 – 13.00 Wrap-up session presentation of group work, feedback and action points. On site web based survey of participants on policy priorities. Will be used to edit white paper.

Facilitator: Axel Leblois

13.00 – 14.00 Closing lunch

14.00 – 15.30 Afternoon Organizer’s Private Session

Summarizing key findings
Looking at on-line survey results
Drafting key points of white paper
Drafting table of contents

Next steps

15.30 – 16.00 Tea break
16.00 Adjournment

Download the agenda

For details on the event in the digital LEARNING newsletter

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/education-through-ICT

Droidcon India, first Android Conference in Bangalore

praskrishna — 2011-11-24T04:17:12Z

HasGeek is happy to announce the forthcoming Droidcon India on the 18th and 19th of November 2011 at the MLR Convention Centre in Bangalore. Droidcon.com, Bangalore Android User Group, MobileMonday Bangalore, Medianama, Android Advices and the Centre for Internet and Society are the event partners.

Droidcon is India’s first international Android conference and is part of the world’s largest series of Android conferences, with other editions in London, Bucharest (Romania), Brussels, Amsterdam and Berlin. Droidcon India is a response to the booming market for Android, which has seen sales increase by 888.88 per cent in 2010, and reach nearly 50 per cent market share worldwide.

Organized by developers for developers, the multi-track two day event will provide a rich variety of content for delegates by attracting the best speakers in the Android community. HasGeek expects the participation of over 400 delegates, including students, developers, UX and UI designers, and people with strong interests in the Android ecosystem, both from India and beyond.

The sessions will be presented in an informal environment that gives everyone a chance to be heard. The theme for the conference covers a range of topics that include building well designed apps, dealing with device diversity, performance optimization, NFC, Arduino, and usage in the Enterprise. For more details about session topics visit http://goo.gl/F9bEB

For registrations and tickets, visit http://goo.gl/pmXpJ

Following the first day conference on November 18, there will be an after party for this event which will be held at the CounterCulture restaurant.

For more information on tickets and registrations, contact Zainab Bawa @ zainab@hasgeek.in or call @ +91 99454 73641.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/droidcon-india

DML Conference 2013

praskrishna — 2013-03-04T03:54:58Z

The Centre for Internet & Society and Digital Media & Learning Research Hub Central are jointly organizing the DML Conference 2013 in Chicago from March 14 to 16, 2013.

Conference Theme: "Democratic Futures: Mobilizing Voices and Remixing Youth Participation"

The fourth annual conference - DML2013 - will explore the shifting contours of participatory democracy with a focus, for example, on the role of networked publics in mobilizing social movements; the remixing of civic engagement; and youth-driven forms of social innovation and community transformation. This conference is meant to be an inclusive, international and annual gathering of scholars and practitioners in the field, focused on fostering interdisciplinary and participatory dialog and linking theory, empirical study, policy, activism, and practice.

The Digital Media and Learning Conference is an annual event supported by the MacArthur Foundation and organized by the Digital Media and Learning Research Hub located at the UC Humanities Research Institute, University of California, Irvine.

Nishant Shah has a featured session at the DML Conference. See http://bit.ly/13zhpmz

Feature Session: Whose Change Is It Anyway? Futures, Youth, Technology And Citizen Action In The Global South (And The Rest Of The World)

Whose Change Is It Anyway? seeks to explore new entry points into the discourse on youth, technology and change, with a specific focus on (but not restricted to) the Global South and the last decade of citizen action. This conference track seeks to fashion frameworks and structures that provide new ways of interpreting and understanding outcomes that technology mediated citizen action has to offer, as well as the future of citizen led interventions: What enables, catalyzes and moves young people to reinvent themselves as citizen actors? What are the interventions and narratives of change that fail to fit into a ‘success’ rubric, but are still significant in the processes of change they initiate? How do we understand these ‘new’ events as hybrids, connecting with existing histories, contexts, media and technologies in their regions? Is there an alternative discourse that does not necessarily adopt frameworks arising from the knowledge centers of the West? Do these discourses help challenge and rework global vocabularies by offering new ways of looking at citizen action and change? The track will invite provocative hypotheses, in-depth analyses, dialogues and contestations around these ideas, through innovative interactive presentation formats. The dialogue will be informed by experimental and new methods of information and knowledge production, focusing on the Global South and its larger transnational contexts at the junctures of youth, technology and change.

Organizer(s):

Nishant Shah

Participants:

Radhika Gajalla

Kavita Philip

Ramesh Srinivasan

Nighat Dad

Contact:
Email us at dmlhub@hri.uci.edu or subscribe to our mailing list at http://bit.ly/dmlhub-l to receive up-to-date information regarding the 2013 conference.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/internet-governance/events/dml-conference-2013

Digital AlterNatives book launch

praskrishna — 2012-01-04T06:56:41Z

On Friday the 16th of September Hivos will launch the Digital AlterNatives with a cause? book, which looks at the dynamics of a new generation that is growing up with digital technology. In 2011 the digital native generation has been all over the front pages of the major newspapers in the world. CNN, BBC, de Volkskrant and the NRC gave prominent coverage on the ‘digital’ revolutions in the Middle East and North Africa and dubbed them as ‘Facebook’ and ‘Twitter’ revolutions. However, the recent events in the Middle East and North Africa, Spain, Greece, Israel, India, Chile and England show that there is more to this generation then just a nice tool. By framing it as Facebook actions we are simplifying the complex processes that are taking place and denying and underestimate the challenges and dynamics of this younger generation.

In this last year Hivos and the Centre for Internet and Society, Bangalore, India have tried to shed some light on the actions, identities, networks and implications of the digital natives generation. We started by asking the basic questions: Who are they? Do they have a cause? What is their role in social and political processes? This exploration has resulted in new insights, reflections, anecdotes, case studies and opinion pieces by digital natives, academics and policy makers around the world, which have been synthesized in the Digital AlterNatives with a cause? collection.

We would like to invite you to the Museum for Communication in the Hague for the book launch of the Digital AlterNatives with a cause? collection. Here we will share our insights into the dynamics of this younger generation. Then Rebecca MacKinnon and Maarten van den Berg will give their opinion on our work which will be followed by an open debate. Please join us for the book launch on the 16th of September from 17.00 till 18.00.

See the information on the Hivos website here.

For more details visit https://cis-india.org/events/book-launch