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CALL FOR PANELS: 3rd IEEE/ACM International Conference on Information
and Communication Technologies and Development (ICTD2009)

April 17-18, 2009
Carnegie Mellon Doha Campus, Qatar
http://www.ictd2009.org

The 3rd IEEE/ACM International Conference on Information and
Communication Technologies and Development (ICTD2009) will be held
17-19 April 2009 at Carnegie Mellon's state-of-the-art campus in Doha,
Qatar. This conference will act as a focal point for new scholarship
in the field of ICT and international development. Confirmed speakers
include a Keynote by William H. Gates, Chairman of Microsoft
Corporation and the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation.

For the first time in the history of ICTD, we are inviting proposals
for panels.

PANEL PROPOSALS

The organizers of ICTD2009 would like to spur more reflective dialogue
among researchers and between researchers and development
practitioners. Therefore a small number of panels will be chosen to
be added to the program.

ICTD2009 remains a single track conference, and the panels will not
conflict with the plenary sessions in which original research papers
will be presented. Rather they will be held in parallel with open
times in the program.

We invite panel proposals that will add to the emerging ICTD
discipline by having multiple points-of-view reflect on issues that
affect the practice of ICTD research and its relationship to
development practice. Therefore key assessment criteria we will use
to evaluate the panel proposals are:
(1) Does it reflect on a novel or unresolved issue in the practice of
ICTD research.
(2) Does it reflect on a novel or unresolved issue in disseminating or
scaling the results of ICTD research into general practice.
(3) Does it introduce challenges in the practice of development that
ICTD research has yet to address adequately.

Panel proposals will also be evaluated on the quality of the panel
participants experience to address the topics being proposed.

Panel proposals need to include:
(1) Title for the Panel
(2) Summary of what the panel will cover (max 500 words)
(3) Names, affiliations, and contact information of 3-5 panelists who
have made a commitment to participate
(4) Abstract of each panelist?s position statements (max 500 words)
(5) Brief biography of each panelist

Proposals will be reviewed by the Panel and Workshop Committee.

All submissions should be emailed to panels@ictd2009.org

For the latest information, please see the conference website at
http://www.ictd2009.org.

Please also address questions of other e-mail correspondence to
panels@ictd2009.org.

IMPORTANT DATES
(Please check the conference website for latest information.)

November 2, 2008 Panel Proposals due

January 30, 2009 Final decisions sent out to those submitting panel proposals

February 28, 2009 Panel Position Paper

April 17-19, 2009 Conference

CONFERENCE FOCUS
ICTD spans information and communication technologies (ICT) and their
role in global socio-economic development. Every sector is involved ?
governments, academia, small start-ups, large corporations,
inter-governmental organizations, and non-profits and non-governmental
organizations. In spite of the tremendous energy and resources behind
these projects, scientifically sound research in this space is just
beginning to emerge: What is the actual impact of ICTD projects? What
novel technology is required to meet development needs? What
methodologies lead to the success or failure of a project?

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 being solicited. 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.

For the purposes of this conference, the term ?ICT? will comprise
computing devices (e.g., PCs, PDAs, sensor networks), technologies for
voice and data connectivity, the Internet, and related technologies.
Application domains include, but are not restricted to, education,
agriculture, enterprise, healthcare, poverty alleviation, general
communication, and governance.

VENUE
Qatar is a rapidly growing economy in the region and the world which
has set its targets of moving beyond a hydrocarbon economy into
becoming a regional and global leader in knowledge and information.
Qatar is a modern, stable nation with a vibrant international
population, and hosted the Asian Games in 2007. Education City brings
leading educational and research institutions to Qatar, including
Cornell, Georgetown, Texas A&M, and Carnegie Mellon in Qatar offers
degree programs in Computer Science, Business Administration, and
Information Systems. This provides an ideal venue for hosting
ICTD2009, in a geographic location close to major population centers
around the world, easily accessible by direct flights.

PANELS AND WORKSHOPS COMMITTEE:
Joe Mertz (Carnegie Mellon, USA) ? Co-Chair Joyojeet Pal (UC Berkeley,
USA) ? Co-Chair
Salimah Samji (Google.org, USA) Tim Unwin (Royal Holloway University
of London, UK)