[AISWorld] Call for Tracks IFIP9.4: The 13th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries, Negombo, Sri Lanka, 2015

[Petter Nielsen]

Call for Track Proposals IFIP9.4 2015

Deadline - November 15th, 2013

The 13th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in 
Developing Countries Negombo, Sri Lanka - May 2015

Conference Theme: Openness in ICT4D: Critical reflections on future 
directions

The Working Group 9.4 of the International Federation for Information
Processing gathers scholars and practitioners that deal with the issue
on how ICT affects social development. In the last three decades this
issue has been attracting scholars from information systems and a
variety of other areas such as development studies, political science,
political economy, social anthropology, and sociology.

The theme of the conference is: Openness in ICT4D: Critical reflections
on future directions. Various discourses around “openness” are present
in the domain of ICT and development studies. An initial discourse in
this area related to open source software and open standards, and how
these can strengthen public information systems in developing countries. 
In recent times, we read about “open data” which involve governments 
placing relevant data in the public domain, and which may or may not 
require to be supported by open software. Open development is a more 
overarching theme being positioned as a theory of development, focusing 
on understanding how information-networked activities are carried out, 
in what circumstances and to what benefit. This openness discourse 
continues to unfold in a political-technical environment of increasingly 
centralized computing (cloud), cyber-crime, cyber-terrorism and 
increasingly comprehensive surveillance. The conference theme of 
“Openness in ICT4D: Critical reflections on future directions” will seek 
to critically discuss different facets of open and openness, whether 
they represent a hype or reality, what promises they hold for creating a 
better world, and what are the challenges we face in achieving the 
promised potential. To do this we welcome contributions from a wide 
range of perspectives, discussing for example potential tensions between 
open source and open data, the role of actors like the open society 
initiative in promoting openness as a value, and positive and negative 
freedoms.

Track Proposals for IFIP9.4 2015

We welcome track proposals that support the theme of the conference and
include:
1. Track title
2. Name(s), email address, affiliation of track chair(s)
3. A brief motivation of the track
4. A brief overview of the research area
5. A short description of how the track aligns with the conference theme
5. Exemplar topics and types of contributions looked-for

Please submit your track proposals to ifip9.4.2015 at gmail.com by November 
15th, 2013

The track proposals will be reviewed by the programme committee and the
acceptance decision will be taken by the programme co-chairs according
to the fit and the merit of the proposal. A notification of acceptance
will be communicated in December 2013. We assume the Track Chairs to
actively promote the track; organize the peer-reviewing of the
submissions; and cluster paper into sessions.

We are looking forward to see your IFIP9.4 2015 track proposals!


Programme Chairs

Petter Nielsen, University of Oslo <pnielsen [at] ifi.uio.no>

Gamini Wijayarathna, University of Kelaniya <gamini [at] kln.ac.lk>