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CALL FOR PAPERS
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First International Conference on Information and Communication
Technologies and Development (ICTD 2006)

May 25-26, 2006
Berkeley, California, U.S.A.
http://sims.berkeley.edu/ictd2006

The past decade has witnessed an explosion in projects that apply
information and communication technologies (ICT) to support 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 ICT projects? What novel technology is required to meet development needs? What methodologies lead to success or failure of a project?

The goal of the ICTD conference is to provide a forum for academic
researchers working with ICT applied to development. The conference will be
scientifically rigorous and multi-disciplinary - papers reporting high-quality original research are solicited. Submitted papers will be subjected to double-blind peer review, and a full proceedings will be published at the time of the conference. (Best papers, as selected by a subset of the program committee, will be published in a special edition of the journal, Information Technologies and International Development.)

The conference will bring together researchers in both the social and
technical sciences, with anticipated representation from anthropology,
sociology, economics, political science, computer science, electrical engineering, industrial design, and so on.
We expect this to be the first of an ongoing series of conferences to occur every
one or two years, and moving from country to country.

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, healthcare, poverty alleviation, general communication, and governance. Papers considering novel design, new technology, project assessment, policy impact, content, social issues around ICT for development, and so forth will be considered. Well-presented negative results from which generalizable conclusions can be drawn are also sought.

Important Dates (exact dates to be updated on website):

* Deadline for abstracts and intent to submit: October 21, 2005
* Deadline for full paper submissions: December, 2005
* Notification to authors: January, 2006
* Deadline for camera-ready copy: March, 2006
* Conference dates: May 25-26, 2006

Only original, unpublished papers in English will be considered. Reviews will be double blind. Abstracts will facilitate the review process, and should be 200-400 words in length.

For further information, please see the conference website at
http://sims.berkeley.edu/ictd2006. Inquiries should be sent to
ictd2006@yahoo.com.

Organizers:

Honorary Chairs: VS Arunachalam (Tamil Nadu Planning Commission) and
Ken Keniston (MIT)

Chairs: Raj Reddy (CMU) and AnnaLee Saxenian (UC Berkeley)

Organizing Committee: Joyojeet Pal (UC Berkeley), Balaji Parthasarathy
(IIIT- Bangalore), Rahul Tongia (CMU), Kentaro Toyama (MSR India)

Sponsors: MSR India, SIMS UC Berkeley. We are seeking additional
sponsors, primarily for travel grants.

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