[change] X4D#8: Privacy and Participation in Social Media [April 20th, 1400ET /1800 UTC]

[Neha Kumar]

Hi all,

We invite you to our next session of the X4D Talks  on *April
20th 1400 ET/1800 UTC/2330 IST* on the topics of *Privacy and Participation
in Social Media. *

The session will be moderated by *Dr. Dhanaraj Thakur* (Research Director
at the Center for Democracy & Technology, USA).

Our speakers include:

*Mallory Knodel, Center for Democracy & Technology, USA*
*Social media private messaging with end-to-end encryption*
Many of these messaging apps provide end to end encrypted communication
either by default or as an option. Governments and law enforcement agencies
have incorrectly argued that encryption undermines national security and
have moved to weaken or remove encrypted messaging. What are the human
rights implications of these moves and what is the role of research in
protecting privacy and encryption on these apps? What is the technical
reality of these apps and does it match up with what law enforcement says
about them?


*Joyojeet Pal, Microsoft Research, IndiaThe Blindspot: Technology,
Development and Tiptoeing around Democracy*
 In the last two decades of academic engagements around technology and
development, we have seen initiatives and research focusing largely on
access to services in domains such as healthcare, education, and
agricultural production. While there has been growing interest and
engagement around rights based research and action in gender and
accessibility, there has been comparatively less engagement on issues of
democratic engagement. In this talk, we consider the role of social media
polarization and state control over democratic processes within the
discourse of technology and development, and propose that scholars need to
play an engaged role in subjects that are messy and risky to their
continued engagement in development scholarship.


*Maggie Jack, Syracuse University and University of California, Irvine,
USANetworked Authoritarianism at the Edge *
With a team of researchers, I conducted a qualitative research study in
2018 that examined how village-level officials in rural Cambodia (who are
relatively new internet users) utilize Facebook to supplement and extend
long-standing patterns of information control. We found that they used
Facebook Newsfeed and Messenger, exclusively on smartphones, to promote
local government activities, report to the central government, and monitor
local affairs. This monitoring has led to widespread “chilling effects,” a
phenomenon that occurs when political activists and citizens stop using the
internet for dissent due to intimidation. I argue that this social media
withdrawal often emerges more from the lingering psychological effects of
historical violence than the sophistication of technological tactics.


*Kiran Garimella, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, USAMisinformation
on WhatsApp?*
In this talk, I will present our on-going research on WhatsApp. I will
first talk about the tools we built to collect large amounts of WhatsApp
data from political groups in India. Next, I will discuss how such data
could be useful for journalists, fact checking organizations and
researchers, to study various problems, including misinformation and hate.
I will present three case studies making use of this data: (i) studying
image-based misinformation, showcasing novel ways images are being used to
spread false information, (ii) How a closed messaging application is being
used for cross-platform coordination and manipulation of Twitter trends,
and (iii) the prevalence of a special form of hate speech which we call
fear speech — speech inducing fear about a certain group (muslims in our
case). Finally, I will conclude with potential solutions to tackle these
problems and how end to end encryption on WhatsApp makes it challenging to
address them.

When: *April 20th, 1400 ET/1800 UTC/2330 IST *
Where: https://ucl.zoom.us/j/93923102086

Warmly,
Neha & Akhil
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Re: [change] X4D#7: Sustainability and Development [March 23rd 0800 PDT/1500 GMT/2030 IST]

[Neha Kumar]

A reminder that this is today (Tuesday). See you soon!

Cheers,
Neha & Akhil

On Sun, Mar 14, 2021 at 12:30 PM Neha Kumar  wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> We invite you to our next session of the X4D Talks <http://x4d.org/> on *March
> 23rd 0800 PDT/1500 GMT/2030 IST on Sustainability and Development*. Our
> speakers include:
>
> *Barath Raghavan,* University of Southern California, USA
> *Computing within Limits *
> Global society has run up against the limits of the global ecosystem. This
> has happened during an era in which computing has become central to society
> and to the management of societal challenges. What are the ecological and
> social limits that we are likely to face in the future, and what is the
> role of computing in responding to them?
>
> *Bonnie Nardi,* University of California, Irvine, USA
> *Post-Growth *
> To fix our broken global economy which has become dependent on ruinous
> growth, scholars and activists propose a post-growth economy of socially
> sustainable and equitable reduction of resource use coupled with changes in
> distributive practice. The ideas are as much about reimagining how we
> relate to each other and the world as they are about production and
> consumption. Post-growth philosophy suggests that we can do better than the
> the alienations of neoliberal atomism and the hyper-competitive struggle in
> which someone or something is always losing. Unexamined notions of
> "freedom" enshrined in current economic ideology implicitly demote
> solidarity, caring, and mutual respect for human and non-human. What do the
> post-growthers have to say?
>
> *Anjali Mohan*, Integrated Design, National Law School of India
> University, Bangalore, & TLI Bangalore, India
> *Decentralised Socio-Technical Imaginaries as Pathways to Sustainable
> Urban Development *
> Amidst arguments for steady state, degrowth, post-development, and
> post-growth economies, this talk focuses on alternative visions of
> development informed by bottom-up socio-technical imaginaries premised on
> the ‘stubborn ground realities’. The talk draws on interventions towards
> enhancing water resilience in urban poor settlements in the city of Ranchi.
>
> *Jay Chen*, International Computer Science Institute, USA
> *Sustainability or Development? *
> Sustainability and development are both urgent problems. Given the finite
> availability of resources, the two goals seem fundamentally at odds. How do
> we do both? Are there synergies or alternative conceptualizations that can
> help?
>
> *When:* March 23rd 0800 PDT/1500 GMT/2030 IST**
> *Where: *https://ucl.zoom.us/j/95227615667
>
> Warmly,
> Neha & Akhil
>
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[change] X4D#7: Sustainability and Development [March 23rd 0800 PDT/1500 GMT/2030 IST]

[Neha Kumar]

Hi all,

We invite you to our next session of the X4D Talks  on *March
23rd 0800 PDT/1500 GMT/2030 IST on Sustainability and Development*. Our
speakers include:

*Barath Raghavan,* University of Southern California, USA
*Computing within Limits *
Global society has run up against the limits of the global ecosystem. This
has happened during an era in which computing has become central to society
and to the management of societal challenges. What are the ecological and
social limits that we are likely to face in the future, and what is the
role of computing in responding to them?

*Bonnie Nardi,* University of California, Irvine, USA
*Post-Growth *
To fix our broken global economy which has become dependent on ruinous
growth, scholars and activists propose a post-growth economy of socially
sustainable and equitable reduction of resource use coupled with changes in
distributive practice. The ideas are as much about reimagining how we
relate to each other and the world as they are about production and
consumption. Post-growth philosophy suggests that we can do better than the
the alienations of neoliberal atomism and the hyper-competitive struggle in
which someone or something is always losing. Unexamined notions of
"freedom" enshrined in current economic ideology implicitly demote
solidarity, caring, and mutual respect for human and non-human. What do the
post-growthers have to say?

*Anjali Mohan*, Integrated Design, National Law School of India University,
Bangalore, & TLI Bangalore, India
*Decentralised Socio-Technical Imaginaries as Pathways to Sustainable Urban
Development *
Amidst arguments for steady state, degrowth, post-development, and
post-growth economies, this talk focuses on alternative visions of
development informed by bottom-up socio-technical imaginaries premised on
the ‘stubborn ground realities’. The talk draws on interventions towards
enhancing water resilience in urban poor settlements in the city of Ranchi.

*Jay Chen*, International Computer Science Institute, USA
*Sustainability or Development? *
Sustainability and development are both urgent problems. Given the finite
availability of resources, the two goals seem fundamentally at odds. How do
we do both? Are there synergies or alternative conceptualizations that can
help?

*When:* March 23rd 0800 PDT/1500 GMT/2030 IST**
*Where: *https://ucl.zoom.us/j/95227615667

Warmly,
Neha & Akhil
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Re: [change] X4D#6: The Future of Work [February 23rd 1100EST/1600GMT]

[Neha Kumar]

This is tomorrow (February 23rd)! We hope to see you all!

Best,
Neha & Akhil

On Mon, Feb 8, 2021 at 12:41 PM Neha Kumar  wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> We took a break for the holidays and hope you did too! We invite you to
> our next session of the X4D Talks <http://x4d.org> on *February 23rd at
> 1100 EST/1600 GMT/1800 CAT/2130 IST* on the *Future of Work*. Our
> speakers include the following:
>
>
> *Nicola Bidwell*International University of Management, Namibia
>
> *Temporal Marginalisation by Ride-sharing Platforms*Tensions emerge when
> algorithms designed to match supply and demand, such as on-demand service
> platforms, do not account for the way time is differential. Automated
> on-demand services contribute to, and normalise, temporal orders that
> marginalise ‘just-in-time’ workers. This talk considers how platforms for
> ride-sharing can undermine the work of drivers when they do not support
> mutual, transient awareness of different temporalities, drawing on our work
> in India and Namibia in the context of other literature.
>
> *Julie Hui*
> School of Information, University of Michigan, USA
> *Watched, but Moving: Negotiating Gendered Mechanisms of Control in Gig
> Work*
> Women gig workers are impacted by algorithmic and non-algorithmic control
> practices in the context of home service platforms in Bangalore. Control is
> enacted through location tracking, communication monitoring, customer
> ratings, among many other practices commonly deployed by gig work
> platforms. However, these mechanisms of control impact workers' lives in
> myriad ways beyond just the conditions of work. Women workers negotiate
> their identities and sense of agency through the visibility afforded by
> platform control. We question, How do platform control mechanisms reinforce
> or challenge entrenched socio-cultural structures? How do women gig workers
> negotiate platform control in ways that enhance personal agency?
>
> *Naveen Bagalkot*
> Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design & Technology, India
> *Nervo Verdezoto*
> School of Computer Science and Informatics, Cardiff University, UK
> *The Invisible Work of Maintenance: Challenges and Implications for the
> Future of Frontline Health Work*
> As per the imagination of the future embedded in the National Digital
> Health Blueprint, the health workers in India are seen as data-collectors
> and content-distributors. As we begin to imagine ‘Future of Health Work’,
> it is important to pause and really understand how this work happens,
> bringing new sociocultural and technical insights to system design. Based
> on a case study of frontline health workers in Karnataka (South India), we
> describe how Frontline Health workers often act as invisible “maintainers”
> of community health infrastructures caring for themselves and the
> community. We discuss the implications of what kind of futures we can
> imagine in community health.
>
> *Carlos Toxtli*
> West Virginia University, USA
> The AI industry has powered a futuristic reality of self-driving cars and
> voice assistants to help us with almost any need. However, this industry
> has also created systemic challenges. For instance, while it has created
> new labor platforms for improving machine learning algorithms, several
> workers on these platforms are earning less than minimum wage. In this
> talk, I will discuss not only how AI can be benefitted from crowd workers,
> but also how crowd workers can be benefitted from AI to improve their
> wages, well-being, and work.
>
> *When:* February 23rd 1100 EST/1600 GMT/1800 CAT/2130 IST
> *Where: *https://ucl.zoom.us/j/91854315774
>
> Warmly,
> Neha & Akhil
> ___
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> change@change.washington.edu
> https://changemm.cs.washington.edu/mailman/listinfo/change
>
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[change] X4D#6: The Future of Work [February 23rd 1100EST/1600GMT]

[Neha Kumar]

Hi all,

We took a break for the holidays and hope you did too! We invite you to our
next session of the X4D Talks  on *February 23rd at 1100
EST/1600 GMT/1800 CAT/2130 IST* on the *Future of Work*. Our speakers
include the following:


*Nicola Bidwell*International University of Management, Namibia

*Temporal Marginalisation by Ride-sharing Platforms*Tensions emerge when
algorithms designed to match supply and demand, such as on-demand service
platforms, do not account for the way time is differential. Automated
on-demand services contribute to, and normalise, temporal orders that
marginalise ‘just-in-time’ workers. This talk considers how platforms for
ride-sharing can undermine the work of drivers when they do not support
mutual, transient awareness of different temporalities, drawing on our work
in India and Namibia in the context of other literature.

*Julie Hui*
School of Information, University of Michigan, USA
*Watched, but Moving: Negotiating Gendered Mechanisms of Control in Gig
Work*
Women gig workers are impacted by algorithmic and non-algorithmic control
practices in the context of home service platforms in Bangalore. Control is
enacted through location tracking, communication monitoring, customer
ratings, among many other practices commonly deployed by gig work
platforms. However, these mechanisms of control impact workers' lives in
myriad ways beyond just the conditions of work. Women workers negotiate
their identities and sense of agency through the visibility afforded by
platform control. We question, How do platform control mechanisms reinforce
or challenge entrenched socio-cultural structures? How do women gig workers
negotiate platform control in ways that enhance personal agency?

*Naveen Bagalkot*
Srishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design & Technology, India
*Nervo Verdezoto*
School of Computer Science and Informatics, Cardiff University, UK
*The Invisible Work of Maintenance: Challenges and Implications for the
Future of Frontline Health Work*
As per the imagination of the future embedded in the National Digital
Health Blueprint, the health workers in India are seen as data-collectors
and content-distributors. As we begin to imagine ‘Future of Health Work’,
it is important to pause and really understand how this work happens,
bringing new sociocultural and technical insights to system design. Based
on a case study of frontline health workers in Karnataka (South India), we
describe how Frontline Health workers often act as invisible “maintainers”
of community health infrastructures caring for themselves and the
community. We discuss the implications of what kind of futures we can
imagine in community health.

*Carlos Toxtli*
West Virginia University, USA
The AI industry has powered a futuristic reality of self-driving cars and
voice assistants to help us with almost any need. However, this industry
has also created systemic challenges. For instance, while it has created
new labor platforms for improving machine learning algorithms, several
workers on these platforms are earning less than minimum wage. In this
talk, I will discuss not only how AI can be benefitted from crowd workers,
but also how crowd workers can be benefitted from AI to improve their
wages, well-being, and work.

*When:* February 23rd 1100 EST/1600 GMT/1800 CAT/2130 IST
*Where: *https://ucl.zoom.us/j/91854315774

Warmly,
Neha & Akhil
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[change] X4D Talks: Community Networks [December 15th 1600PST/16th 0530IST]

[Neha Kumar]

Hi!

We invite you to the next session of the X4D Talks

on December 15th 1600PST/16th 0530IST to be hosted by *Kurtis Heimerl*
(Assistant Professor, University of Washington). Our speakers include the
following:

*Shaddi Hassan*
Assistant Professor, Virginia Tech, USA
*When Community Meets Commercial*
Community networks are often positioned in contrast, or even opposition, to
“traditional” commercial networks. In this talk, I will present experiences
from developing and implementing systems that attempt to facilitate
cooperation between community networks, small-scale ISPs, and commercial
mobile operators. These deployments illustrate the tensions and
opportunities that exist for these different models of network operation to
complement and learn from each other.

*Josephine Dionisio*
Associate Professor, University of the Philippines
*Village Base Station Project*
I will share insights from the Village Base Station Project in the
Philippines. Our experiences in project implementation reiterate the point
that community networks require a corresponding social infrastructure. Its
promise as a form of inclusive technology at a scaled-up level may be best
realized when the technology package and research design pay more careful
attention to appropriate and participatory community organizing approaches.

*Kanchana Kanchanasut*
Nisarat Tansakul and Adisorn Lertsinsrubtavee Internet Education and
Research Lab, Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand
*Smart Village with TakNet*
In this talk, we will briefly introduce a community network, TakNet, in
Thailand. The network was physically set up by student volunteers in 2013
and is now operating by the community with technical support from a
research lab, intERLab/AIT. In recent years, TakNet is moving towards smart
village with environmental monitoring using IoT (HAZEMON) and distributed
ledger services for the community (BaangPun). WIth IoT and distributed
ledger infrastructure implanted, exciting applications are expected to
follow.

*Mark Buell *(Regional Vice President, North America)
*Jane Coffin *(Senior Vice President, Internet Growth)
Internet Society
*Human networks: the key to successful community networks*
Community networks are a viable connectivity alternative to traditional
networks where a market-based solution may not be possible. Often, they are
best suited to small, very rural or remote communities – places in the
world where community members may be skeptical of outsiders. Partnerships
built on mutual trust is crucial to ensure successful, sustainable
community networks. In this talk, we will discuss how the Internet Society
works to build that trust and creates networks of support, from Indigenous
communities in North America to rural Africa, Asia, and Latin America.

*When: *December 15th 1600PST/16th 0530IST
*Where:*
https://washington.zoom.us/j/96455902417?pwd=T29UQ1YvTjNzWC9iMC9MTEtqQlE0Zz09


Warmly,
X4D Organizers
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[change] X4D#5: Community Networks [December 15th 1600PST/16th 0530IST]

[Neha Kumar]

Hi all,

We invite you to the next session of the X4D Talks 
on *December
15th 1600PST/16th 0530IST* to be hosted by *Kurtis Heimerl* (Assistant
Professor, University of Washington) on Community Networks. Our speakers
include the following:

*Shaddi Hassan*
Assistant Professor, Virginia Tech, USA
*When Community Meets Commercial*
Community networks are often positioned in contrast, or even opposition, to
“traditional” commercial networks. In this talk, I will present experiences
from developing and implementing systems that attempt to facilitate
cooperation between community networks, small-scale ISPs, and commercial
mobile operators. These deployments illustrate the tensions and
opportunities that exist for these different models of network operation to
complement and learn from each other.

*Josephine Dionisio*
Associate Professor, University of the Philippines
*Village Base Station Project*
I will share insights from the Village Base Station Project in the
Philippines. Our experiences in project implementation reiterate the point
that community networks require a corresponding social infrastructure. Its
promise as a form of inclusive technology at a scaled-up level may be best
realized when the technology package and research design pay more careful
attention to appropriate and participatory community organizing approaches.

*Kanchana Kanchanasut*
Nisarat Tansakul and Adisorn Lertsinsrubtavee Internet Education and
Research Lab, Asian Institute of Technology, Thailand
*Smart Village with TakNet*
In this talk, we will briefly introduce a community network, TakNet, in
Thailand. The network was physically set up by student volunteers in 2013
and is now operating by the community with technical support from a
research lab, intERLab/AIT. In recent years, TakNet is moving towards smart
village with environmental monitoring using IoT (HAZEMON) and distributed
ledger services for the community (BaangPun). WIth IoT and distributed
ledger infrastructure implanted, exciting applications are expected to
follow.

*Mark Buell/Jane Coffin*
Internet Society
TBD
TBD

*When: *December 15th 1600PST/16th 0530IST  
*Where:*
https://washington.zoom.us/j/96455902417?pwd=T29UQ1YvTjNzWC9iMC9MTEtqQlE0Zz09

Warmly,
X4D Organizers
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Re: [change] X4D: AI & Social Good (November 11 at 3pm US EST)

[Neha Kumar]

We hope to see you tomorrow! This is at 3pm US EST on 11/11.

On Mon, Oct 26, 2020 at 6:55 PM Neha Kumar  wrote:

> Hi all,
>
> We invite you to the next session of the X4D Talks <http://x4d.org> on 
> *November
> 11th* (use calendar link
> <https://calendar.google.com/event?action=TEMPLATE&tmeid=NGlxcGRqYWc1aGJodnJtNjI1MzZsazIyamMgcnIzY25rNzFxaXNmamc2cDk3Y2hoZnJwdm9AZw&tmsrc=rr3cnk71qisfjg6p97chhfrpvo%40group.calendar.google.com>).
> Our speakers include the following:
>
> *Dr. Ayanna Howard *
> Professor, School of Interactive Computing, Georgia Tech, USA
> *Tackling the Human Bias in AI*
> People tend to overtrust sophisticated computing devices, including AI
> systems. As these systems become more fully interactive with humans during
> the performance of day-to-day activities, the role of bias in these
> human-AI interaction scenarios must be more carefully investigated.  Bias,
> as a feature of human life, has often been encoded in and can manifest
> itself through AI algorithms, which humans then take guidance from,
> resulting in the phenomenon of excessive trust. Bias further impacts this
> potential risk for trust, or overtrust, in that these systems are learning
> by mimicking our own thinking processes, inheriting our own implicit gender
> and racial biases, for example. Consequently, the propensity for trust and
> the potential of bias may have a direct impact on the overall quality of
> the interaction between humans and machines, whether the interaction is in
> the domains of healthcare, job-placement, or other high-impact life
> scenarios. In this talk, we will discuss this phenomenon of integrated
> trust and bias through the lens of AI systems that interact with people in
> scenarios that are realizable in the near-term.
>
> *Dr. Milind Tambe *
> Professor, Harvard University and Director "AI for Social Good" at Google
> Research India
> *AI for Public Health and Conservation: Learning and Planning in the
> Data-to-Deployment Pipeline*
> With the maturing of AI and multiagent systems research, we have a
> tremendous opportunity to direct these advances towards addressing complex
> societal problems. We focus on the problems of public health and wildlife
> conservation, and present research advances in multiagent systems to
> address one key cross-cutting challenge: how to effectively deploy our
> limited intervention resources in these problem domains. We present our
> deployments from around the world as well as lessons learned that we hope
> are of use to researchers who are interested in AI for Social Impact.
> Achieving social impact in these domains often requires methodological
> advances; we will highlight key research advances in topics such as
> computational game theory, multi-armed bandits and influence maximization
> in social networks for addressing challenges in public health and
> conservation. In pushing this research agenda, we believe AI can indeed
> play an important role in fighting social injustice and improving society.
>
> *Dr. Maria De-Arteaga*
> Assistant Professor, University of Texas Austin
> *A Case for Humans in the Loop*
> The increased use of algorithmic predictions in sensitive domains has been
> accompanied by both enthusiasm and concern. To understand the opportunities
> and risks of these technologies, it is key to study how experts alter their
> decisions when using such tools. In this work, we study the adoption of an
> algorithmic tool used to assist child maltreatment hotline screening
> decisions. We show that, while humans do make use of recommendations, they
> are less likely to adhere to the machine's recommendation when the score
> displayed is an incorrect estimate of risk. These results highlight the
> risks of full automation and the importance of designing decision pipelines
> that provide humans with autonomy.
>
> *Mr. Arbel Vigodny*
> Chief Operating Officer, Zzapp Malaria
> *AI in the service of malaria elimination in sub-Saharan Africa*
> Malaria is one of the most persistent public health problems, responsible
> for over 400,000 deaths per year. However, the basic tools to fight the
> disease have been around for over a century, and have successfully
> eliminated malaria from many countries around the world. In this talk I
> will discuss how Zzapp uses AI to overcome the challenges involved in the
> implementation of these tools in sub-Saharan Africa, where the disease
> burden is highest, and how we bring AI to the most remote and inaccessible
> regions.
>
> *When: *November 11 | 3pm-4.30pm US EST (8pm-9.30pm UTC)
> *Where: *https://ucl.zoom.us/j/98786206186
>
> Warmly,
> X4D Organizers
>
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[change] Talk this Thursday: Braving Citational Justice within HCI

[Neha Kumar]

Dear ICTD community (and friends),

Naveena Karusala and I invite you to engage with us this Thursday on the
topic of braving citational justice in Human-Computer Interaction. We
thought that as scholars who do work on/with/for the margins, you would
have a lot to add, so an invitation was necessary (albeit late).

More info on this talk and the seminar series here:
https://exceptional-norms.at/critical-perspectives/. We are grateful to
Katta Spiel for creating the space for this conversation.

Best,
Neha & Naveena
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[change] X4D: AI & Social Good (November 11 at 3pm US EST)

[Neha Kumar]

Hi all,

We invite you to the next session of the X4D Talks  on
*November
11th* (use calendar link
).
Our speakers include the following:

*Dr. Ayanna Howard *
Professor, School of Interactive Computing, Georgia Tech, USA
*Tackling the Human Bias in AI*
People tend to overtrust sophisticated computing devices, including AI
systems. As these systems become more fully interactive with humans during
the performance of day-to-day activities, the role of bias in these
human-AI interaction scenarios must be more carefully investigated.  Bias,
as a feature of human life, has often been encoded in and can manifest
itself through AI algorithms, which humans then take guidance from,
resulting in the phenomenon of excessive trust. Bias further impacts this
potential risk for trust, or overtrust, in that these systems are learning
by mimicking our own thinking processes, inheriting our own implicit gender
and racial biases, for example. Consequently, the propensity for trust and
the potential of bias may have a direct impact on the overall quality of
the interaction between humans and machines, whether the interaction is in
the domains of healthcare, job-placement, or other high-impact life
scenarios. In this talk, we will discuss this phenomenon of integrated
trust and bias through the lens of AI systems that interact with people in
scenarios that are realizable in the near-term.

*Dr. Milind Tambe *
Professor, Harvard University and Director "AI for Social Good" at Google
Research India
*AI for Public Health and Conservation: Learning and Planning in the
Data-to-Deployment Pipeline*
With the maturing of AI and multiagent systems research, we have a
tremendous opportunity to direct these advances towards addressing complex
societal problems. We focus on the problems of public health and wildlife
conservation, and present research advances in multiagent systems to
address one key cross-cutting challenge: how to effectively deploy our
limited intervention resources in these problem domains. We present our
deployments from around the world as well as lessons learned that we hope
are of use to researchers who are interested in AI for Social Impact.
Achieving social impact in these domains often requires methodological
advances; we will highlight key research advances in topics such as
computational game theory, multi-armed bandits and influence maximization
in social networks for addressing challenges in public health and
conservation. In pushing this research agenda, we believe AI can indeed
play an important role in fighting social injustice and improving society.

*Dr. Maria De-Arteaga*
Assistant Professor, University of Texas Austin
*A Case for Humans in the Loop*
The increased use of algorithmic predictions in sensitive domains has been
accompanied by both enthusiasm and concern. To understand the opportunities
and risks of these technologies, it is key to study how experts alter their
decisions when using such tools. In this work, we study the adoption of an
algorithmic tool used to assist child maltreatment hotline screening
decisions. We show that, while humans do make use of recommendations, they
are less likely to adhere to the machine's recommendation when the score
displayed is an incorrect estimate of risk. These results highlight the
risks of full automation and the importance of designing decision pipelines
that provide humans with autonomy.

*Mr. Arbel Vigodny*
Chief Operating Officer, Zzapp Malaria
*AI in the service of malaria elimination in sub-Saharan Africa*
Malaria is one of the most persistent public health problems, responsible
for over 400,000 deaths per year. However, the basic tools to fight the
disease have been around for over a century, and have successfully
eliminated malaria from many countries around the world. In this talk I
will discuss how Zzapp uses AI to overcome the challenges involved in the
implementation of these tools in sub-Saharan Africa, where the disease
burden is highest, and how we bring AI to the most remote and inaccessible
regions.

*When: *November 11 | 3pm-4.30pm US EST (8pm-9.30pm UTC)
*Where: *https://ucl.zoom.us/j/98786206186

Warmly,
X4D Organizers
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[change] Talk by Dr. Smitha Radhakrishnan (10/13 12pm EDT): "Making Women Pay: Microfinance in Urban India"

[Neha Kumar]

Dr. Radhakrishnan was one of the keynote speakers for ICTD 2019. This
should be a great talk. Is open to all.

***


*Smitha Radhakrishnan "Making Women Pay: Microfinance in Urban India"*
Online | Zoom

Commercial microfinance in India, a subprime credit industry that lends to
over 35 million working-class women at interest rates of 20 to 26 percent,
has experienced unprecedented growth in the last decade. These
profit-oriented microfinance institutions (MFIs), supported by financial
inclusion policies, have funneled billions of dollars in loans to women
borrowers previously constructed as uncreditworthy. Profit-oriented
microfinance is best understood as an extractive industry reliant on the
unpaid and underpaid labor of working-class women. As this labor is
connected to relationships with frontline MFI workers, and eventually,
financial capital, working class women become bearers of credit, even as
the debt curbs their social and physical mobility. The widespread
saturation of microfinance helps construct a new gendered reality in which
millions of working-class women provide for their families through debt,
while some working-class and upwardly mobile men can find secure
livelihoods through MFI employment. Year after year, women MFI clients take
ever-larger loans, while MFI workers and leaders, mostly men, enjoy social
and economic mobility. The microfinance industry’s policies and practices
thus sustain interlocking class and gender inequalities.

This presentation will lay out the gendered structure of microfinance and
then delve more specifically into the relational work between clients and
loan officers that makes women creditworthy in India’s gendered financial
ecosystem.

Smitha Radhakrishnan is Professor of Sociology and Luella LaMer Professor
of Women’s Studies at Wellesley College. Her research examines the
cultural, financial, and political dimensions of gender and globalization,
with particular focus on India, the United States, and South Africa.

https://event.newschool.edu/smitharadhakrishnanmakingwomen?fbclid=IwAR2twnZWXXwKuo9Cfcaq_a0fNcQulSmzPPKntCF39jO-XvPmOmK2nyaYeyc
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[change] X4D#3: Technology-Mediated Mental Health Support

[Neha Kumar]

Hi all, 

See you this Wednesday for our session on Technology-Mediated Mental Health 
Support. Speaker/event details below. You can join our X4D-friends Google group 
to stay informed about future sessions. And stay tuned for details on our next 
session on AI and Social Good!

*** 

Dr. Munmun De Choudhury, School of Interactive Computing, Georgia Tech, USA
Title: Interdisciplinary and Collaborative Approaches to Digital Mental Health: 
A Tale of Engaging with Three Stakeholders
Digital traces, such as social media data, supported with advances in the 
computer science field, are increasingly being used to understand the mental 
health of individuals and populations. With these approaches offering promise 
to change the status quo in mental health for the first time since mid-20th 
century, interdisciplinary collaborations have been greatly emphasized. But 
what are some models of engagement for computer scientists that augment 
existing capabilities while minimizing the risk of harm? This talk will 
describe the experiences from working with three different stakeholders in 
projects relating to digital mental health–first with a governmental 
organization, second with healthcare providers, and third with a non-profit, 
all in the United States. The talk hopes to present some lessons learned by way 
of these engagements, and to reflect on approaches we need to realize a dream 
of many computer scientists: how to have their research contribute to positive 
societal impacts.

Dr. Becky Inkster, Department of Psychiatry, Cambridge University; Finance & 
Economics Programme, The Alan Turing Institute; Self-Employed Neuroscientist & 
Digital Mental Health Advisor, UK
Title: Rhymes Equal Actual Life in the Youth*: Connecting Mental Health Support 
with Hip-Hop Culture
It is essential that we build digital mental health tools that are engaging and 
sensitive to both culture and context. In this talk, I will explore how hip-hop 
music and culture can be combined in a powerful way with human-centred 
algorithmic solutions, computational creativity and music therapy in order to 
support mental health and wellbeing. I am a Co-Founder of LYRICAL KOMBAT and 
Hip Hop Psych, and will illustrate examples based on these initiatives.
*lyrics by KRS-ONE

Dr. John Naslund, Department of Global Health and Social Medicine, Harvard 
Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
Title: Design, Development, and Evaluation of a Digital Training Program for 
Building Capacity of Frontline Health Workers and Scaling Up Depression Care in 
Rural India
Mental disorders are a leading cause of disability worldwide; yet, in most 
countries, individuals living with mental disorders are more likely to have 
access to a mobile phone than basic mental health care. The increasing reach 
and availability of digital technologies in low-income and middle-income 
countries, such as smartphones and mobile Internet, present new opportunities 
to support task sharing through training and supporting community health 
workers in treating mental disorders. In this presentation, my objective is to 
describe the development and design of a digital program for training community 
health workers as part of a broader effort to scale up task sharing of a brief 
psychological treatment for depression in primary care settings in rural India. 
Specifically, I will describe efforts to involve community health workers 
throughout the iterative development and user testing of a digital training 
program accessible from a smartphone app, as well as the initial findings from 
a randomized controlled pilot study conducted in one district of Madhya 
Pradesh. I will discuss next steps and implications of leveraging emerging 
digital technologies for task sharing and bridging the global care gap for 
mental disorder.

Dr. Maryam Mustafa, School of Science and Engineering, LUMS, Pakistan
Title: Designing Digital Safe Spaces For Peer Support and Connectivity in 
Patriarchal Contexts
There is a deep stigma and taboo attached to mental health disorders and care 
in countries like Pakistan. Most people have little to no access to mental 
health support and women are particularly susceptible in patriarchal contexts 
like Pakistan. In this talk , I will explore the opportunities and challenges 
in designing peer-support and mental health mechanisms for low-income, 
low-literate women in Pakistan, a patriarchal and religious context where 
women’s movements, social relations and access to digital technologies are 
restricted. This is a context where shame and fear of defamation restrict the 
seeking of support for personal narratives around taboo subjects like abortion, 
sexual harassment, rape and domestic abuse. I will also discuss our findings 
from our participatory workshops in exploring the design of peer-support 
technologies for support seeking with low-income, low-literate women.

When: October 7 | 9.30am-11am US EDT (1.30pm-3pm UTC)
Where: https://ucl.zoom.us/j/95338644599
Link to

[change] X4D#3: Technology-Mediated Mental Health Support (October 7, 9.30am-11am US EDT)

[Neha Kumar]

Hi all,

We invite you to the third session of our "X4D" virtual speaker series
on *October 7th.* Our speakers
include the following:

*Dr. Munmun De Choudhury, *School of Interactive Computing, Georgia Tech,
USA
*Title: Interdisciplinary and Collaborative Approaches to Digital Mental
Health: A Tale of Engaging with Three Stakeholders*
Digital traces, such as social media data, supported with advances in the
computer science field, are increasingly being used to understand the
mental health of individuals and populations. With these approaches
offering promise to change the status quo in mental health for the first
time since mid-20th century, interdisciplinary collaborations have been
greatly emphasized. But what are some models of engagement for computer
scientists that augment existing capabilities while minimizing the risk of
harm? This talk will describe the experiences from working with three
different stakeholders in projects relating to digital mental health–first
with a governmental organization, second with healthcare providers, and
third with a non-profit, all in the United States. The talk hopes to
present some lessons learned by way of these engagements, and to reflect on
approaches we need to realize a dream of many computer scientists: how to
have their research contribute to positive societal impacts.

*Dr. Becky Inkster, *Department of Psychiatry, Cambridge University;
Finance & Economics Programme, The Alan Turing Institute; Self-Employed
Neuroscientist & Digital Mental Health Advisor, UK
*Title: Rhymes Equal Actual Life in the Youth*: Connecting Mental Health
Support with Hip-Hop Culture*
It is essential that we build digital mental health tools that are engaging
and sensitive to both culture and context. In this talk, I will explore how
hip-hop music and culture can be combined in a powerful way with
human-centred algorithmic solutions, computational creativity and music
therapy in order to support mental health and wellbeing. I am a Co-Founder
of Lyrical Kombat and Hip Hop Psych, and will illustrate examples based on
these initiatives.
*lyrics by KRS-ONE

*Dr. John Naslund,* Department of Global Health and Social Medicine,
Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA, USA
*Title: Design, Development, and Evaluation of a Digital Training Program
for Building Capacity of Frontline Health Workers and Scaling Up Depression
Care in Rural India*
Mental disorders are a leading cause of disability worldwide; yet, in most
countries, individuals living with mental disorders are more likely to have
access to a mobile phone than basic mental health care. The increasing
reach and availability of digital technologies in low-income and
middle-income countries, such as smartphones and mobile Internet, present
new opportunities to support task sharing through training and supporting
community health workers in treating mental disorders. In this
presentation, my objective is to describe the development and design of a
digital program for training community health workers as part of a broader
effort to scale up task sharing of a brief psychological treatment for
depression in primary care settings in rural India. Specifically, I will
describe efforts to involve community health workers throughout the
iterative development and user testing of a digital training program
accessible from a smartphone app, as well as the initial findings from a
randomized controlled pilot study conducted in one district of Madhya
Pradesh. I will discuss next steps and implications of leveraging emerging
digital technologies for task sharing and bridging the global care gap for
mental disorder.

*Dr. Maryam Mustafa, *School of Science and Engineering, LUMS, Pakistan

*Title: Designing Digital Safe Spaces For Peer Support and Connectivity in
Patriarchal Contexts*There is a deep stigma and taboo attached to mental
health disorders and care in countries like Pakistan. Most people have
little to no access to mental health support and women are particularly
susceptible in patriarchal contexts like Pakistan. In this talk , I will
explore the opportunities and challenges in designing peer-support and
mental health mechanisms for low-income, low-literate women in Pakistan, a
patriarchal and religious context where women’s movements, social relations
and access to digital technologies are restricted. This is a context where
shame and fear of defamation restrict the seeking of support for personal
narratives around taboo subjects like abortion, sexual harassment, rape and
domestic abuse. I will also discuss our findings from our participatory
workshops in exploring the design of peer-support technologies for support
seeking with low-income, low-literate women.

*When: *October 7 | 9.30am-11am US EDT (1.30pm-3pm UTC)
*Where:* https://ucl.zoom.us/j/95338644599

And please join our X4D-friends Google group
 if you'd like to stay
informed of future sessions!

[change] X4D#2: Feminist Perspectives on Technology Design (September 3, 11am-12.30pm US EDT)

[Neha Kumar]

Hi all,

We invite you to the second session of our (still new) "X4D" virtual
speaker series tomorrow (apologies if this is the first you're hearing of
it)! Our fabulous speakers include the following:

*Catherine D'Ignazio,* Assistant Professor of Urban Science & Planning, MIT
*Title: Data Feminism & Feminicide*
Data Feminism (co-authored with Lauren Klein, MIT Press, 2020) is a set of
seven principles that demonstrate how feminist thinking can be
operationalized in order to imagine more ethical and equitable data
practices. This talk will briefly introduce those principles and relate
them to a collaborative project undertaken by the Data + Feminism Lab,
Feminicidio Uruguay and the Iniciativa Latinoamericana por los Datos
Abiertos. We are exploring how to build technologies to support counterdata
collection by activists and civil society organizations who are working to
fight gender-related violence against women and its lethal outcome,
feminicide, in Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC).

*Dr. Nassim Parvin,* Associate Professor of Digital Media, Georgia Tech

*Title: On the Uses and Misuses of Unintended Consequences*One of the
hallmarks of feminist theory and praxis is to identify and challenge
dominant modes and tools of knowledge making that perpetuate oppressive
power relations. In this talk, I discuss the uses and misuses of
“unintended consequences,”—a seemingly mundane phrase that is popular in
science and technology discourses—demonstrating its power in advancing
techno-utopic interventions and visions. For more see, Parvin, Nassim, and
Anne Pollock. "Unintended by Design: On the Political Uses of 'Unintended
Consequences,'" Engaging Science, Technology, and Society 6 (2020): 320-327.

*Dr. Shaowen Bardzell,* Professor at College of Information Sciences and
Technology, the Pennsylvania State University

*Title: The Tempest in the Menstrual Cup: How Design, Critique, and
Activism Changed Taiwan*Can design contribute not just towards an
incrementally better world, but to a radically better one? In recent years,
feminist utopian thinkers have sought to imagine radically better social
worlds and accompanying ways of life using a double-move: the first is a
“diagnostic critique” of the present that seeks to denaturalize it, which
creates openings for the second move “anticipatory design,” which
imaginatively construes one or more aspects of the social world in a
preferred and plausible way—much like what we in design call “design
futuring.” In this talk, I will explore how anticipatory design and
critique contributed to real world product design, in this case, a
menstrual cup in Taiwan. The cup proposes and enacts concrete strategies
that challenge and overcome unquestioned misogynistic cultural tendencies
about the care and maintenance of the hymen in Chinese culture. In doing
so, it also proposes an aspirational future for the women in the country,
which in fact led to activism that helped bring that future into being. I
argue that contemporary feminist utopianism represents a living
critical/design practice: its double-move teases out glimpses of preferred
and possible futures, which can guide and motivate democratic forms of
activism in the present.

*Pragya Saboo & Navya Nanda*, Cofounders of Aara Health

*Title: Bridging the Gap in Access to Quality Healthcare for Women in
India*Women's
health and wellbeing needs remain seriously under-addressed in India, as in
countries around the world. Aara Health allows women to connect with high
quality doctors for virtual consultations, access expert-verified
educational content, and join a safe and secure community for social
support.

*When: *11am-12.30pm US EDT (3pm-4.30pm UTC)
*Where:* https://mit.zoom.us/j/97650407272

And please join our Google group
<https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/x4d-friends> if you'd like to stay
in touch!

Warmly,
Neha


On Wed, Jul 29, 2020 at 10:06 PM Neha Kumar  wrote:

> Hi all,
>
>
> We invite you to participate in our new "X4D" virtual speaker series, with
> a focus on unpacking the intersections of technology and global development
> from different disciplines and/or epistemic locations.
>
>
> Our inaugural session will take place on August 4, 3-4.30pm UTC (that's
> 11am-12.30pm EDT, 4-5.30pm BST, and 8.30pm-10pm IST).  The Zoom link:
> https://us04web.zoom.us/j/78811443025?pwd=VHI1SitTVmovSVBuWmp5SHExM0lNUT09
>
>
> We are delighted to have these speakers at our inaugural session, who will
> be presenting their perspectives on the value and importance of
> interdisciplinarity, and opportunities to productively engage in
> interdisciplinary work, in attempting to address the problems that impact
> us globally:
>
> Dr. Kentaro Toyama
>
> University of Michigan, USA
>
> Title: 15 years of ICTD research
>
> Dr. Dorothea Kleine
>
> University of Shef

[change] Inaugurating the "X4D" Virtual Speaker Series (August 4, 11am-12.30pm EDT)

[Neha Kumar]

Hi all,


We invite you to participate in our new "X4D" virtual speaker series, with
a focus on unpacking the intersections of technology and global development
from different disciplines and/or epistemic locations.


Our inaugural session will take place on August 4, 3-4.30pm UTC (that's
11am-12.30pm EDT, 4-5.30pm BST, and 8.30pm-10pm IST).  The Zoom link:
https://us04web.zoom.us/j/78811443025?pwd=VHI1SitTVmovSVBuWmp5SHExM0lNUT09

We are delighted to have these speakers at our inaugural session, who will
be presenting their perspectives on the value and importance of
interdisciplinarity, and opportunities to productively engage in
interdisciplinary work, in attempting to address the problems that impact
us globally:

Dr. Kentaro Toyama

University of Michigan, USA

Title: 15 years of ICTD research

Dr. Dorothea Kleine

University of Sheffield, UK

Title: Gender and Intersectionality in ICT4D

Dr. Aaditeshwar Seth

Indian Institute of Technology Delhi & Gram Vaani, India

Title: Making ICTD More Impactful

Dr. Rediet Abebe

Harvard Society of Fellows & UC Berkeley, USA

Title: Roles for Computing in Social Justice

Event details including abstracts of talks and bios are available on our
website https://sites.google.com/view/x4d. We also aim to keep you informed
about future events over email and invite you to join this Google group
<https://groups.google.com/forum/#!forum/x4d-friends>.


We plan to organize an event every 3-4 weeks; the exact time will be
determined based on what works best for all our presenters, but keeping in
mind that we must be inclusive of many time zones. The next topic will be
feminist perspectives on technology design, followed by mental health as a
global concern.

See you next week!

Neha Kumar, Georgia Tech, USA Akhil Mathur, Nokia Bell Labs, UK
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[change] Final call for submissions: Data4Good Workshop at ACM AVI 2020 (Deadline: July 31)

[Neha Kumar]

If you care about data and ICTD/HCI4D, we invite you to submit to this
workshop. Deadline is this Friday the 31st! The workshop will be online (if
there was any doubt).

Regards,
Luigi, Neha, & Akhil

-- Forwarded message -
From: Akhil Mathur 
Date: Fri, Jul 17, 2020 at 3:14 PM
Subject: 2nd Call for Papers: Data4Good Workshop at ACM AVI 2020
[Submission deadline: July 28]
To: Luigi De Russis , Neha Kumar <
nehaku...@gmail.com>


ACM AVI 2020 Workshop

Data4Good: Designing for Diversity and Development

https://sites.google.com/view/data4good/home

September 28th, 2020

Island of Ischia, Italy

***Remote attendance will be facilitated***

OVERVIEW

As smartphone penetration continues to expand throughout the Global South,
and various "AI for/and Social Good" efforts prepare to dominate technology
trends in such parts, challenges related to the robustness and utility of
data infrastructures become increasingly pressing. For data to be
meaningful, they must be collected, stored, understood, analyzed, and
visualized, all from a holistic and contextually appropriate perspective.
There are challenges encountered in each of these stages, however, given
the cultural, technological, and/or infrastructural specificities of
multilingually diverse and resource-constrained parts of the Global South.
This is also increasingly true for many diverse regions in the North.

Across domains of global development such as global health, education, and
agriculture, among others, all prominent focus areas for AI for Social Good
efforts in the Global South, the data burden is borne by low-literate
workers from socioculturally and economically diverse backgrounds. Low
digital expertise and different vantage points mean that these workers lack
the kind of data literacies required of them by their employers. Although
AI for Social Good as well as Machine Learning for Development (ML4D)
conversations are rapidly unfolding in computing venues such as NeurIPS and
International Conference on Learning Representations (ICLR), they may
benefit from taking a more human-centered approach towards the design,
deployment, and evaluation of AI-based technologies in global development
contexts. These are the important conversations that our workshop seeks to
advance.

DATES

July 31st: Submission deadline

August 6th: Notification of acceptance

August 21st: Camera-readies and registration due

September 28th: Half-day workshop

September 28th-October 2nd: AVI 2020 (main conference)

CONTRIBUTIONS

We invite researchers and practitioners in the interdisciplinary domains
intersecting HCI, AI, ML, design, and global development to engage in
dialog around how a human-centered design perspective might be suitably
factored into the technological advancements being researched in upcoming
AI- and ML-focused work. We solicit participation across members of the HCI
research community who are motivated to address the following topics:

Interfaces and Visualization
- Novel Interfaces for Deriving Qualitative/Quantitative Insights from Data
- Interfaces to support data literacy among Multilingual users
- Information Visualization Tools and Techniques for Data Literacy
- Data Literacy for End-Users in the Global South

Data Infrastructures for Social Good
- Data Collection and Field Research
- Data Quality
- Data Sharing
- Privacy and Transparency in Data Analytics

User-Centered AI
- Interfaces for Explainable AI
- User-centered Evaluations Techniques and Methods for AI-based
Technologies in the Global South
- Study of Public Concerns with AI technologies

Data Literacy in Specific Application Areas, such as:
- Public/Global Health
- Education
- Agriculture
- Refugee Resettlement

PARTICIPATION

We invite submissions of position papers in the CHI Extended Abstracts
format, 2-4 pages in length. PDFs of submissions can be emailed to Luigi De
Russis at luigi.derus...@polito.it.

These will be reviewed by all organizers based on relevance, originality,
and overall quality. At least one author of each accepted paper is required
to participate in our workshop.

All workshop participants (including non-authors) are required by the
conference to register for the workshop (not necessarily for the
conference). We do plan to facilitate remote attendance.

OUTCOMES

Accepted and presented papers will be made available on CEUR Workshop
Proceedings, while workshop results will be published on our website.
Notifications will be mailed to the authors within 15 days of receipt (and
no later than the dates reported above). Workshop results will be
summarized and submitted as an article or blog post in Interactions or
Communications of the ACM.

ORGANISERS

Luigi De Russis, Politecnico di Torino, Italy

Neha Kumar, Georgia Tech, USA

Akhil Mathur, Nokia Bell Labs & University College London, UK
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[change] CfP for ACM AVI 2020 Workshop: "Data4Good: Designing for Diversity and Development"

[Neha Kumar]

ted above). Workshop results will be
summarized and submitted as an article or blog post in Interactions or
Communications of the ACM.

DATES




*July 28th: Submission deadlineAugust 6th: Notification of acceptanceAugust
21st: Camera-readies and registration dueSeptember 28th: Half-day workshop,
from 14:00 to 18:00September 28th-October 2nd: AVI 2020 (main conference) *

ORGANISERS
Luigi De Russis, Politecnico di Torino, Italy
Neha Kumar, Georgia Tech, USA
Akhil Mathur, Nokia Bell Labs & University College London, UK
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[change] Call for participation: virtual "_4D" events this summer

[Neha Kumar]

Dear friends,

TL;DR: Please fill out this short survey  to
let us know if and how you'd like to participate in our virtual events, and
circulate to all the 4Ders you think may be interested.

We hope that this email finds you in good health. COVID-19 has forced some
of us to hit pause on many aspects of our lives, even as it throws others’
into a frenzy. To make sense of this madness, build a stronger and richer
community, and draw together our strengths in this current (and rapidly
evolving) state of the world, we propose a series of virtual events to
bring us together: to take a step back and learn more about each other’s
work, engage in dialog over various ongoing discussion threads, and think
about the larger questions that face us, as a community and as a world.

The goal of these events will be to organize dialog in varying formats on
topics pertaining to computing and global, sustainable development.
Included in our target audience will be students, researchers, and
practitioners working at this intersection across fields such as ICT4D,
HCI4D, ML4D, AI4D, Data Science for Social Good, COMPASS, ICT4S,
Sustainable HCI, etc. If this series is successful in the summer, we will
aim for extending it, possibly to culminate with an in-person event when
the COVID madness is behind us (TBD indeed).

Questions on our minds that we could start with (no doubt there are more on
yours):

   - How is COVID-19 impacting underserved communities across the world?
   - How is the research I’m doing relevant or useful in these times?
   - How are others in my research community responding to COVID-19 in
   their work and/or day-to-day lives?
   - How might we best continue with our past research initiatives given
   our lack of mobility in these times?
   - How might we make use of this time to reorient ourselves, our
   students, our scholarship, our community, maybe by being better/different
   learners, instructors, researchers, practitioners, communicators, etc.?
   - Are there research questions and agenda that we as a community should
   be brainstorming right now?
   - How can *I* get involved in more, and more impactful, research and
   initiatives?
   - These and many more!

All types of participation are welcome—you can choose to stay informed,
participate as listener or learner, or contribute more actively either by
talking or collaborating with others. If there was ever a time that was
right for us all to come together, this would perhaps be it. But what would
be the structure of these events? Here is the result of our first
brainstorm, and your inputs via the survey or just email would be great!

Proposal version 0.0:
We conduct a session every two weeks (starting mid-late May) that lasts
90-120 minutes and involves one/more of the following:

   - A panel with 3-4 participants (e.g., the use of social media during
   COVID-19)
   - A set of research talks (e.g., a selection of CHI2020 HCI4D paper
   presentations)
   - Reporting back on efforts from non-profits (e.g., GramVaani)
   - Facilitated brainstorming session (e.g., on doing research under
   lockdown)
   - Calls for action (e.g., for collaborations across disciplinary borders)
   - Virtual happy hours (or dance parties?!)
   - ...

We plan to do informal Zoom/BlueJeans calls that are open to everyone. We
will send out a schedule roughly once a month, and publicize using Facebook
and Twitter. We will also send out a brief announcement on the Google
groups mailing list we create. So please fill out this short survey
 to let us know how you’d like to be
involved.

Thank you, stay well, and see you soon!
Your friendly 4D (virtual) neighborhood
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[change] ICTD 2020 Call for Papers (Deadline: December 20, 2019)

[Neha Kumar]

*From: *Nicola Dell 
*Date: *October 16, 2019 at 5:13:44 PM PDT
*To: *Neha Kumar 

*Now with confirmed location and dates!*

ICTD 2020
***Call for Papers***
Deadline for submission of full papers: December 20th, 2019
June 17-20th, ESPOL, Guayaquil, Ecuador


The 11th International Conference on Information and Communication
Technologies and Development (ICTD 2020) invites you to submit your work.
To be held in cooperation with ACM SIGCAS, ICTD 2020 will provide an
international forum for scholarly researchers to explore the role of
information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the context of social,
political, and economic development. The conference will be held from June
17-20th in the coastal city of Guayaquil, Ecuador at the country’s leading
technical university – ESPOL.

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have become more
pervasive in the lives of people around the world. They are being used in
various facets of daily life ranging from economics to health care,
education to governance, family life to artistic expression. Diverse groups
across the world interact with, are impacted by, and can shape the design
of these technologies. The ICTD conference provides a forum for analyzing,
critiquing, refining, and inventing new ways in which individuals,
communities, and societies interact with and make use of these tools and
platforms. There are multidisciplinary challenges associated with the
design, engineering, application, and adoption of ICTs in low- and
middle-income regions and/or other resource-constrained settings, with
implications for design, policy, and practice.

For the purposes of this conference, the term “ICT” comprises electronic
technologies for information processing and communication, as well as
systems, use of big data, interventions, and platforms built on such
technologies. “Development” includes, but is not restricted to, poverty
alleviation, education, agriculture, healthcare, communication, gender
equality, governance, infrastructure, environment, and sustainability. The
conference program will reflect the multidisciplinary nature of ICTD
research and publishing traditions, with anticipated contributions from
fields including (but not limited to) anthropology, computer science,
communication, data science, design, economics, electrical engineering,
geography, HCI, information systems, political science, public health, and
sociology.


*FULL PAPERS*An ICTD Full Paper must make a new and complete research
contribution, articulate how it is advancing the field of ICTD, and provide
complete and substantial support for its results and conclusions. All
submissions must be original work; the submitter must clearly document any
overlap with previously published or simultaneously submitted papers from
any of the authors. Failure to point out and explain overlap will be
grounds for rejection. Simultaneous submission of the same paper to another
venue with proceedings or a journal is not allowed and will be grounds for
rejection. Contact the papers chairs (ictd2020pap...@gmail.com) if there
are questions about this policy. Papers will be evaluated via double-blind
peer review by a multidisciplinary panel of at least three reviewers, one
of whom will come from outside the paper’s disciplinary domain in order to
ensure broad readability.


*ANONYMOUS SUBMISSION*Papers must be submitted in a form suitable for
anonymous review: no author names or affiliations may appear on the title
page, and papers should avoid revealing their identity in the text. When
referring to your previous work, do so in the third person, as though it
were written by someone else. Only blind the reference itself in the
(unusual) case that a third-person reference is infeasible. Publication as
a technical report or in an online repository does not constitute a
violation of this policy. Contact the papers chairs (
ictd2020pap...@gmail.com) if you have any questions. Papers that are not
properly anonymized may be rejected without review.


*HUMAN SUBJECTS AND ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS*Submissions that describe
experiments with human subjects, that analyze data derived from human
subjects, or that otherwise may put humans at risk should:

Disclose whether the research received an approval or waiver from each of
the authors' institutional ethics review boards (IRB) if applicable.
Discuss steps taken to ensure that participants and others who might have
been affected by an experiment were treated ethically and with respect.

If a paper raises significant ethical concerns, it might be rejected based
on these concerns.


*PAGE LIMITS AND FORMATTING*Submitted papers may include up to 10 pages of
text (including figures and tables) and up to 3 pages of appendices (if
appropriate). References do not count towards these page limits. Reviewers
are not required to read appendices. Papers should be submitted in the
two-column CHI 2020 proceedings format (templates available for LaTeX,
Overleaf or Microsoft

[change] ICTD 2020 Call For Papers

[Neha Kumar]

The CfP for ICTD 2020 is out!

Begin forwarded message:

*From: *Nicola Dell 
*Subject: **ICTD 2020 Call For Papers*
*Date: *August 29, 2019 at 8:24:47 AM EDT
*Cc: *Indrani Medhi 

Please forward and share with your networks

*ICTD 2020*
Call for Papers*** *
Deadline for submission of full papers: *December 20th, 2019*
Conference will be held in June, 2020

The 11th International Conference on *Information and Communication
Technologies and Development (ICTD 2020)* invites you to submit your work.
To be held in cooperation with ACM SIGCAS, ICTD 2020 will provide an
international forum for scholarly researchers to explore the role of
information and communication technologies (ICTs) in the context of social,
political, and economic development. The conference will be in June 2020,
with the exact dates and location finalized and announced shortly.

Information and communication technologies (ICTs) have become more
pervasive in the lives of people around the world. They are being used in
various facets of daily life ranging from economics to health care,
education to governance, family life to artistic expression. Diverse groups
across the world interact with, are impacted by, and can shape the design
of these technologies. The ICTD conference provides a forum for analyzing,
critiquing, refining, and inventing new ways in which individuals,
communities, and societies interact with and make use of these tools and
platforms. There are multidisciplinary challenges associated with the
design, engineering, application, and adoption of ICTs in low- and
middle-income regions and/or other resource-constrained settings, with
implications for design, policy, and practice.

For the purposes of this conference, the term “ICT” comprises electronic
technologies for information processing and communication, as well as
systems, use of big data, interventions, and platforms built on such
technologies. “Development” includes, but is not restricted to, poverty
alleviation, education, agriculture, healthcare, communication, gender
equality, governance, infrastructure, environment, and sustainability. The
conference program will reflect the multidisciplinary nature of ICTD
research and publishing traditions, with anticipated contributions from
fields including (but not limited to) anthropology, computer science,
communication, data science, design, economics, electrical engineering,
geography, HCI, information systems, political science, public health, and
sociology.

*FULL PAPERS*
An ICTD Full Paper must make a new and complete research contribution,
articulate how it is advancing the field of ICTD, and provide complete and
substantial support for its results and conclusions. All submissions must
be original work; the submitter must clearly document any overlap with
previously published or simultaneously submitted papers from any of the
authors. Failure to point out and explain overlap will be grounds for
rejection. Simultaneous submission of the same paper to another venue with
proceedings or a journal is not allowed and will be grounds for rejection.
Contact the papers chairs (ictd2020pap...@gmail.com) if there are questions
about this policy. Papers will be evaluated via double-blind peer review by
a multidisciplinary panel of at least three reviewers, one of whom will
come from outside the paper’s disciplinary domain in order to ensure broad
readability.

*ANONYMOUS SUBMISSION*
Papers must be submitted in a form suitable for anonymous review: no author
names or affiliations may appear on the title page, and papers should avoid
revealing their identity in the text. When referring to your previous work,
do so in the third person, as though it were written by someone else. Only
blind the reference itself in the (unusual) case that a third-person
reference is infeasible. Publication as a technical report or in an online
repository does not constitute a violation of this policy. Contact the
papers chairs (ictd2020pap...@gmail.com) if you have any questions. Papers
that are not properly anonymized may be rejected without review.

*HUMAN SUBJECTS AND ETHICAL CONSIDERATIONS*
Submissions that describe experiments with human subjects, that analyze
data derived from human subjects, or that otherwise may put humans at risk
should:

   - Disclose whether the research received an approval or waiver from each
   of the authors' institutional ethics review boards (IRB) if applicable.
   - Discuss steps taken to ensure that participants and others who might
   have been affected by an experiment were treated ethically and with respect.

If a paper raises significant ethical concerns, it might be rejected based
on these concerns.

*PAGE LIMITS AND FORMATTING*
Submitted papers may include up to 10 pages of text (including figures and
tables) and up to 3 pages of appendices (if appropriate). References do not
count towards these page limits. Reviewers are not required to read
appendices. Papers sho

[change] Apply to join the ACM FCA! (Deadline: August 23, 2019)

[Neha Kumar]

Please share this call widely across your networks!

===

Dear all,

The ACM Future of Computing Academy (FCA) enters its second recruiting
cycle! The ACM FCA was created in 2017 to foster computing's next
generation of leaders, and the ACM encourages young computing professionals
with a passion for excellence, vision, leadership, and impact to join the
FCA!

The FCA carries the "privilege and responsibility to become the voice of
the future of the computing field at large and of ACM," striving to
"improve (1) computing, (2) the computing community, and (3) computing's
relationship with society." We engage in activities to shape the future of
computing, creating podcasts, writing public statements, organizing
summits, developing research manifestos, and more. As professionals from
academia, research labs, companies, and startups, we are committed to a
holistic evolution of the discipline.

If you are interested to join, apply by *August 23, 2019*, and ensure that
your applications will equip us to assess your excellence, vision for
computing, leadership potential, and commitment to impact.

More information and application link/eligibility criteria are at
https://acm-fca.org/join-fca. For any questions, please email
fca-members...@acm.org .

Regards,
Neha Kumar & Luigi De Russis
(FCA Chair & Vice-Chair)
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[change] [ICTD X] Call for Open Sessions, Doctoral Consortium, Demos, & Pre-Published Papers

[Neha Kumar]

*ICTD 2019Jan 4-7, Ahmedabad, India***Call for Participation***Open
Sessions, Doctoral Consortium, Demos, & Pre-Published Papers The
international conference on Information and Communication Technologies and
Development (ICTD) is organized every 12-18 months, and brings together
researchers and practitioners working across domains, sectors, and
disciplines to study the role of ICT in social, political, and economic
development. First organized at the University of California Berkeley, USA,
in 2006, the tenth ICTD is scheduled to be held at the Indian Institute of
Management Ahmedabad, India, from January 4th to 7th, 2019. At the tenth
ICTD, or ICTD X at IIM Ahmedabad, the conference’s focus is on growing our
community to welcome researchers from related disciplines and
practitioners, and supporting young researchers of ICTD as they pursue
their research trajectories. Join us via any of the following tracks
below:OPEN SESSIONSOpen Sessions will welcome a variety of submissions and
formats. Submissions can include proposals for events such as panels,
workshops, design jams, and more, ideally fostering dialog and
participation from researchers and practitioners. The call for
participation is here: http://ictdx.org/open-sessions/
DOCTORAL CONSORTIUMWe invite Ph.D.
students to present their research before fellow doctoral students and
experts, with the hope that this will support exchange of ideas, solicit
constructive feedback from experts, develop mentor-mentee relationships,
and expand collaborative research networks. The DC is an excellent
opportunity for young scholars to learn about the richly diverse ICTD
community as they develop their dissertation research. The call is here:
http://ictdx.org/doctoral-consortium/
DEMOSWe invite participants to
present ongoing projects, including researchers with significant field
components, practitioners seeking community feedback, or developers with
early stage prototypes. Demos should offer insights to real-world problems
and/or solutions, and can include hardware, software, or physical
artifacts. The call for participation is here: http://ictdx.org/demos/
PRE-PUBLISHED PAPERSWe invite papers accepted for
publication at other venues over the preceding year and a half (from Jan.
1, 2017 through July 15, 2018), so that ICTD attendees can benefit from
conversations happening outside the conference. Inclusion of these papers
into the conference program will depend on relevance to the program and
availability of slots. Accepted papers will be invited for an oral
presentation. The call for participation is here:
http://ictdx.org/participate/ DATES Sep. 1,
2018: Deadline for Open Sessions, Doctoral Consortium, Pre-Published
PapersSep 21, 2018: Deadline for DemosOct. 8, 2018: All notifications
sentJan. 4-7, 2019: See you in Ahmedabad, India!All submissions are due at
11:59pm (Anywhere on Earth time).Updates will be posted on Facebook
(http://facebook.com/ictdx ), Twitter (@ictdx),
and our website (http://ictdx.org ). Email us with any
questions at i...@ictdx.org . ORGANIZERSGENERALRajesh
Chandwani (Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad India)Pushpendra Singh
(Indraprastha Institute of Information Technology, Delhi India)PRACTICENeil
Patel (Awaaz.De, Ahmedabad India)Rikin Gandhi (Digital Green, San Francisco
USA)PROGRAMNeha Kumar (Georgia Tech, Atlanta USA)Rajesh Veeraraghavan
(Georgetown University, Washington DC USA)POSTERSDavid Nemer (University of
Kentucky, Lexington USA)Syed Ishtiaque Ahmed (University of Toronto,
Toronto Canada)OPEN SESSIONSAditya Vashistha (University of Washington,
Seattle USA)Michaelanne Dye (Georgia Tech, Atlanta USA)Nithya Sambasivan
(Google, San Francisco USA)DEMOSKurtis Heimerl (University of Washington,
Seattle USA)DOCTORAL CONSORTIUMNimmi Rangaswamy (Indian Institute of
Information Technology, Hyderabad India)Vigneswara Ilavarasan (Indian
Institute of Technology, Delhi India)Aditya Johri (George Mason University,
Fairfax USA)TRAVELShriram Venkatraman (Indraprastha Institute of
Information Technology, Delhi India)Anupriya Tuli (Indraprastha Institute
of Information Technology, Delhi India)Deepika Yadav (Indraprastha
Institute of Information Technology, Delhi India)COMMUNICATIONS Naveena
Karusala (University of Washington, Seattle USA)Esther Jang (University of
Washington, Seattle USA)DESIGNShruti Dalvi (Georgia Tech, Atlanta
USA)ACCESSIBILITYVaishnav Kameswaran (University of Michigan, Ann Arbor
USA)LOCAL OUTREACHDivy Thakkar (Google, Bangalore India)*
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