IT for Change conducted an international workshop in January 2007 in Bangalore, India. The workshop proposed to examine the policy options for development in the information society by bringing together policy advocates, leading thinkers and researchers in both fields. The workshop was an effort to construct a social policy framework for optimising the development opportunity in the information society.
| | DAY 1: 18th JANUARY 2007 | | 8.30 – 9.15 | Registration | | 9.15 – 9.25 | Introduction to Workshop – Anita Gurumurthy, IT for Change, India | SESSION I: Core Issues of Development: Making the ICT Connection
This session will assess how the information society (IS) is impacting or can potentially impact core development domains - education, health, agriculture, livelihoods and employment, gender equality and community empowerment. It will proceed from examining chronic bottlenecks in these domains, and take a systems approach to explore the new possibilities presented by ICTs. For instance, the session will explore how ICTs can give a fillip to the right to information and people’s struggles for entitlements and community monitoring of development delivery, as also facilitating new bottom-up knowledge systems, apart from specific opportunities in different development domains. The session will touch upon how some current policies and interventions with respect to ICTs are playing a strong role in reshaping development domains. Some of these changes are, however, attempting to displace tried and tested theories of development that lay stress on values of equity and social justice. How do we direct our policies to optimize the new possibilities for development? What correctives are required to existing ICT frameworks in health, education, agriculture and livelihoods, and how do we reframe the basic discourse to (explore and exploit) completely new development paradigms? | | | | |
| Speakers: | | 09.25 – 10.30 | Radhika Lal – Policy Advisor, ICT for Poverty Reduction & MDGs, UNDP, USA
Rajeev Sadanandan – Ex-Secretary, Department of Health, Government of Kerala, India
Luthfulla K. Atheeq – State Project Director, Sarva Siksha Abhiyan, Department of Public Instruction, Government of Karnataka, India
Chair – Shobha Raghuram – Director, HIVOS - India Regional Office
| | 10.30 – 11.00 | Discussion | | 11.00 – 11.20 | Tea and Coffee | | 11.20 – 12.20 | Ashis Sanyal – Senior Director, Department of Information Technology, Government of India
Devinder Sharma – Food Policy Analyst & Chair - Forum for Biotechnology & Food Security, India
N. Shiv Kumar – Chief Executive Officer, Swasti Health Resource Centre, India
Chair – Srirupa Roy –Senior Advisor, South Asia Program, SSRC New York, USA | 12.20 – 12.50 | Discussion | 12.50 – 14.00 | Lunch at the venue | | SESSION II: Citizenship in the Information Society: Taking Stock This session focuses specifically on understanding how ICTs can be used to revitalize governance – both in its service delivery and participation aspects – from a citizen-centric perspective, and what policy lessons have emerged from early initiatives. It will seek to explore the ways in which national and state level policy instruments approach development and empowerment through e-governance. The specific implications for decentralized governance and ‘self-government institutions’ will also be examined. | | | | | | Speakers: | | 14.00 - 15.00 | Rodrigo Assumpção – Assistant Secretary for Logistics and Information Technology, Ministry of Planning, Budget and Management, Government of Brazil
Nikhil Dey – Founding Member, Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan, India,
Gayathri B. Kalia – Officer on Special Duty, National Rural Employment Guarantee Programme, Government of Andhra Pradesh, India
Chair - Mokwining Nhlapo – Chief Operations Officer, Presidential National Commission on Information Society and Development, Government of South Africa | | 15.00 – 15.25 | Discussion | | 15.25 – 15.45 | Tea and Coffee | | 15.45 – 16.45 | Ashok Krishnan – Vice President, National Institute for Smart Government, India
T. Pradeep – Founding Member, Samuha, India
Sanjay Jaju – Municipal Commissioner, Hyderabad, India
Chair - Basheerhamad Shadrach –Asia Senior Program Officer, telecentre.org, IDRC, India | | 16.45 – 17.10 | Discussion | 17.10 – 17.40 | Commentaries on the Day’s Proceedings by: Seán Ó Siochrú – Independent Consultant, Ireland
Parminder Jeet Singh – IT for Change, India | 19.00 – 20.30 | Dinner at the venue | | | | | | DAY 2: 19th JANUARY 2007 | | | | | SESSION III: ICTD Theory and Practice: The Global – Local Spectrum This session will critique the evolution of ICT for Development (ICTD), as a domain of knowledge and practice, examining how development notions have been reconstituted in ICTD rhetoric. It will explore the public policy silences around issues of social justice and equity, raising some questions that link the global and the local. It will include an assessment of the global milestones in ICTD policy, including the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) and an appraisal of the post-WSIS structures, including the UN Global Alliance for ICTs and Development (UN-GAID) and the UN Internet Governance Forum (UN-IGF), and examine their implications for national polices in developing countries. The issues of multistakeholderism, policy roles of the business sector and issues of ‘privatized governance’ in the information society will be discussed, along with impact of these issues on development practice at local levels. | | | Speakers: | 09.30 – 10.30 | Michael Gurstein – Executive Director, Centre for Community Informatics Research, Development and Training, Canada
Chanuka Wattegama – Programme Specialist – ICT4D, UNDP-APDIP, Sri-Lanka
Mokwining Nhlapo – Chief Operations Officer, Presidential National Commission on Information Society and Development, Government of South Africa
Chair – Rodrigo Assumpção – Assistant Secretary for Logistics and Information Technology, Ministry of Planning, Budget and Management, Government of Brazil | | 10.30 – 10.50 | Discussion | | 10.50 – 11.10 | Tea and Coffee | | 11.10 – 12.30 | Amin Alhassan – Assistant Professor, Division of Social Science, York University, Canada
Paula Chakravarty – Assistant Professor Communication, University of Massachusetts Amherst, USA
Yuezhi Zhao – Associate Professor, School of Communication, Simon Fraser University, Canada
Rahul De – Hewlett-Packard Chair Professor, Indian Institute of Management Bangalore, India
Chair – Willie Currie – The Association for Progressive Communications, South Afri | 12.30 – 13.00 | Discussion | 13.00 – 14.00 | Lunch at the venue | | | NO SESSION POST LUNCH | 20.00 – 21.00 | Dinner at a city restaurant | | | DAY 3: 20th JANUARY 2007 | | SESSION IV: ICT Requirements for a New Development Paradigm Technologies take the shape of the social vision of its designers. If ICTs have the promise to redefine development related systems, as they have redefined other social systems, what is the ICT vision required for this purpose? And what are its policy requirements? Before we determine the path of ICT deployment and the corresponding role of public policy, it is important to understand the central paradigms of these technologies. This session will examine the enabling context of ICTs in terms of its different aspects like connectivity, content, software and applications, and ICT-enabled services. It will analyze the dominant constructs of ICTs in comparison to some progressive possibilities, like ‘open paradigms’ (open access, open content, open source software). These possibilities, mostly anchored at present in the experience of the North, will be examined from a development lens. | | | Speakers: | | 09.00 – 10.20 | Rishabh Aiyar Ghosh – Senior Researcher, United Nations University – MERIT, Netherlands
Prabir Purkayastha – Delhi Science Forum, India
Vickram Crishna – Promoter, Radiophony, India
Sudhir Krishnaswamy – IT for Change, India
Chair – M. N. Vidyashankar – IT Secretary, Department of Information Technology, Government of Karnataka, India | | 10.20 – 10.50 | Discussion | | 10.50 – 11.10 | Tea and Coffee | | 11.10 – 12.10 | Willie Currie – The Association for Progressive Communications, South Africa
Sowmya Kidambi – Member, Mazdoor Kisan Shakti Sangathan, India
Seán Ó Siochrú – Independent Consultant, Ireland
Chair – Michael Gurstein – Executive Director, Centre for Community Informatics Research, Development and Training, Canada | | 12.10 – 12.30 | Discussion | 12.30 – 13.30 | Lunch at the venue & checkout | | SESSION V: ICT: Towards a National Policy Framework on Development in the Information Society This session will signal the key cornerstone aspects for institutionalizing a social policy approach to ICTD, rooted in the development context and experience of the South. It will raise the basic policy questions that concern ICTD, compare policy approaches, take stock of India’s roadmap and argue for a strong and purposeful policy regime that will allow development priorities to be addressed in the myriad IS issues. The session will examine a social policy framework for ICTD in terms of cross-cutting policy issues, sectoral issues as well as implementation aspects. | | | Speakers: | | 13.35 – 15.10 | Anita Gurumurthy – IT for Change, India
T. R. Raghunandan – Joint Secretary, Ministry of Panchayati Raj, Government of India
M. Sivasankar – Director of Education, Government of Kerala, India
Aruna Sundararajan – Chief Executive Officer, Community Service Centres, Department of Information Technology, Government of India
R. Gopalakrishnan – Joint Secretary, Prime Minister’s Office, India
Chair – Subhash Bhatnagar – Honorary Professor of Information Systems, IIM Ahmedabad, India | | 15.10 – 15.40 | Discussion | | 15.40 – 16.00 | Tea and Coffee | | 16.00 – 17.15 | Open discussion on Policy Priorities facilitated by : Parminder Jeet Singh – IT for Change, India
Radhika Lal – Policy Advisor, ICT for Poverty Reduction & MDGs, UNDP, USA | Reading Material : C.P. Chandrasekhar - Aspects of India's Engineered Traverse to an Information Society
Solomon Benjamin - Bhoomi E-governance
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Resources