Presentations

IT for Change organised a panel with IKME at the EADI/DSA General Conference on 'Rethinking Development in an Age of Scarcity and Uncertainty' which was held in York (United Kingdom) on 19-22 September 2011. The panel was titled 'How are Digital Technologies Transforming Development?' Anita Gurumurthy was a part of the panel and presented on 'Bottom of the Pyramid and Other Dangerous Development Delusions of the Information Age'. Her co-panelists were Mike Powell, IKME, United Kingdom, and Evangelia Berdou, Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex, United Kingdom. This  panel examined ideas and broad ideologies that new ICTs are bringing to the development sector, looking at the challenges and possibilities in terms of equitable development with social justice. The panel was chaired by Robin Mansell, London School of Economics, United Kingdom. More information is available about the conference at http://www.eadi.org/gc2011. The session overview along with the presentations can also viewed on the EADI site

For the 4th IGF (14-17th September 2010, Vilnius, Lithuania), IT for Change partnered with the Association for Progressive Communications, Centre for Internet and Society, Global Partners and Internet Rights and Principles Dynamic Coalition to hold a pre-event on “Internet Governance and Human Rights : Strategies for Collaboration and Empowerment” on September 13. Among others, the event was attended by Frank La Rue, UN's Special Rapporteur on freedom of expression. The event sought to frame Internet Governance issues in rights frameworks – civil and political rights as well as economic, social and cultural rights, along with the right to development.

Anita Gurumurthy attended the UNWomen workshop on 'Leading Innovations for Gender Responsible Service Delivery' at Dar-es Salam, Tanzania (21-22 June 2011). The workshop was part of the United Nations Public Service Forum being organised by UN DESA along with other UN entities such as UNODC. Anita spoke on 'What information and communications technologies can do for gender responsive service delivery', presenting ITfC's experiences from the field project of Prakriye - Centre of Community Informatics and Development and the Gender and Citizenship in the Information Society Research Programme.

IT for Change engaged with Department of Technical Education (DTE), Government of Karnataka to help them in the process of shifting to public software (Free and Open Source Software) along with revising their syllabus to include public software educational tools.

This project has two broad objectives

Based on our advocacy work relating to National Policy on ICT in School Education, the issue of 'vendor driven ICT programs' was discussed in the Central Advisory Board of Education (CABE) and a sub-committee was setup to study the issue.

Anita Gurumurthy made a presentation on Network publics at 'Conference on Digital Technologies for 21st Century Democracy' by Club De Madrid in New York (USA). The presentation titled 'Network publics as digital futures' questioned the nature of a global network public that can guarantee equitable governance.

Anita Gurumurthy's presentation at the conference on 'Gender Equity Policies - New Scenarios, Actors and Articulations' (Buenos Aires, Argentina, November 2010) asked epistemological questions about gender equity policies through the lens of the knowledge society, considering issues of production/reproduction, public/private and global/local.

Anita Gurumurthy was part of the panel on “Exploring the relationship between cultural rights and cultural diversity” at the February 2010 Seminar organised by the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights, in partnership with the International Organization of La Francophonie and UNESCO.

Anita Gurumurthy delivered two lectures on the interface between Gender and the Information Society on 25-26 March 2010 in Malaysia. At the Women's Development Research Centre (Kanita) in the University Sains Malaysia (Penang), she talked about 'Reframing Southern feminism(s) – An information society perspective'.

The lecture, held on 27 July 2010, was hosted by the Centre for Internet and Society (CIS),The Centre for the Study of Culture and Society (CSCS), and IT for Change (ITfC). Lisa McLaughlin, PhD, Associate Professor in Media Studies and Women’s Studies (Miami University-Ohio, USA), addressed the gendered ties that bind the “new global governance” to the “new information economy”, with a focus on women, work, and information and communication technology.