News, activities and awards

 Jam will present her paper titled "Survival Needs and Social Inclusion: Technology Use Among the Homeless" at CSCW 2010 in Savannah, GA (acceptance rate 20%)! Stop by Jam's talk if you are attending CSCW!

Nithya Sambasivan's paper titled "Ubicomp4D: Interaction and Infrastructure for International Development—the Case of Urban Indian Slums," was accepted at the 11th International Conference of Ubiquitous Computing 2009 (Ubicomp). Ubicomp is the premier outlet for novel research contributions that advance the state of the art in the design, development, deployment, evaluation and understanding of ubiquitous computing systems. Nithya's paper discussed how low-income communities are increasingly adopting and appropriating information technologies. They attempted to re-imagine Ubicomp to include use and adoption of technology in these environments. They argued for collaborative exchange between the established strengths of Ubicomp and ICT4D for shaping technologies in these unique socio-economic contexts, towards alleviation of poverty. Issues examined included: (1) Technologies supporting social networks, (2) notions of trust and privacy in building information networks, and (3) protocols and practices around shared access.
The conference will take place in Orlando, Florida, from Sept. 30-Oct. 2, 2009. The paper was co-authored along with Nimmi Rangaswamy, Ed Cutrell, and Bonnie Nardi.

Panelists: Ilda Ladeira, U of Cape Town, Divya Ramachandra, UC Berkeley, Nithya Sambasivan, UC Irvine, and Julie Weber, U of Michigan
An important agenda in the developmental discourse is the empowerment of women. They are viewed as powerful vehicles of socio-economic development. They are gateways to the broader community -- they serve as support structures for family units, and disseminate across extended social units. They are financially and socially responsible, oftentimes taking on the role of a sole bread-winner in their families. Therefore, empowering women has profound ripple effects on the people, practices, and spaces surrounding them. The field of Information Communications Technologies for Development (ICTD) especially creates avenues to directly impact the society.

We will especially focus on two areas – women as researchers and women as target audiences. Each of the panellists has directly interacted with women in urban and rural lower-income settings, in addressing their needs through technologies. Our areas of expertise include designing and developing mobile applications for female health workers in rural areas of the state of Orissa, information-sharing and communication technologies between women of two urban slums in Bangalore, and skill-building and training technologies for female domestic workers in Bangalore. These contexts and audiences, and our positions as women researchers present unique opportunities for computer science applications. As women researchers, we enjoy smoother entry into our target audiences’ lives, and access to certain facets of their lives that are typically un-exhibited. We will discuss the challenges, advantages, and disadvantages of our unique positions and audiences.

"Gender and Culture in World of Warcraft"
Bonnie Nardi is going to give a talk and lead a conversation on "Gender and Culture in World of Warcraft." The talk and conversation will take place on the third day of Games, Learning, and Society Conference (GLS 5.0) on June 12, 2009. The conference is organized by the Games, Learning, and Society group. It "is a collection of academic researchers, interactive media (or game) developers, and government and industry leaders who investigate how this medium operates, how it can be used to transform how we learn, and what this means for society."
This year's Games, Learning, and Society Conference will be held at Memorial Union at University of Wisconsin–Madison from June 10-12, 2009. For more information, check out http://www.glsconference.org/2009/program.html for more details.
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"Technologies of the Immaterial"
The above talk on "Technologies of the Immaterials" will take place at the conference Developing Theoretiical Innovations at London School of Economics on June 15, 2009.