The second meeting of the Conference on Science, Innovation and Information and Communications Technologies will be held, simultaneously with WITFOR 2016, on 12 and 13 September 2016 in the Augusto el Grande room of the Holiday Inn San José-Aurola
The meeting is being organized by the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) and the Ministry of Science, Technology and Telecommunications of Costa Rica. The Conference will discuss topics such as cooperation opportunities in the innovation and digital ecosystem in Latin America and the Caribbean, on demand economy: digital innovation and SMEs, hyper-connectivity infrastructure, and competencies and collaboration to lead the digital transformation and innovation.
The Conference on Science, Innovation and Information and Communications Technologies was established as a subsidiary body of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), by virtue of resolution 672(XXXIV), adopted by the Commission at its thirty-fourth session. One main objective of the Conference is to promote the development and improvement of national policies on science, technology and innovation and those related to the progress of the information and knowledge society, bearing in mind the recommendations made by the specialized agencies and other relevant organizations. The Conference is also commended with furthering international, regional and bilateral cooperation among national offices and international and regional agencies to facilitate technology and knowledge transfer and joint activities in the field of science, technology and innovation.
The first session of the Conference on Science, Innovation and Information and Communications Technologies of ECLAC was held in Santiago on 9 and 10 June 2014, and was attended by representatives of the national agencies for science, technology and innovation of the countries of Latin America and the Caribbean.
For more information about the World Information Technology Forum (WITFOR) 2016, visit http://www.witfor2016.org
More information about this event is available here
Original source: http://innovalac.cepal.org/2/en/
The IFIP World Information Technology Forum (WITFOR) 2016 has received a global response to its Call for Papers with presenters from 23 different countries submitting papers for consideration.
With a focus on progressing the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), WITFOR 2016 brings together hundreds of senior policy-makers, ICT experts, representatives of NGOs and GOs, researchers and private sector organizations to devise ways to use ICT to solve the problems of developing nations.
To be held in San Jose, Costa Rica from 12-14 September, 2016, the World Information Technology Forum (WITFOR) 2016 has taken the theme “ICT for Promoting Human Development and Protecting the Environment”.
Local Organising Chair, Gabriela Marin, said almost half of the papers came from Latin America, a further 25 per cent from Europe, around 10 per cent each from North America and Asia and the remainder was split between Africa and Oceania.
“We’ve had a strong showing from Costa Rican authors who are interested in presenting their ideas for solving local development challenges, with further support from other Latin American nations,” she said.
Ms Marin said around two thirds of papers are from developing nations while the remainder are from developed countries. “By bringing together experts from both developed and developing nations, the World Information Technology Forum (WITFOR) 2016 offers a powerful platform for international cooperation and the sharing of ideas and solutions to common problems.”
Ms Marin also said that the number of authors per paper is relatively low, suggesting that most research groups are small and that there is room to invite collaborators from abroad. “We hope that WITFOR 2016 may become the natural setting to foster the creation of international and interdisciplinary research groups,” she concluded.
Authors of accepted papers will be notified the first week of May, with the program due to be finalised later that month.
For more information about the World Information Technology Forum (WITFOR) 2016, visit http://www.witfor2016.org
Original source: IFIP website
IFIP, the International Federation for Information Processing is launching IFIP International Young IT Awards in March 2016, for the inaugural year.
IFIP is the leading multinational organization in Information & Communications Technologies and Sciences which is recognized by United Nations and other world bodies. It represents IT Societies from 56 countries or regions, covering all 5 continents with a total membership of over half a million and links more than 3500 scientists from Academia and Industry.
This recognition scheme for IT industry is organized by InterYIT, the International Young IT Group of IFIP.
The Objectives of the Awards scheme are to recognize Young IT Professionals around the world at Global level for their achievements, connect up and coming IT Professionals with the world and help them grow to greater heights in their careers.
In its inaugural year, there will be three awards presented and they are, IFIP International Young IT Professional of the Year, IFIP International Young IT Entrepreneur of the Year and IFIP International Best Student IT Project of the Year.
The scheme is promoted globally for nominations and invite individuals to apply, mainly through our member societies while anyone is invited to apply. Applications will be reviewed by an independent panel appointed by IFIP InterYIT. The winners will be announced at the Awards ceremony and awards presented at a global event, later in 2016.
The applications are invited to be sent from now until the deadline if 30th June 2016 to info@ifip interyit.org, explaining the achievements of the candidate. Further details also can be requested from info@ifipinteryit.org
WITFOR 2016, the World Information Technology Forum focused on progressing the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), has announced four keynote speakers to headline the event being held in Costa Rica this September.
Organised by the global ICT professional association, IFIP (International Federation for Information Processing), WITFOR 2016 brings together senior policy-makers, ICT experts, representatives of NGOs and GOs, researchers and private sector organizations to explore ways to use technology to assist developing nations.
WITFOR 2016 is being staged in conjunction with the five public universities in Costa Rica and will run from 12-14 September, 2016. Local Organising Chair, Gabriela Marin, said WITFOR 2016 has been successful in attracting a world-class roster of keynote speakers to share their expertise with the conference.
“We’re extremely fortunate to have secured international speakers like Chrisanthi Avgerou of the London School of Economics & Political Science and Yaseen Khan of the Open Medicine Project. The involvement of prominent humanitarians and experts like these will ensure some lively and productive discussions at WITFOR 2016,” she said.
Professor Chrisanthi Avgerou conducts research projects around the relationship of ICT to organisational change and the role of ICT in socio-economic development. In addition to her roe at the London School of Economics and Political Science, she is a Fellow of the Association for Information Systems (AIS) and chaired IFIP’s Technical Committee 9 on the Social Implications of Information Technology from 2005 to 2010. She also led the IFIP WG 9.4 group on computers in developing countries from 1996 to 2003 and has written books on Information Systems and Global Diversity, and The Social Study of Information and Communication Technology.
Alicia Bárcena is Executive Secretary of the Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC), having previously served as Under-Secretary-General for Management at the United Nations Headquarters in New York, as well as Chef de Cabinet and Deputy Chef de Cabinet to the former Secretary-General, Kofi Annan. Earlier, Ms Bárcena worked as Co-ordinator of the Latin American and Caribbean Sustainable Development Programme of the UN Development Programme (UNDP), responsible for the Environmental Citizenship Project at the UN Environment Programme (UNEP). She has published numerous articles on sustainable development, public policy, environmental issues and public participation.
Yaseen Khan is a medical doctor and social entrepreneur with a passion for improving healthcare through technology. Since co-founding the Open Medicine Project, he has been focused on leveraging mobile technology to solve information access problems faced by healthcare professionals and patients in low-resource settings. By creating free clinical support mobile apps for HIV care, Emergency Medicine and Primary Health Care among others, hisProject serves over 100,000 healthcare professionals across Africa, Asia and the Middle East, and facilitates on-the-ground reporting of health system problems. Yaseen has been awarded a number of global technology and social impact accolades, including a distinctive global fellowship for social entrepreneurship with Echoing Green.
Erick Mata is currently Associate Professor at the School of Computer Science of the Costa Rica Institute of Technology (ITCR), but has been recognised around the world for his Biodiversity Informatics (BI) initiatives. Erick worked as Executive Director of the Smithsonian Institution’s Encyclopedia of Life (EOL) from 2011-2013, leading a team of scientists and computer scientists to increase awareness and understanding of living nature by gathering, generating and sharing knowledge in an open, trusted and freely accessible digital resource. Earlier, he founded and ran the BI Program at INBio, the National Biodiversity Institute of Costa Rica, which has been recognized world-wide as a pioneer effort in the use ICT’s to gather, manage, synthesize and disseminate digital information about biodiversity at the species and ecosystem level. Erick’s current research areas include: biodiversity informatics, scientific data visualization, computer vision for organismal identification, and algorithmic graph theory.
Ms Marin said the WITFOR 2016 Program Committee is currently finalising the program of speakers, which will be announced in May. “With such an eminent group of keynotes, we are confident of being able to attract other leading experts from around the world to share their knowledge and experience at WITFOR 2016 and to collaborate on strategies to progress the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals,” said Ms Marin.
The SDGs aim to improve global conditions by reducing poverty and hunger, achieving universal education, promoting gender equality, ensuring environmental sustainability, combating diseases and reducing mortality.
WITFOR has been organized by IFIP every few years since 2003 in cooperation with keystakeholders in the host country. To date, WITFOR has been held in Lithuania in 2003, in Botswana in 2005, in Ethiopia in 2007,in Vietnam in 2009 and in India in 2012.
