Presentations

IT for Change (ITfC), along with the Department of State Research Education and Training (DSERT), and Policy Planning Unit (PPU) and Development Focus (DF) (a local NGO) have designed and implemented a pilot “Teachers Community of Learning” (TCOL) programme in Bangalore district South 3 block during 2010-11.

On 10 December 2010, IT for Change was part of the panel on 'Logging into (in)security: a seminar on ICT and gender violence' which was held in Chennai (India) and closed Prajnya's 16-day campaign against gender violence. Chloé Zollman spoke about how, beyond narratives of fear, ICTs could be empowering tools to build ownership of the digital space, and enable thereby to challenge violence and power in constructive ways.

The study of two large 'ICTs programmes in School Education' (IPSE) programmes of neighboring Indian states reveals some interesting insights. The integrated model followed in Kerala's IT@Schools programme, which focused on developing systemic in-house capabilities anchored around school teachers, has shown considerable success; in terms of higher teacher engagement, integration of computer learning with the regular learning processes, significant cost efficiencies, greater per-learner computer availability, and development of teacher networks and collaborative content creation processes, which support teacher professional development.

A number of state education departments in India are launching computer learning programmes in schools. The predominant model for this programme is to outsource the entire program to vendors. However a few states like Kerala have successfully in-sourced this program, by building in-house capacities to conduct this programme. This paper discusses outsourced versus integrated models in this area, drawing from our research in two states of India.
Reflecting on the status of women in the past two decades at the consultation organised by Mahila Samakhya Karnataka on 7 March 2009, Anita Gurumurthy articulates a trajectory for gender and development, through the lens of historical phenomena like neo-conservativism and the transnational mobilisation of women, using specific examples such as the class wars against women's bodies and the dowry-based violence, all impacted by capitalism.

This three-day event, called ‘The Daughters of Fire’, was organised by Vimochana and the Asian women’s Human Rights Council in July 2009 at Christ University, Bengaluru (India). The presentation focused on the theoretical framework examining media-related constructs and critiques of the 'new' public sphere through the lens of information society and gender.

Paper presented for the Commission on Social, Ethical, and Legal Issues of  the World IT Forum (WITFOR). The presentation emphasises the gender gap not just in terms of connectivity to the internet, but also access to the sophistication of ICTs. Identifying various factors detrimental to women's interests, it also critiques the closed nature of mobile platforms as well as the lack of debate around the merits of community-owned telecom networks and open platforms.

Anita Gurumurthy wrote a note for the Sakhi-Jagori Consultation on 'New technologies and new forms of violence against women and girls' that took place in Trivandrum (Kerala, India) on 27-28 March 2009. The note identifies emerging debates around personhood and privacy, on the one hand, and normative structures in emerging spaces, on the other, as two important vantages of inquiry to understand the challenges and possibilities thrown up by digital technologies as these become increasingly pervasive.

At the 2009 Conference on Information and Communications Technologies and Development (ICTD), IT for Change organised a panel  titled 'Tracing the genealogy of ICTD research: Premises, predispositions, and paradoxes of a field in the making'. As a field in the making, ICTD is situated right at the centre of an unfolding global transformation process marked by complex and intense power struggles. It thus comprises a contested multi-actor space often implicating competing positions – between technical and social actors, the corporate sector and development constituencies, and the state and communities.

IT for Change organised a workshop on 'ICTs for participatory local development – Exploring a systemic approach'  in Bengaluru (India) on 9-10 December 2008. The event offered a forum for researchers from five countries – Brazil, India, the Philippines, South Africa and Uganda – to present their initial findings regarding a multi-country ‘ICTs for participatory development’ research coordinated by IT for Change.