Telangana is the youngest of India’s 29 states, formed in June 2014 from the norther part of Andhra Pradesh. It is the 12th largest state and the 12th most populated state. Shortly after its formation it won the 2016 Promising State of the Year Award by CNBC in recognition of its commitment and dedication towards the development of Telangana and its innovative policies with respect to the information technology, agriculture, irrigation and industrial sectors. Telangana is the poster child for the implementation of the Prime Minister’s Digital India strategy – a strategy essential to Telangana’s vision of a vibrant and inclusive society. K.T. Rama Rao will describe several of the innovative programs that are making Telangana a leader in harnessing the power of technology for its citizens such as:
Digital India is the Government of India’s program to transform India into an inclusive, digitally empowered society and knowledge economy. It focuses on three core areas: digital infrastructure as a utility for every citizen, governance and services on demand, and digital empowerment of citizens. The program includes initiatives to issue digital identities for all citizens, achieve universal digital literacy and provide universal access to mobile financial and real-time government services through secure high speed Internet. Jayant Sinha will elucidate India’s digital transformation strategy. He will share the successes, challenges and lessons learned to date. He will speak to the impact that the Digital India program has had on India’s economy and describe the steps to ensure that it benefits all Indian citizens.
The intelligent cloud has become a transformative force within the Indian economy. The convergence of mobile, cloud, big data and social media technologies has changed and improved the effectiveness of the way we work, enabled an agility that allows us to generate business insights and innovate at a more rapid rate and provided us new ways to connect with our clients. Increasingly in India, government agencies, corporates, social enterprises and NGOs are coming together to harness these technologies for social good. The panelists have broad experience in technology, consulting and social enterprises and will explore examples in education, healthcare and agriculture that illustrate how the intelligent cloud is fostering inclusive transformation:
In 2016, the blockchain was recognized as one of the top 10 emerging technologies by the World Economic Forum. The potential of the blockchain and distributed ledger technology (hereinafter “DLT”) to deliver benefits is significant. DLT’s ability to remove the need for entrenched third-party intermediaries has huge disruptive potential. By replacing the traditional trusted intermediary with a new type of entity -- a peer-to-peer distributed network – DLT is poised to revolutionize a number of industries, from finance, to legal, to insurance. To the extent that international NGOs function as guarantors of trust – trust that the funds donated will be used for an appropriate purpose, trust that the aid has been given to the right beneficiaries, trust that the development work that was contracted for was done on time and as specified – then NGOs too are poised for disruption.
Join Ric Shreves of Mercy Corps for a look at how blockchain and distributed ledger technology will impact the relief and development sector. Ric is the author of a recent Mercy Corps Whitepaper on DLT. You can download the full paper here: https://www.mercycorps.org/research-resources/revolution-trust-distributed-ledger-technology-relief-developmentThis session will focus on the role of women in ICT – both as creators and users of technology: Why is it important, what do you need to think about, and how do you do it? How can we as leaders in the field foster opportunity for women and girls? What are the most gendered challenges? How can we work to ensure an enabling environment for the next generation of girls? What are some current shining examples?
Each presenter will share briefly about what their organization is doing to support women in ICT, then we will move to an open and participatory discussion. Please join us!
A fun and fast networking opportunity facilitating introductions and conversation.
You will make many new contacts in a short time to help build and maintain long-term relationships.
There will be several short rounds to meet other participants; latecomers are welcome!
Don’t forget your business cards!
CGIAR, a global research partnership for a food-secure future, will be launching the CGIAR Platform for Big Data in Agriculture. This new multimillion-dollar initiative aims to fundamentally disrupt food production across the developing world, making it more productive, efficient, and resilient to challenges such as climate change – all through the power of information.
Bringing together thousands of experts - from agricultural scientists to whizz kids at some of the world’s leading tech firms - the Platform will collect and analyze vast amounts of data on crops, weather, soils and more. It will produce some of the most precise and reliable recommendations that farmers in developing countries have ever had, helping ensure that smallholders enjoy the benefits of the data revolution.
CGIAR is a global research partnership for a food-secure future. CGIAR science is dedicated to reducing poverty, enhancing food and nutrition security, and improving natural resources and ecosystem services.
Food and beverages served.
What is Big Data? The term is now ubiquitous and all the hype will have us believe that it’s a magic wand that can solve all problems. However, how much of this is hype and how much is reality?
To debate this question and develop meaningful insights, we must understand the concept of “Big Data” - data sets that are so large or complex that only recent innovations in data processing applications have provided us the capability to manage and process them – data sets whose volumes are measured in petabytes (1015bytes) of data. We also need to understand the three primary sources of such data:
Finally, we must be able to answer the questions of how developing economies can leverage Big Data to support sustainable and equitable development, bring together public and private sectors efforts and create the appropriate policy environment in service of achieving the SDGs. The panelists will explore these questions. They will look at case studies that illustrate the ways in which Big Data contributes to their industries and their relation to specific SDGs to assess how much is hype versus reality including:
Two years after their formal adoption, there is an urgent need to mobilize the “Data Revolution” in general, and its core component Big Data in particular, to reach the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). The hope is that the (Big) Data Revolution will reshape and upgrade current power dynamics and decision-making systems for the better. That this revolution will move us towards a world where public interventions are designed and evaluated against evidence, discussions and decisions are more firmly grounded in facts and shared experiences, and more voices are heard and considered. That it will serve development and democracy in the age of post-truth politics. The fear is that data can be and indeed has been used to entrench power dynamics and decision-making systems that fuel adverse outcomes (deprivation, violence, pollution, congestion, waste, wars, distrust, disdain, etc.) That data will be used to impede progress towards the goals. Thus, the question is: What can and should be done to seed and support a virtuous data-enabled process of social transformation through innovation and inclusion – a transformation in which the SDGs are much more systematically monitored and promoted?
This overarching question raises two more. First, what is the theory of societal change explicitly or implicitly put forth by the strongest advocates of the SDGs? And how valid is that theory? In other words: what are we saying or selling about the causal impact of measurement and evidence more largely? When we measure the height of our young kids and put a mark on the wall, is it to check if they have grown according to plans? So as to feed them better if they haven’t? Of course not. This isn’t to say there is no instrumental value in the outcome of measurement, but rather to stress the role of the process itself.
Secondly, how can the instrumental role of measurement—via greater accountability and efficiency—be materialized, and magnified? For all the talk about the importance of measuring the SDGs to get closer to achieving them, surprisingly little has been done towards that objective. Despite the hope that Big Data could help fill “data gaps” and perhaps even fix the “statistical tragedy” in the poorest countries, there is, as of now, no body of stable, scalable methodologies to ‘leverage’ Big Data to make a significant contribution to measuring the SDGs in the next decade. Even after 10 years following the emergence of Big Data as a socio-technological phenomenon and ecosystem. Even after publication of dozens of case studies and academic papers confirming their potential. Why is that? Can this be changed and if so how?
These are some of the questions this talk will address in proposing a theoretical and methodological framework for monitoring and promoting the SDGs through the (Big) Data Revolution – a framework based on the work and vision of Data-Pop Alliance.
The volume of earth observation and environmental data is growing rapidly, as is the urgent need for insights that can be derived from such data to inform decisions in a range of development areas including food and water security, sustainable natural resource management, disease early warning and disaster risk management. Unfortunately, taking full advantage of these resources has historically required considerable technical expertise and effort. One major hurdle is in basic information technology management: data acquisition and storage; databases and computing. This burden can put these invaluable data and tools out of the reach of many potential users, restricting access to experts with special access to high-performance computing resources.
In this talk, Rebecca will share examples and experiences of partners in the development community using the power of the cloud to overcome these issues. Emerging cloud technologies such as Google’s Earth Engine platform illustrate a new paradigm whereby anyone, anywhere with a web browser can have petabytes of fresh, relevant data at their fingertips, together with massive computational resources and peer-reviewed scientific methodologies to derive actionable insights from local to global scale. Cloud-based approaches can also facilitate collaboration and easy dissemination of results to policy makers, field practitioners and civil society.
Partner projects will be presented which illustrate best practices in water resource mapping, crop yield estimation, disease early warning and flood monitoring. Rebecca will also discuss lessons learned based on more than a decade of work in this area, touching on both opportunities and challenges in empowering people with big data to address significant sustainable development issues of our time.
Over the last decade, the number of digital health solutions has exploded, changing the way we think about delivering healthcare services. Earlier, digital solutions tended to be innovative and disruptive in their approach, but were not often built to scale and become sustainable. Now, nearly a decade since the first digital health programs started up, digital solutions are becoming a critical element of all health systems programs; however, they continue to grapple with scale. The Johns Hopkins Global mHealth Initiative has worked in close partnership with digital health innovators around the world to support monitoring, measurement and scaling up of the programs.
What does it take for a digital health intervention to scale successfully? In this session, we discuss some common challenges and best practices in scaling-up based on experience gathered through nearly a decade of close engagement with a diverse group of digital health innovations targeting improvements in reproductive, maternal and child health. Additionally, we present resources developed by global agencies to support innovators in measuring the progress of, and in scaling up digital health solutions.
The use of mobile technology for public health has expanded greatly in the last decade. Mobile phone penetration has grown globally, and particularly within low- and middle- income countries (LMICs), presenting an opportunity to augment routine health surveillance programs. Under the Bloomberg Data for Health initiative, Johns Hopkins mHealth researchers and several LMIC and global health partners are developing basic mobile phone-based surveys of non-communicable disease (NCD) risk factors utilizing various survey modalities (e.g., text messaging, interactive voice response and computer assisted telephone interviews) to better understand NCD burdens globally.
The increasing use of such technology in LMICs brings forth a cluster of ethical challenges; however, much of the existing literature regarding the ethics of mobile or digital health focuses on the use of technologies in high-income countries or does not consider directly the specific ethical issues associated with the conduct of NCD mobile phone surveys in LMICs. This session will introduce ongoing Johns Hopkins NCD mobile phone survey research and development activities, explore several of the central ethics issues that arise when conducting mobile phone surveys of NCD risk factors in LMICs, and present some preliminary data on attitudes of key stakeholders towards the emerging issues.
Digital technologies accelerate the speed, types and volume of data collected and shared in development and humanitarian programs, amplifying both potential benefits and harms to individuals and communities. Risks of harm can be especially pertinent to individuals and communities who are vulnerable and disempowered. Development actors have identified privacy protection as one of the Principles for Digital Development that is perhaps most challenging to put into practice especially when there are competing tensions between programmatic needs for data use, real and perceived privacy risks and open data. There has also been a growing movement around Responsible Program Data with many development and humanitarian actors recently developing policies and practices for their organizations. This talk will provide an overarching frame for a Responsible Data approach in digital development programs, and highlight considerations for translating this approach into practice. The talk will also introduce the USAID Responsible Data Practices for Digital Development project and provide a brief overview of ongoing research.
To address food insecurity in Madagascar, CRS-Madagascar has received food assistance through the USAID funded Development Food Assistance Program (DFAP). The FARARANO project, through FFA interventions aims to reduce the vulnerability of the most destitute people at the rural areas and to contribute to countryside development by creating temporary jobs and improving community access to basic and environmental infrastructures. FFA activities are characterized by the construction and rehabilitation of:
- Agricultural infrastructures (irrigation system, drainage system),
- Tracks to open up villages and to ease access to health facilities, markets.
The use of Remote Sensing Images combined with Geographic Information System tools will be used to collect and to generate all necessary data to better estimate the nature of the tasks required for FFA activities and to potentially optimize the costs of these works.
The cost of an FFA activity characterized by the needs of Man/Day depends on the nature and the quantification of the tasks required for it. Thus, the collection and the processing of geospatial data from an FFA site is crucial to optimize its cost.
As a result, a workflow of spatial data collection and process was set up by CRS-Madagascar to adequately manage each FFA activity in order to optimize the cost of preliminary studies and implementation. The main goals of this project are:
- Providing a map of the land cover and use of each FFA site.
- Identifying nearby sources of raw materials (rubble, sand, vetiver, …).
- Geographically locating FFA infrastructures (track axis, dam axis).
- Affording Cross Section of a chosen area.
The collection of data and their processing were completely performed using ESRI solutions. The main tools used are:
- ArcGIS collector & 123 Survey for ground truth land surveys of land cover and use samples and the alignment of the axis of all linear structures,
- Image Analysis toolbar for the preparation of satellite images (clipping, bandset composition, NDVI calculation, visualization enhancement, ...).
- Image Analysis toolbar for the supervised classification of satellite images to obtain a map of the land cover and use of each FFA site and the soil characteristics.
- 3D Analyst tools for converting 2D elements to 3D features and for providing topographical cross sections.
Currently, not less than ten FFA activities are being validated and will adopt the aforementioned system. The results will be available and presented at the time of the conference.
Controlling and optimizing the cost of FFA interventions is essential for the successful completion of infrastructural works. An adequate geodecisional solution helps taking good decision and affording better estimation of all FFA activities.
This invitation-only and off-the-record Executive Session features unique opportunities for exchange and networking between C-level leaders of programs and IT at international and regional NGOs, private sector companies, government, and donor agencies.
High-intensity huddles for leading-edge debate, discussion, and ideation will kick off with the question: “Could Trump administration policies, Brexit, and European anti-refugee populist movements be the needed wake-up call for the international development sector to reinvigorate itself? What role do digital technologies play in doing so?” With this as a catalyst for dialogue, key players in development will break down the ramifications for the sector in the new world order and the role digital technologies can play in sustaining organizations’ impact and in fostering collaboration to meet the Sustainable Development Goals.
The hopes, fears, and aspirations of the international development sector will be exposed as this exclusive group addresses issues that include: Will the world’s political climate lead to opportunities for disruption of the international development sector? Could a reduction in government funding for NGOs force them to radically reform? What is the monitoring responsibility of NGOs to counter the emergence of “fake news” in humanitarian and conservation settings?
DIAL is developing a handy, quick reference guide that addresses common questions that digital development programs and solutions face as they transition from the startup or pilot stage to their next phase. That transition can be brought about by a number of possible changes: a funding cliff, a leadership change, an expansion to a new market or location, new competition, or the entry of government into program ownership. Deployments face common questions as they navigate transitions, with respect to their program strategy, business models, solution design, human capacity and regulatory policy. The guide will fill a critical gap because most existing resources are aimed at organizations starting up, rather than those who have made it to the 4-5 year mark. This project (being developed with BBC Media Action, Esoko, Vital Wave Consulting and Johns Hopkins University) will build on and extend earlier guidance outputs, which primarily focused on providing guidance to launch and design digital development efforts, and focus more towards what it takes to sustain an initiative once launched. Development of this toolkit will be based on extensive research, iteration, user input and feedback. It will include the documentation of experiences from digital deployments, including what worked, what did not work and how they adjusted.
3D Printing for Development (3D4D) is Anudip Foundation’s innovative program for deploying the rapidly evolving technology of 3D Printing for the benefit of highly marginalized people. Leveraging the declining price-points, Anudip is developing proofs of concept for 3D printing applications that have potential to improve livelihoods in rural India. Dipak Basu will describe two such applications that show great promise in the areas of health and entrepreneurship
Impact investing is an investing approach that combines positive social impact with investing and now has a ten-year history in India. In the last five years, the industry has booked impact investments of over $4 billion USD in over 500 investees. It takes all kinds of investors and asset classes to deliver positive social impact at large scale. It spans the entire spectrum of asset classes, from the very high-risk, seed investments in unproven business models and markets to venture debt-to-growth equity in large companies delivering social impact and collateralized debt to these companies. Technology plays a critical role in this space. This panel will discuss how impact investing is enabling industries within India to grow rapidly and implement new and interesting business models and use of digital technologies. Some of the portfolio companies use information technology to digitize and improve their current business processes and others transform their business by implementing new business models that create value by leveraging digital connections and information and combining them with traditional resources in new ways. Participants will discuss and debate the role of for-profit social enterprises in India’s digital economy, the interest they draw from impact investors, the scaling of such companies and their ability to create impacts that address the Sustainable Development Goals.
Market-led, User-owned, ICT4Ag-enabled Information Service (MUIIS) is an innovative project being implemented by CTA with six other partners in Uganda for a duration of 3 years. It delivers timely bundled service of weather information, agronomic tips and index-based drought insurance to maize, soya bean and sesame farmers across the country to make informed decisions. It utilizes both global data (satellite) and ground data (local weather stations, farmer profiles, crop calendars, etc.) as the main source of content for the service. It leverages the power of a network of about 200 MUIIS Service Agents (MSAs), a team of agronomists, and a mobile communication platform to reach over 350,000 farmers within the period.
This session will recognize the winners of the ICT4D Data Jam Session, a hackathon hosted by the ICT4D Conference, aWhere, the International Crops Research Institute for the Semi-Arid Tropics (ICRISAT), Global Development Analytics, and the A-M-Z Group with support from DigitalGlobe.
The competition is scheduled to take place on May 12th and May 13th at the iHub on ICRISAT's campus in Hyderabad prior to the start of the ICT4D Conference.Individuals traveling to attend the conference or interested technologists from the Hyderabad area, are invited to form teams and brainstorm ways in which technology and digital data can serve one or more of the Sustainable Development Goals. Each team will have access to a resource kit containing links to public access datasets, APIs and software that may be useful in considering their proposed solutions to development challenges.
Judging will take place on May 13th. Each team of competitors will present their work to a panel of judges who will determine the top three winning teams. The first-place team will receive a cash prize of $1,000, the second-place team will receive a cash prize of $500, and the third-place team a cash prize of $250. Winning teams will also be offered up to $15,000 in donated business and consulting services, as well as an opportunity for a membership to sit and work from ICRISAT’s newly opened iHub.
As a community of organizations that have a stake in international development and humanitarian relief efforts, we are making strides in the use of ICTs to enhance our efforts. However, most will agree that we have yet to fully leverage the data and information that ICT makes possible. We often use ICT-enabled data to report what we have done, but not to target the services we provide, to plan the work we carry out, to understand its impact and to refine our strategies based on what we learn. This panel will discuss and debate the most critical, realistic steps the community must take within the next year to advance the use of data in our decision making in our efforts to attain the Sustainable Development Goals. Panelists will reflect on the presentations and discussions that have taken place throughout the week, on what has surprised them and on what they have learned to inform their point of view on this task.