Keynote Speakers

Dr. Michael Gurstein

Dr. Michael Gurstein is widely recognized for his work in the development and definition of community informatics as the area of research and practice concerned with enabling and empowering communities through the use of Information and Communications Technology. He is currently the Executive Director of the Centre for Community Informatics Research, Development and Training in Vancouver Canada; a Director of The Information Society Institute, Cape Peninsula University of Technology, Cape Town South Africa; an Honorary Professor at Central Queensland University in Australia, a Fellow of the Center for Community Networking, Monash University; and an Honorary Fellow of the Claremont Information Technology Institute, Claremont Graduate University, and President of Michael Gurstein and Associates, Vancouver, Canada.

In 2006 he was selected to be on the High Level Panel of Advisors of the UN's Global Alliance for Information, Communications, and Technology and Development.  From 1995 to 1999 Dr. Gurstein was the NSERC/SSHRC Associate Chair in the Management of Technological Change and Director of the Centre for Community and Enterprise Networking at the University College of Cape Breton (now Cape Breton University) in Sydney, Nova Scotia. In the latter post he pioneered in sustainable community based technology applications.

Based on this work Dr. Gurstein has advised and consulted with a number of UN agencies, and Departments and agencies of the Canadian, US, and Australian governments.  His book "Community Informatics: Enabling Communities with Information and Communications Technologies": (Idea Group, 2000) provided a focal point for the emergence of Community Informatics as the research and praxis discipline underpinning the social appropriation of ICT.  Dr. Gurstein has served on the Board of the Vancouver Community Network, the British Columbia Community Networking Association, Telecommunities Canada, and is currently on the Steering Committee of the Telecentres of the Americas Partnership.
  

Professor Heather Hudson

Professor Heather E. Hudson is Director of the Telecommunications Management and Policy Program in the School of Business and Management at the University of San Francisco.  Heather received an Honours B.A. in English from the University of British Columbia, M.A. and Ph.D. in Communication Research from Stanford University, and J.D. from the University of Texas at Austin. She is the author of several books on Telecommunications and published more than 100 articles and presented numerous conference papers and expert testimony on telecommunications applications and domestic and international policy issues. 

Heather has planned and evaluated communication projects in northern Canada, Alaska, and more than 50 developing countries in Asia and the Pacific, Africa, the Middle East, and Latin America. She has also consulted for government agencies, consumer and native organizations, foreign governments, telecommunications companies, and international organizations.  Heather received several scholarships including a Fulbright Distinguished Lectureship for the Asia/Pacific in 1996 and 1997.  Heather is a Governor of the International Council for Computer Communications (ICCC) and has been a member of the board of the Pacific Telecommunications Council and the Telecommunications Policy Research Conference.

She serves on the editorial boards of Telecommunications Policy, Space Communications, and the Pacific Telecommunications Review. She has been a member of Advisory Committees of the National Research Council, the Federal Communications Commission, the Department of Commerce and the Office of Technology Assessment, and was a special advisor to the International Commission on Worldwide Telecommunications Development (the Maitland Commission).  Professor Hudson’s recent publications include “From Rural Village to Global Village: Telecommunications for Development in the Information Age”, published by Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, January 2006.
   

Poline Bala

Poline Bala obtained a B.A in Southeast Asian Studies at the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences in the University of Malaya, Kuala Lumpur and pursued her Master of Arts in Asian Studies at Cornell University (1996-1999). She is completing her PhD at Cambridge University and is now a lecturer at the Faculty of Social Sciences, University Malaysia Sarawak (UNIMAS) under the International Studies Program. 

Her area of interest and research includes examining the impacts of political boundary lines on the formation of cultural, political and economic units at the border regions of Borneo; specifically dealing with the formation of national identities at border areas and how the formation of national identity effects every day interactions as well as kinship relations and economic relations between communities at the frontiers of international boundaries. She is keen to learn about the role of information communication technology (ICT) on development activities - in designing and implementing assessments of the social change - that is connected to the use of ICT: its trade-offs, associated social changes and outcomes of the development activities. She was for a time the Team Leader for the group of researchers working on the e Bario Project.

Dr. Roger W. Harris

Dr. Roger W. Harris lives in Hong Kong and is a Systems Analyst by training with a PhD in Information Systems.  He spent his early career helping organizations make effective use of Information Technology.  In 1997 he joined University Malaysia Sarawak in order to work with rural communities in the developing world, helping them connect to the Internet and then use it for their own development.  In this capacity he instigated and implemented the e-Bario Telecentre Project, and led it for its first three years.  Since 2001 he has been involved as a consultant with rural projects for Information and Communication Technologies (ICTs) in more than 10 Asian countries.  He has worked for various government and international aid agencies, including the United Nations, the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank. 

His projects include programmes in Malaysia, Nepal, Indonesia, Thailand, Sri Lanka, Peru, India, Philippines, Mongolia, Laos, China and Viêt Nam, helping governments establish national pilot schemes for rural access to the Internet, and conducting research into their effectiveness.  More recently, Dr. Harris founded Asian Encounters, a social enterprise that promotes the use of the Internet by rural communities who operate Community Based Tourism as a way of generating incomes.  He has authored or co-edited three books on ICTs in Developing Countries, seven book chapters, and numerous articles, conference papers and presentations.  More at http://rogharris.org and http://asianencounters.org.