[Asis-l] Call for Workshop Participants: Ignite Connecting Technologies & Communities

[Chi Young Oh]

Call for Participation:

Ignite Connecting Technologies & Communities:  Understanding and
Facilitating Community-Based Technology Innovation

August 1-3, 2018

College Park, Maryland

Smart and connected communities hold the promise of improved safety,
health, sustainability, and economic development. Realizing this promise
depends upon investment in smart and connected community infrastructures,
but no matter how much is spent on technical infrastructures the benefits
ultimately depend on local innovation.  Whether it is adapting
infrastructure technologies to local conditions, developing
locally-relevant data resources, or creating software that leverages the
infrastructure to meet local needs, smart and connected community efforts
are transformative only when local communities are active participants in
the technological innovations that underlie them.

While we have created high-capacity network infrastructures, open data
resources, and civic application development platforms, much of what
technologists know about facilitating community-based innovation has arisen
from practice-based learning rather than building on  the work of
researchers who study the factors, structures, and processes that underlie
community-based innovation. The NSF-funded Ignite Connecting Technologies &
Communities (ICTC) workshop bridges these two communities to identify what
is known, what has been done, and what additional work is needed to
strengthen our ability to explain, facilitate, and enable community-based
technology innovation.

The ICTC workshop will develop a research agenda and foster initial
collaborations through case-presentations; brainstorming and agenda
articulation exercises; and networking opportunities. The focus is on
practitioners and researchers who explore the factors, conditions, and
practices that enable communities to leverage emerging data resources and
infrastructure technologies to meet local needs.  Specific questions to be
considered include:


   -

   What do we know about community-based innovation with data and
   technology and what are the knowledge gaps?
   -

   What are the barriers to community-based technology innovation?
   -

   What are best practices for fostering community-based innovation with
   technology and how do the current initiatives relate to the latest research
   and conceptual models?
   -

   How do communities perceive and engage with emerging technologies and
   how does that impact their ability to mobilize new infrastructures, such as
   gigabit networking technologies, to satisfy community needs?


We are inviting innovators in research, practitioners, and community
leaders to submit a 1-2 page position paper identifying a critical concept
and/or compelling example of community-based technology innovation.
Position papers will be distributed to the workshop participants as
catalysts for discussion and provide structure for the workshop.

Position Paper Due by: May 27, 2018 (attendance decisions 6/1)

Submit Here <https://ischool.umd.edu/form_2018ignite>

The ICTC workshop will be held at The Hotel <https://www.thehotelumd.com/> in
College Park, Maryland across from the University of Maryland Campus, close
to the College Park Metro - Green Line, and just outside Washington DC.

Food and lodging for all workshop participants will be covered. Limited
travel funding is available upon request.

Organizers:

Brian Butler <https://ischool.umd.edu/faculty-staff/brian-butler>, Susan
Winter <https://ischool.umd.edu/faculty-staff/susan-winter>, Mary Anne
Kendig <https://ischool.umd.edu/faculty-staff/mary-anne-kendig> & Diane
Travis <https://ischool.umd.edu/doctoral-students/diane-m-travis>

Online CFP: https://ischool.umd.edu/2018ignite

For addition information contact us (ignite2018ischool at gmail.com)

Funding for this workshop was provided by the NSF CISE Division of Computer
and Network Systems under award number 1551584
<https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=1551584>.


***********************************************
Chi Young Oh
Doctoral candidate
College of Information Studies
University of Maryland, College Park
jcoh at umd.edu, ohchiyoung.wordpress.com

*Empathy / human-centered design / making systems usable is
a way of loving our neighbor.*