The international conference on Home/ Community Oriented ICT for the Next Billion (HOIT 2007) was held in Chennai, India on August 22-25, 2007. Alladi Venkatesh (CRITO, UC Irvine) was one of the conference's main organizers.

The conference was a huge success, drawing researchers from around the world to exchange ideas from different disciplines relating to the development of information and communication technologies for home and community applications.

For more information on HOIT 2007or to view conference photos, please visit http://hoit2007.com.


The following text has been reproduced from The Hindu (8/24/2007).




CHENNAI: As a lead player in the National Programme of Technology Enhanced Learning, the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT-Madras) is hoping to launch a virtual university soon to address the critical gaps in access to education for all sections.

“We are planning to develop 800 courses in the next three years and provide learning material and state-of-the art research materials in every subject possible,” M.S. Ananth, Director, IIT-Madras, said at the inauguration of the conference on ‘Home/Community-Oriented Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) for the Next Billion,’ organised by Alladi Venkatesh, professor at the Centre for Research in Information Technology in Organisations (CRITO), University of California, Irvine, and IIT-Madras on Thursday.

It was possible to effect a tremendous change in rural livelihood through the use of information and communication technology, Ashok Jhunjhunwala, head of the TeNet Group and professor of Electrical Engineering, IIT-Madras said.

Drawing a comparison between the changes urban India had undergone in recent years and how rural India had been left out of the technological revolution, he said that while IT in India had grown to a $50-billion industry, the per capita GDP of nearly 700 million Indians living in rural areas was still under $200.

However, connectivity had been established in villages, and it was possible to carry forward the broadband revolution in a cost-effective manner. BPOs established in rural areas had made a difference to the lives of rural youth and information and communication technology kiosks in villages had the potential to aid in healthcare through videoconferencing. The biggest challenge lay in taking energy to villages, as urban centres got precedence in grid-based delivery systems.


(CRITO Research Spotlight, September 2007)

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