WSI Lunch: Community Informatics meets Web Science... Event

Speaker information

Professor Michael Gurstein,Centre for Community Informatics Research, Development and Training (CCIRDT) in Vancouver, Canada ,Michael Gurstein is widely known for his knowledge and experience as a researcher, a practitioner and a policy advisor in the area of Information and Communications Technology (ICT) and specifically ICT for Development. As a researcher he is often acknowledged as the "Father of Community Informatics", the academic discipline concerned with the community and grassroots use of ICTs and has conducted numerous studies and has published widely in a variety of academic and non-academic venues. As a practitioner he was responsible for perhaps the first community based institute concerned with the use of ICTs for economic and social development, the Centre for Community Innovation and Networking in Sydney, Cape Breton Island, Canada -- one of Canada's poorest areas with the highest employment in the country (at the time). As well he works extensively with indigenous peoples in remote and rural parts of Canada and internationally and recently as an Advisor to the EU funded N4C project looking at telecommunications services for underserved and indigenous people in Northern and Central Europe. Dr. Gurstein is currently Executive Director of the Centre for Community Informatics Research, Development and Training (CCIRDT) in Vancouver, Canada and an Adjunct Professor in the Information School at the University of British Columbia. A Canadian, he has a B.A. (Hon) from the University of Saskatchewan and Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of Cambridge. Dr. Gurstein has served on the Board of the Vancouver Community Network, the British Columbia Community Networking Association, and Telecommunities Canada; as a member of the Steering Committee of the Global Telecentre Alliance; and on the High Level Panel of Advisors of the United Nation’s Global Alliance for ICT for Development. He is the Editor in Chief of the Journal of Community Informatics and Foundation Chair of the Community Informatics Research Network. He has consulted to the governments of Canada, Australia, New Zealand, Malaysia, Bangladesh, South Africa, Nepal and Jordan; to the Ford Foundation, the Hewlett Foundation, the UN Development Program, and the European Union; and to Nortel, Mitel, Bell Canada, and Intel among others. His most recent book is "Connecting Canadian: Investigation in Community Informatics", University of Athabaska Pr. (2012)