PPDD 2015 Home Call for Participation Hotels, Venue, and Post-Conference Activities Registration Program Sponsors
PPDD 2015 Conference Program
Complete PPDD 2015 Conference Program
The PPDD Conference is the only international academic conference in the world focused solely on the digital divide and the only conference that brings together researchers, policymakers, and practitioners to strategize actions and catalyze solutions to this pressing societal concern.
The PPDD 2015 global gathering features presentations on research, policy, and practice from Africa, Australia, Brazil, Canada, China, and throughout Europe to Israel, Japan, Jordan, Mexico, Nepal, and Peru to South Korea, Sri Lanka, and the U.S., and just about everywhere in between.
Following a brief welcome, the first general session of PPDD 2015 provides a summary introduction to the status of the digital divide around the world. There are then three major plenaries during the Conference —
The Opening Plenary Luncheon on Wednesday, titled “Gaps in Digital Divide Understanding and Research: Global Perspectives”, discusses the most important gaps in our understanding of and research on the digital divide with a view toward creating and advancing a digital divide research agenda. This is a particularly timely topic given the newly announced U.S. Broadband Opportunities Council report mandating that the U.S. Department of Commerce National Telecommunications and Information Administration (NTIA) develop a national broadband research agenda and the participation in PPDD 2015 of multiple NTIA staff.
The Keynote Luncheon on Thursday explores, from U.S. and global perspectives, the challenges and opportunities we face now, the next big issues ahead, and the place of researchers, policymakers, and practitioners in moving the digital divide agenda forward.
The final plenary of PPDD 2015 is a highly interactive, lively brainstorming and collaborative thinking dialogue among all presenters and other attendees to create partnerships and inspire new ideas for digital divide research, policy, and practice. Specifically, this plenary discusses what connections need to be created and what bridges need to be built to connect research, policy, and practice and to advance the digital divide research, policy, and practice agenda in unique regions of the world as well as globally.
Confirmed plenary speakers include:
Brian T. Gibbons, Senior Communications Policy Specialist, BroadbandUSA, NTIA, U.S. Department of Commerce
Michael Gurstein, Executive Director, Centre for Community Informatics Research, Development, and Training and Editor-in-Chief, Journal of Community Informatics
Martin Hilbert, former United Nations Economic Affairs Officer and Creator and Coordinator of the Information Society Programme of the United Nations Regional Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean; Assistant Professor, University of California, Davis; Co-founder of the global Partnership on Measuring ICT for Development
Douglas Kinkoph, Associate Administrator, Office of Telecommunications Information and Applications, NTIA, U.S. Department of Commerce
Mark Lloyd, former Associate General Counsel/Chief Diversity Officer, U.S. Federal Communications Commission and Clinical Professor, University of Southern California Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism
Traci L. Morris, Director, American Indian Policy Institute, Arizona State University
Ellie Rennie, Associate Professor, Swinburne University; Deputy Director, Swinburne Institute for Social Research
Jay Schwarz, Acting Deputy Division Chief, Telecommunications Access Policy Division, Wireline Competition Bureau, U.S. Federal Communications Commission
Gigi Sohn, Counselor to the Chairman, Office of the Chairman, U.S. Federal Communications Commission
Joseph D. Straubhaar, Amon G. Carter Centennial Professor of Communications, Department of Radio-TV-Film, University of Texas at Austin; Director of the Moody College of Communications’ Latino and Latin American Studies Program
Simeon Yates, Professor and Director, Institute of Cultural Capital, a strategic collaboration between the University of Liverpool and Liverpool John Moores University, United Kingdom
The full Conference Program schedule will be provided to all registered PPDD 2015 attendees.
PPDD 2015 Home Call for Participation Hotels, Venue, and Post-Conference Activities Registration Program Sponsors