Carlos A. Braga delivers closing keynote address at the 3rd ICTD Conference

ICTD is the premiere conference for innovating technology benefiting developing countries, where academic researchers, practitioners, technologists and social scientists who study or design information and communication technologies present original and unpublished works around information and communications technology.

Carlos A. Primo Braga, Director Economic Policy at The World Bank was the featured keynote speaker closing the event. Dr. Braga discussed the opportunities and challenges of using ICT for economic development.

Dr. Braga argues that ICT cannot solve all development problems, but that it can significantly impact development paths as economies become increasingly services-oriented, companies shift from hierarchical structures to networked modes of production, and the "knowledge worker" emerges as a critical economic actor. He also discussed the implications of the current financial crisis on the prospects for ICT investments in developing countries.

Bill Gates, founder of Microsoft and co-chairman of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation delivered the keynote speech yesterday, saying he was excited about how information technology research and projects are being used to help the poor around the world and excited about countries like Qatar who are investing in the future.

With more than 350 scholars, practitioners and social scientists focused on a broad range of domains from around the world, the ICTD organizers have declared the conference a success.

"ICTD2009 has already achieved great success. We are extremely pleased with the number of people who have joined us from so many places around the world. The level of excitement and quality of participation has exceeded our expectations,"

said Assistant Research Professor of Robotics at Carnegie Mellon University and ICTD2009 Conference Chair M. Bernardine Dias, Ph.D.

"Our keynote speech by Mr. Gates was a tremendous success yesterday and we look forward to an equally successful keynote from Dr. Braga to complete the conference today."

Carnegie Mellon University in Qatar hosted the ICTD 2009 conference, with the TechBridgeWorld research group at Carnegie Mellon taking the lead organizing role. The Supreme Council of Information & Communication Technology (ictQATAR) was the organizing partner of the conference and Al Jazeera Children's Channel the media partner. Platinum sponsors were the Qatar National Research Fund, Qatar Telecom (Qtel) and International Development Research Centre (IDRC) in Canada.

ExxonMobil and Microsoft were Gold sponsors. IBM and Computer Science at Carnegie Mellon Qatar were Bronze sponsors. The technical sponsors for the conference were the IEEE and ACM professional organizations.