Dear Colleagues,
We have a very interesting (online) talk next week by Rajesh Verraraghavan
on his new book, “*Patching Development: Information Politics and Social
Change in India*”, on *Wednesday, April 27, 2pm to 3:30pm EST. *
Please find the details below to register for the talk.
Best Regards,
Ishtiaque
==
Syed Ishtiaque Ahmed
Assistant Professor
Department of Computer Science
Faculty Fellow, Schwartz Reisman Institute <https://www.torontosri.ca/>
The University of Toronto
Program Committee Chair, ICTD 2022 <https://ictd.org/ictd2022/>
Bahen Centre for Information Technology, Room 5262
Saint George Street, Toronto, ON M5S 2E4, Canada
Ph: +1 647 220 3482
web: https://www.ishtiaque.net/
My Availability: Google Calendar Link
<https://calendar.google.com/calendar/embed?src=ishtiaque.uoft%40gmail.com&c…>
==
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Priyank Chandra <priyank.chandra(a)utoronto.ca>
Date: Thu, Apr 21, 2022 at 10:59 AM
Subject: Critical Computing Seminar (April 27): "Patching Development:
Information Politics and Social Change in India"
To: ISCHOOL-FAC-REG-L(a)LISTSERV.UTORONTO.CA <
ISCHOOL-FAC-REG-L(a)listserv.utoronto.ca>
Cc: Ishtiaque Ahmed <ishtiaque(a)cs.toronto.edu>, Robert Soden <
robert.soden(a)utoronto.ca>
Dear All,
We are happy to announce the *April* edition of the Critical Computing
seminar series. This a monthly online seminar where we invite scholars to
discuss topics in critical computing. The objective of the seminar is to
create a broader understanding of computing from different ethical, social,
and cultural perspectives. You will find more information about this
seminar series and upcoming speakers by following the link:
https://sites.google.com/view/uoft-critical-computing/seminar-series
This month (April, 2022), *Rajesh Veeraraghavan*, an assistant professor
from Georgetown University will give a book talk “*Patching Development:
Information Politics and Social Change in India*” on *Wednesday, April 27,
2pm to 3:30pm EST.*
We invite you all to join the seminar. Please check the following link for
more details about the seminar at:
https://sites.google.com/view/uoft-critical-computing/seminar-series/rajesh….
The registration link is at: https://bit.ly/CCS_RajeshVeeraghavan
A flyer is also attached to this email, and I have appended the seminar
details at the bottom of this email. Please feel free to forward this
invitation to anyone interested (within and outside UofT).
We look forward to seeing you all at the seminar.
Best Regards,
Priyank Chandra (On behalf of the Organizers)
Assistant Professor
Faculty of Information
University of Toronto
*Book Title: Patching Development: Information Politics and Social Change
in India*
Rajesh Veeraghavan, Science, Technology and International Affairs, School
of Foreign Service, Georgetown University
Website: www.rajeshveera.org
Twitter: @RajeshVeeraa
*Time:* 27 April, 2022 from 2 PM - 3.30 PM, EST
*Abstract: *
How can development programs deliver benefits to marginalized citizens in
ways that expand their rights and freedoms? Political will and good policy
design are critical but often insufficient due to resistance from
entrenched local power systems. The book is an ethnography of one of the
largest development programs in the world, the Indian National Rural
Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA), and examines in detail NREGA’s
implementation in the South Indian state of Andhra Pradesh. It finds that
the local system of power is extremely difficult to transform, not because
of inertia, but because of coercive counter strategy from actors at the
last mile and their ability to exploit information asymmetries. Upper-level
NREGA bureaucrats in Andhra Pradesh do not possess the capacity to change
the power axis through direct confrontation with local elites, but instead
have relied on a continuous series of responses that react to local
implementation and information, a process of patching development. Patching
development is a top-down, fine-grained, iterative socio-technical process
that makes local information about implementation visible through
technology and enlists participation from marginalized citizens through
social audits. These processes are neither neat nor orderly and have led to
a contentious sphere where the exercise of power over documents,
institutions and technology is intricate, fluid and highly situated. The
book throws new light on the challenges and benefits of using information
and technology in novel ways to implement development programs. While
focused on one Indian state, the implications for increasing citizen
participation and government transparency have global relevance.
*Bio:*
Rajesh Veeraraghavan's research combines bodies of scholarship and practice
that come together in the field of Information and Communication
Technologies and Development (ICT4D), which embraces the ethos of
marginalized citizen-centered design and applies it to global human
development. He has leveraged his technical and sociological training to
develop technology-enabled information interventions, employing a method
that is half-participant observation, half-interventionist activism. First,
he is interested in developing digital technology-enabled interventions to
address inequality that respects the potential and limits of such designs
within particular social contexts. Second, he is interested in critically
examining the role of algorithms and technology and its potential harms for
marginalized people. He seeks to engage in critique both through a
sociological lens as well as constructive design using data and
communicative technologies.
Veeraraghavan is currently an assistant professor in the Science Technology
and International Affairs (STIA) Program at Georgetown University’s School
of Foreign Service. He was a postdoctoral fellow at the Watson Institute of
International and Public Affairs at Brown University and was previously a
Fellow at the Berkman Center at Harvard University. He consulted for the
Gates Foundation and Open Society Foundation. Previously, he worked as an
associate researcher at the Technology for Emerging Markets group at
Microsoft Research, India. In his prior life, he was a software developer
at Microsoft. He has a PhD from University of California, Berkeley’s School
of Information, a master’s degree in computer science from Clemson
University, a master’s degree in economics from Cleveland State University,
and a bachelor’s degrees in economics and management from Birla Institute
of Technology & Science, Pilani, India.
Hi Everyone!
Tomorrow we'll have an awesome presentation by @Karthik titled "Robots and
Stuff (Mostly humans)", where Karthik will show us some of the awesome
possibilities of real and simulated robots and what kinds of experiments
you might run with them and humans.
Join us at 10am EDT https://utoronto.zoom.us/j/96404556988!
Best,
Blaine
Joseph
[Sent from smartphone]
Joseph Jay Williams, Assistant Professor, www.josephjaywilliams.com
Intelligent Adaptive Interventions research group
Department of Computer Science, University of Toronto
Dept. of Psychology & Statistical Sciences (courtesy graduate appointments
– admitting PhD students)
Faculty Affiliate at Vector Institute for Artificial Intelligence
FYI
Best Regards,
Ishtiaque
==
Syed Ishtiaque Ahmed
Assistant Professor
Department of Computer Science
Faculty Fellow, Schwartz Reisman Institute <https://www.torontosri.ca/>
The University of Toronto
Program Committee Chair, ICTD 2022 <https://ictd.org/ictd2022/>
Bahen Centre for Information Technology, Room 5262
Saint George Street, Toronto, ON M5S 2E4, Canada
Ph: +1 647 220 3482
web: https://www.ishtiaque.net/
My Availability: Google Calendar Link
<https://calendar.google.com/calendar/embed?src=ishtiaque.uoft%40gmail.com&c…>
==
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Eyal de Lara <delara(a)cs.toronto.edu>
Date: Tue, Apr 5, 2022 at 9:03 AM
Subject: Fwd: [CaRCC researcher-facing] 15k/yr SIGHPC Fellowships in
Computational and Data Science
To: DCS Faculty <faculty(a)cs.toronto.edu>
*From: *Stephen Lien Harrell <sharrell(a)tacc.utexas.edu>
<sharrell(a)tacc.utexas.edu>
*Date: *Friday, April 1, 2022 at 1:06 PM
*To: *
*Subject: *[CaRCC researcher-facing] 15k/yr SIGHPC Fellowships in
Computational and Data Science
You don't often get email from sharrell(a)tacc.utexas.edu. Learn why this is
important <http://aka.ms/LearnAboutSenderIdentification>
Do you know of students who are studying data science or computing
applications, and who are either women or members of an underrepresented
group? Please forward this information to them or to their academic
advisors - it could be worth $15,000 per year to them.
Nominations are now open for ACM SIGHPC’s international program of graduate
fellowships in computational and data science. The goal of this program is
to increase the diversity of students pursuing graduate degrees in data
science and computational science, including women as well as students from
racial/ethnic backgrounds that have not traditionally participated in the
computing field. The program supports students pursuing degrees at
institutions anywhere in the world.
Interested faculty advisors and students can find more information on the
fellowships, including a description of the online nomination process, at
https://www.sighpc.org/for-your-career/fellowships
<https://can01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.sighp…>.
Nominations close April 30.
Questions? Contact fellowships(a)sighpc.org
Please feel free to forward this to anyone who might be interested.
Thank you,
Stephen Lien Harrell
ACM SIGHPC Fellowships Chair
--
Stephen Lien Harrell
Engineering Scientist, HPC Performance and Architectures
Texas Advanced Computing Center
The University of Texas at Austin
765-201-4408
ORCiD: 0000-0001-5327-525X
<https://can01.safelinks.protection.outlook.com/?url=https%3A%2F%2Forcid.org…>
--
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an
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Hi everyone,
I hope this email finds you well.
I'm sending this email to invite you all to Kailin Hong's presentation on
her progress regarding the behavioral finance project that she and I have
been working on for a couple of months now. Kailin is a bright
undergraduate student in engineering who is graduating this semester and
she has been collaborating with us on this project for her thesis. I'm
thrilled for her to deliver her presentation on *April 5 at 1 PM. *I would
like to invite you to her presentation and get your valuable feedback.
Please find the Zoom information below:
Meeting Link: https://utoronto.zoom.us/j/81950212150
Meeting ID: 819 5021 2150
Passcode: 541491
Looking forward to meeting you all,
-----
Sincerely,
Yasaman Rohanifar <https://www.cs.toronto.edu/~yasamanro/>,
Ph.D. Student in Computer Science,
University of Toronto, Canada
This event has been changed.
Title: Kailin's Presentation on Behavioural Finance Project
──────────
Yasaman Rohanifar is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Join Zoom Meeting
https://utoronto.zoom.us/j/81950212150
Meeting ID: 819 5021 2150
Passcode: 541491
One tap mobile
+16132093054,,81950212150#,,,,*541491# Canada
+16473744685,,81950212150#,,,,*541491# Canada
Dial by your location
+1 613 209 3054 Canada
+1 647 374 4685 Canada
+1 647 558 0588 Canada
+1 778 907 2071 Canada
+1 438 809 7799 Canada
+1 587 328 1099 Canada
Meeting ID: 819 5021 2150
Passcode: 541491
Find your local number: https://utoronto.zoom.us/u/kqXi7tqGm
Join by SIP
81950212150(a)zoomcrc.com
Join by H.323
162.255.37.11 (US West)
162.255.36.11 (US East)
69.174.57.160 (Canada Toronto)
65.39.152.160 (Canada Vancouver)
Meeting ID: 819 5021 2150
Passcode: 541491
Join by Skype for Business
https://utoronto.zoom.us/skype/81950212150
──────────
When: Thu Apr 7, 2022 1pm – 2pm Eastern Time - Toronto (changed)
Where: https://utoronto.zoom.us/j/81950212150
Calendar: thirdspace(a)dgp.toronto.edu
Who:
* yasaman.rohani(a)gmail.com - organizer
* kailin.hong(a)mail.utoronto.ca
* ishtiaque(a)cs.toronto.edu
* mariakakis(a)cs.toronto.edu
* maryam(a)cs.toronto.edu
* rifat(a)cs.toronto.edu
* darahim11(a)gmail.com
* rfj.levine(a)gmail.com
* thirdspace(a)dgp.toronto.edu
* blackbelt812(a)gmail.com
* ishtiaque.uoft(a)gmail.com
* mokhberimaryam(a)gmail.com
Event details:
https://calendar.google.com/calendar/event?action=VIEW&eid=Mzc2OTVhNGl2MTBj…
Invitation from Google Calendar: https://calendar.google.com/calendar/
You are receiving this courtesy email at the account
thirdspace(a)dgp.toronto.edu because you are an attendee of this event.
To stop receiving future updates for this event, decline this event.
Alternatively you can sign up for a Google account at
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settings for your entire calendar.
Forwarding this invitation could allow any recipient to send a response to
the organizer and be added to the guest list, or invite others regardless
of their own invitation status, or to modify your RSVP. Learn more at
https://support.google.com/calendar/answer/37135#forwarding
You have been invited to the following event.
Title: Kailin's Presentation on Behavioural Finance Project
──────────
Yasaman Rohanifar is inviting you to a scheduled Zoom meeting.
Join Zoom Meeting
https://utoronto.zoom.us/j/81950212150
Meeting ID: 819 5021 2150
Passcode: 541491
One tap mobile
+16132093054,,81950212150#,,,,*541491# Canada
+16473744685,,81950212150#,,,,*541491# Canada
Dial by your location
+1 613 209 3054 Canada
+1 647 374 4685 Canada
+1 647 558 0588 Canada
+1 778 907 2071 Canada
+1 438 809 7799 Canada
+1 587 328 1099 Canada
Meeting ID: 819 5021 2150
Passcode: 541491
Find your local number: https://utoronto.zoom.us/u/kqXi7tqGm
Join by SIP
81950212150(a)zoomcrc.com
Join by H.323
162.255.37.11 (US West)
162.255.36.11 (US East)
69.174.57.160 (Canada Toronto)
65.39.152.160 (Canada Vancouver)
Meeting ID: 819 5021 2150
Passcode: 541491
Join by Skype for Business
https://utoronto.zoom.us/skype/81950212150
──────────
When: Tue Apr 5, 2022 1pm – 2pm Eastern Time - Toronto
Where: https://utoronto.zoom.us/j/81950212150
Calendar: thirdspace(a)dgp.toronto.edu
Who:
* yasaman.rohani(a)gmail.com - organizer
* kailin.hong(a)mail.utoronto.ca
* ishtiaque(a)cs.toronto.edu
* mariakakis(a)cs.toronto.edu
* maryam(a)cs.toronto.edu
* rifat(a)cs.toronto.edu
* darahim11(a)gmail.com
* rfj.levine(a)gmail.com
* thirdspace(a)dgp.toronto.edu
Event details:
https://calendar.google.com/calendar/event?action=VIEW&eid=Mzc2OTVhNGl2MTBj…
Invitation from Google Calendar: https://calendar.google.com/calendar/
You are receiving this courtesy email at the account
thirdspace(a)dgp.toronto.edu because you are an attendee of this event.
To stop receiving future updates for this event, decline this event.
Alternatively you can sign up for a Google account at
https://calendar.google.com/calendar/ and control your notification
settings for your entire calendar.
Forwarding this invitation could allow any recipient to send a response to
the organizer and be added to the guest list, or invite others regardless
of their own invitation status, or to modify your RSVP. Learn more at
https://support.google.com/calendar/answer/37135#forwarding
Dear All,
Hope you are doing well.
We are back with our Critical Computing Seminar! Our next speaker is Maggie
Jack and she will deliver her lecture online on March 30 at 2 pm. Please
find the details about the event below (and how to register).
Best Regards,
Ishtiaque
==
Syed Ishtiaque Ahmed
Assistant Professor
Department of Computer Science
Faculty Fellow, Schwartz Reisman Institute <https://www.torontosri.ca/>
The University of Toronto
Program Committee Chair, ICTD 2022 <https://ictd.org/ictd2022/>
Bahen Centre for Information Technology, Room 5262
Saint George Street, Toronto, ON M5S 2E4, Canada
Ph: +1 647 220 3482
web: https://www.ishtiaque.net/
My Availability: Google Calendar Link
<https://calendar.google.com/calendar/embed?src=ishtiaque.uoft%40gmail.com&c…>
==
---------- Forwarded message ---------
From: Priyank Chandra <priyank.chandra(a)utoronto.ca>
Date: Fri, Mar 25, 2022 at 4:24 PM
Subject: Critical Computing Seminar (March 30): "Media Ruins:
Infrastructural Restitution and Building Futures in Post-Conflict Cambodia"
To: ISCHOOL-FAC-REG-L(a)LISTSERV.UTORONTO.CA <
ISCHOOL-FAC-REG-L(a)listserv.utoronto.ca>
Cc: Ishtiaque Ahmed <ishtiaque(a)cs.toronto.edu>, Robert Soden <
robert.soden(a)utoronto.ca>, Adrian Petterson <a.petterson(a)mail.utoronto.ca>,
Mohammad Rashidujjaman Rifat <rashidujjaman.rifat(a)mail.utoronto.ca>, Cansu
Ekmekcioglu <cansu.ekmekcioglu(a)mail.utoronto.ca>
Dear All,
We are happy to announce the March edition of the Critical Computing
seminar series. This a monthly online seminar where we invite scholars to
discuss topics in critical computing. The objective of the seminar is to
create a broader understanding of computing from different ethical, social,
and cultural perspectives. You will find more information about this
seminar series and upcoming speakers by following the link:
https://sites.google.com/view/uoft-critical-computing/seminar-series
This month (March, 2022), Margaret "Maggie" Jack, a postdoctoral scholar
from Syracuse University will give a talk on “*Media Ruins: Infrastructural
Restitution and Building Futures in Post-Conflict Cambodia*” on *Wednesday,
March 30, 2am to 3:30pm EST.*
We invite you all to join the seminar. Please check the following link for
more details about the seminar at:
https://sites.google.com/view/uoft-critical-computing/seminar-series/margar….
The registration link is at: https://bit.ly/CCS_MaggieJack.
A flyer is also attached to this email, and I have appended the seminar
details at the bottom of this email. Please feel free to forward this
invitation to anyone interested (within and outside UofT).
We look forward to seeing you all at the seminar.
Best Regards,
Priyank Chandra (On behalf of the Organizers)
Assistant Professor
Faculty of Information
University of Toronto
*Media Ruins: Infrastructural Restitution and Building Futures
in Post-Conflict Cambodia*
Maggie Jack, Syracuse University, The School of Information
Maggiejack.info
@slouching_mags
*Time:* 30 March, 2022 from 2-3.30 PM, EST
The registration link is: https://bit.ly/CCS_MaggieJack
This talk describes the ways that Cambodian new media creators commemorate
lost artists and an imagined better way of life through finding, repairing,
and disseminating historical film, photography and cinema artifacts from
before the Khmer Rouge period, often using digital tools. Reconstructing
such media artifacts through a process of *infrastructural restitution *is
a mode of healing from decades of national conflict and a form of subtle
political action in an increasingly authoritarian Phnom Penh. Building on
theory at the intersection of infrastructure studies (Star and Ruhleder,
1996; Larkin, 2013) and media’s relationship to memory (Gordon, 2008;
Larkin, 2008; Richards, 1994), the concept of infrastructural restitution
allows us to (re)integrate the importance of memory, the affective, and the
spiritual into scholarship of infrastructure. This case gives new insight
into the tension in transnational technology use between creative
appropriation and the problematic political economy of mainstream
platforms. The empirical sections of this talk are based on my historical
and ethnographic research in Phnom Penh beginning in January 2014,
including 20 months of full-time research from June 2017-January 2019.
*Bio:* I am a postdoctoral scholar on the NSF-funded project “Creating
Work/Life <https://creatingworklife.com/>” with a team spanning Syracuse
University (PI: Ingrid Erickson
<https://ischool.syr.edu/people/directories/view/imericks/>) and University
of California, Irvine (PI: Melissa Mazmanian <https://melissamazmanian.com/>).
I am a research affiliate at the Digital Life Initiative
<https://www.dli.tech.cornell.edu/> at Cornell Tech in New York City and an
adjunct professor at NYU Tandon, teaching “Transnational Technology” in the
spring of 2022. I hold a PhD in Information Science
<https://infosci.cornell.edu/> (2020) from Cornell University, where I had
a minor PhD concentration in Anthropology
<https://anthropology.cornell.edu/> and was an active member of the Southeast
Asia Program <https://seap.einaudi.cornell.edu/>. I use my past
professional experiences in the technology industry in Silicon Valley and
the international development sector and my academic background in the
History of Science (BA Harvard University; MPhil University of Cambridge)
to approach questions of contemporary computing with both scholarly and
practical lenses. My writing is published in the *Proceedings of the SIGCHI
Conference on Human Factors in Computing *(CHI), * Interactions* *Magazine*,
*The Information Society*, *Global Perspectives*, *Computer Supported
Cooperative Work* (CSCW), and elsewhere. My book-in-progress *Media Ruins*
is under contract in the Labor and Technology series at the MIT Press
(Katie Helke, editor; Winifred Poster, series editor).
*List of relevant work:*
- *Margaret Jack* and Seyram Avle. “A Feminist Geopolitics of Technology”*
Global Perspectives*. June 2021. <https://doi.org/10.1525/gp.2021.24398>
https://online.ucpress.edu/gp/article/2/1/24398/117347/A-Feminist-Geopoliti…
- *Margaret Jack*, Sopheak Chann, Steven J Jackson, and Nicola Dell.
2021. Networked Authoritarianism at the Edge: The Digital and Political
Transitions of Cambodian Village Officials.Proc. *ACM Hum.-Comput.
Interact.*5, CSCW1, Article 50 (April 2021).
<https://www.maggiejack.info/s/Networked_Authoritarianism_at_the_Edge.pdf>
https://dl.acm.org/doi/abs/10.1145/3449124
- *Media Ruins: Cambodian Postwar Infrastructural Restitution and the
Geopolitics of Technology*, forthcoming book
Hi Everyone,
Just a reminder that we'll be having an invited talk from Parastoo Abtahi
tomorrow at 12pm EST. The talk will be virtual:
https://utoronto.zoom.us/j/96404556988.
Best,
Blaine
*Title*: From Haptic Illusions in Virtual Reality to Beyond-Real
Interactions
*Abstract*: Advances in audiovisual rendering have led to the
commercialization of virtual reality (VR) hardware; however, haptic
technology has not kept up with these advances. While haptic devices aim to
bridge this gap by simulating the sensation of touch, there are many
hardware limitations that make realistic touch interactions in VR
challenging. In my research, I explore how by understanding human
perception, we can design VR interactions that not only overcome the
current limitations of VR hardware, but also extend our abilities beyond
what is possible in the real world. In this talk, I will present my work on
redirection illusions that leverage the limits of human perception to
improve the perceived performance of encountered-type haptic devices, such
as improving the position accuracy of drones, the speed of tabletop robots,
and the resolution of shape displays when used for haptics in VR. I will
then present a framework I have developed through the lens of sensorimotor
control theory to argue for the exploration and evaluation of VR
interactions that go beyond mimicking reality.
*Bio*: Parastoo Abtahi is a final year computer science PhD candidate and a
Gerald J. Lieberman fellow at Stanford University, where she is co-advised
by Prof. James Landay and Prof. Sean Follmer. Her research area is
human-computer interaction (HCI) and she works broadly on virtual reality
interactions and spatial computing. Her research has been published at top
HCI venues, such as the ACM Conference on Human Factors in Computing
Systems (CHI) and the ACM User Interface Software and Technology Symposium
(UIST), and has received two honorable mention paper awards. Her work has
been supported by the Stanford Institute for Human-Centered Artificial
Intelligence, the Hasso Plattner Design Thinking Research Program, and the
VMware fellowship. Prior to Stanford, Parastoo received her bachelor’s
degree in Electrical and Computer Engineering from the University of
Toronto as part of the Engineering Science program.
Hi Everyone!
As you probably know, the UIST abstract deadline is quickly approaching, as
such this week for the HCI meeting we will be doing an abstract swap +
workshop. Here is a document
<https://docs.google.com/document/d/1_Py9uC366ebThl6AIDXl6ulC0hXhpi_eiSPGwwU…>
I've put together on how to write an effective abstract, but hopefully
others can contribute as well. Looking forward to seeing you there, and try
to make sure to bring an abstract (doesn't have to be for UIST) and benefit
from each others' feedback.
Best,
Blaine