KUCHING: University of Technology Sarawak (UTS) will host the Participatory Design Conference (PDC) Malaysia Place from Aug 17 to Aug 20 in Sibu.
According to a press release issued yesterday, the conference which is co-organised by the UTS, Sarawak Digital Economy Corporation (SDEC) and Association for Progressive Communications will highlight transcultural, transnational and trans-disciplinary learning gained through building international partnerships and engaging with local indigenous community partners in Long Lamai and Bawang Assan.
Deputy Minister for Education, Innovation and Talent Development Dr Annuar Rapaee, Deputy Minister in the Premier’s Department (Labour, Immigration and Project Monitoring) Datuk Gerawat Gala will be featured as speakers together with other international speakers from Colombia, Sweden, Singapore, India, Australia, Malaysia and Canada.
The speakers will reflect upon how academia, policymakers, the development sector, and community members can engage in critical debates on what it means to design technologies for social justice, inclusiveness, and sustainability.
The conference programme includes a high-level policy dialogue on the status of digital inclusion and meaningful connectivity in the state of Sarawak, an International Network for Postgraduate Students (IPID-Asia) mentor-mentees session for young scholars in the field of Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D), a workshop on Service Learning, community workshops in Fuzhou World Heritage Gallery, Sibu Digital Innovation Hub, and a full-day session in Bawang Assan longhouse on establishing indigenous climate observatory for local actions.
Participants will also witness the memorandum of understanding (MoU) and memorandum of agreement (MoA) exchange ceremony between the University of Technology Sarawak and two of the collaborators, Sarawak Development Institute and Malmö University Sweden.
PDC Malaysia Place is sponsored by Yayasan Sarawak, Business Events Sarawak and the International Network for Postgraduate Students in the Area of ICT4D (IPID) of SPIDER, Stockholm University Sweden.
This international conference is for the first time in Malaysia where technologists, artists, academics and development partners and agencies from around the world explore new participative approaches to designing safe, inclusive, and equitable technologies.
For any further information, please contact Programme Co-Chairs Associate Professor Dr Tariq Zaman (tariqzaman@uts.edu.my) or Gary Loh Chee Wyai (gary@uts.edu.my).
