Can existing technologies be adapted to meet the diverse needs of people living in developing countries, where local languages vary, literacy is low and access to electrical power, not to mention bandwidth, is limited? Or are new technologies needed instead? Can lessons learned in one part of the world be transferred to other regions?
These are just some of the questions Microsoft Research India, one of five Microsoft Research labs worldwide, attempts to address in its research. They are also the questions that nearly 200 academic and industry researchers and students from around the world are gathering to discuss today at the International Conference on Information and Communications Technology and Development (ICTD) 2006. The first in what will be a series of such conferences, ICTD 2006 was jointly developed by Microsoft Research India and the University of California, Berkeley.
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