CTED Conference Series
Overview
The Center for Technology and Economic Development (CTED) series aims to explore how technology can help developing regions around the world. Researchers and experts from information technology and economic development sectors present ways through which cutting edge technology can be applied to overcome challenges in communication, energy, health care and financial services.
Dates
February 12-13, 2012
9:00 AM-6:00 PM
Location
Intercontinental Hotel, Abu Dhabi, UAE
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Contact
Conference Conveners
Yaw Nyarko
Professor of Economics, NYUNY; Principal Investigator and Director of CTED, NYUAD
Lakshminarayanan Subramanian
Assistant Professor, Courant Institute of Mathematical Sciences, NYUNY; Co-Principal Investigator, CTED, NYUAD
Agenda
Download a detailed conference agenda
Organizing Institution
The Center for Technology and Economic Development (CTED) is a full service center devoted to the study and application of Technology in poor and rural areas. The Center focuses on the development of innovative and cutting edge technologies that can significantly improve economic development in under-developed areas around the world.
The Center draws from a broad multidisciplinary expertise already available at NYU and NYU Polytechnic Institute in economics and economic development, foreign aid policy, management, microfinance, politics, computer science, electrical engineering, biomedical engineering, physics, chemistry, materials science and engineering. Many of the initial projects of the Center revolve around applications of the mobile phone, which has penetrated rural poor countries at surprisingly high rates. These projects allow for innovative uses of mobile phones by creating new rural markets, mobile banking and payments systems, telemedicine platforms, monitoring HIV/AIDS drug intake, among many others. Some projects explore more technical issues such as low cost network connectivity, SMS search and tamper-resistant paper watermarking techniques verifiable by mobile phones and their applications. Other projects use new technologies to provide the rural poor with access to electricity without relying on expensive national grids, particularly through decentralized solar energy, as well as researching the use of micro-finance type tools to finance it. The Center not only produces high quality research in the respective disciplinary fields, but also seeks to develop new ideas which will have a large impact on the poor. CTED projects have been pilot-tested in many countries in Asia, Africa and America in partnership with several organizations in the individual countries.
- For more information visit cted.nyu.edu