The Sir John Monash Lecture (04/2015)

30 July 2015

Venue: Plenary Theatre, Monash University Malaysia
Time: 6pm

Pursuing the United Nations Millennium Development Goals: Lessons Learnt from Villages in a Developing Country

The pursuit of the United Nations Millennium Development Goals is of economic and social significance to the poorest citizens of less developed countries. Information and communication technologies (ICTs) are seen to have the potential to help achieve these goals. Yet, the presence of a digital divide exists across a variety of demographic, ethnic, and geographic dimensions. Overcoming the digital divide by successfully deploying ICTs in developing countries can have major socioeconomic implications. ICTs can be a cornerstone for the development of these countries by providing better quality of life through greater access to education, health care, and government. ICT success is rare, with up to 85% failing to some degree in developing countries.

Professor Venkatesh will discuss a large-scale longitudinal (10+ years) research project being conducted in India among over 3,000 farming families across 10 villages. Lessons from this project will be valuable for countries in ASEAN which intend to nurture a more inclusive socioeconomic development model.

Speaker

Professor Viswanath Venkatesh

Professor Venkatesh is a Distinguished Professor and Billingsley Chair in Information Systems at the Walton College of Business, University of Arkansas.

He has presented his ongoing work in villages in India at the United Nations, where he has also served on an expert panel on the advancement of women in less developed countries. He has published his work in leading journals in human-computer interaction, information systems, management, psychology, operations, and marketing. He is recognised to be among the most influential scholars in business and economics, with over 42,000 cites per Google Scholar and over 11,000 cites per Web of Science. Thomson Reuters rated him as the most cited information systems scholar, 23rd highest in business over a 10-year period (1998-2007) and among the top-1% most-cited scholars in business based on articles published from 2000 to 2012.