LAHORE: The Information Technology University (ITU) on Monday announced to host the 9th international conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development (ICTD) Pakistan 2017. The four-day conference will be held from November 16 to 19 November this year in the provincial capital. According to a statement, the ITU has set deadline for submission of short papers. Accepted papers will be presented at the conference as posters and the top notes will be invited for oral presentations, which will be made available in the ACM Digital Library. The ICTD is a research conference that explores the role of information and communication technologies (ICT) in global development. The conference reflects the multidisciplinary and multi-sectoral nature of ICTD work, with representation from a broad range of areas (anthropology, communication, computer science, design, economics, electrical engineering, geography, global health, information science, political science, sociology, and many others), as well as participation from academia, industry, civil society, and government, the statement maintained. “The ITU and the Punjab Information Technology Board (PITB) have been pioneers in developing, testing and scaling up ICT applications in areas of healthcare, education, agriculture and livestock, and governance.” The last decade has proven very significant in terms of progress for the IT industry in Pakistan. With the opening of incubators, accelerators and angel funding networks, there has been an exponential growth in tech start-ups coming out of Pakistan and raising venture funding from abroad. “The ICTD is an ideal place for researchers and practitioners to present their work and form collaborations and networks. Earlier ICTD conferences were held in Berkeley, Bangalore, Doha, London, Atlanta, Cape Town, Singapore and Ann Arbor. The Information Technology University is a public sector university in the provincial capital. Established in 2013, the university was founded by Dr Umar Saif and was modeled after the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. The university was established with an aim to advance scholarship and innovation in the areas of science, technology and engineering. Published in Daily Times, July 4th , 2017.