#11 - IFIP WG 9.4 | my eternal wings

Assalamu’alaikum,

Greetings, everyone!

It has been quite long time since the last time I posted something. I’m not sure why I could hardly find mood to start blogging again. But I’m feeling like I have the urge to write again and share some events that I’ve experienced in my second semester of university since sophomore year is over.

The IFIP WG 9.4

The IFIP WG 9.4 itself held a conference in Indonesia named The 14th International Conference on Social Implications of Computers in Developing Countries. For those who don’t know what IFIP WG is exactly: The IFIP stands for International Federation of Information Processing, and WG is an abbreviation of working group. You can check out further information about the IFIP WG 9.4 by clicking HERE.

What did I do and how could I be there?

I was chosen—or asked to be exact, by one of my favorite lecturer back then. I met mr. Fathul Wahid on the hallway, and he asked me whether I could find colleagues in Marketing & Communication (marcomm) team who could speak english fluently. I was curious why and thought that maybe there would be some kind of international event, so I offered myself. Well, it turned out that mr. Fathul was the chairman of the conference. Then I asked him if I could join, he asked me back if I wanted, and DUH WHO DIDN’T?

Well, it turned out that mr. Fathul was the chairman of the conference so no wonder he asked me to be the committee personally.

(sorry for being hyperbolic)

So yeah, I did my job as a committee for a super interesting conference like the IFIP WG 9.4. I worked with my colleagues in marcomm; Dinda, Mbak Titi, and Mas Rizal. Since the event itself was supported by my university and Universitas Sanata Darma (USD), there were others committee too from USD; Mas Imam, Mas Rusydi, Mbak Novi, and Mbak Medi. Since we are all from the same field of study which is computer science, I asked various of question about what they are going to do in nearest future. They were super kind to me.

There were two most memorable things that I could hardly forget. The first one was when I was being asked by one of the conference participants to transfer money in rupiah to his acquaintance. His name was Andry Dearden, a professor of interactive systems design from Sheffield Hallam University. He was so surprised to know that the atm machine would show the recipient’s name right after we type the account number. He said that we wouldn’t be able to see the recepient’s name from atm machine in UK. And the other thing that I found difficult to forget was when I’m being told to accompany Madam Africa—that’s how we called one lady from Africa who seemed to be charismatic, to buy batik in Ambarrukmo Plaza just beside the Hotel we were in. When we were in the store with the Madam Africa, we met other African participants. So it felt like a gathering, they were discussing what Batik they would like to buy as a gift for their family members. Funny to hear they arguing about which design was the most similar to Nelson Mandela’s Batik.

Lot of things happened and those were all amazing and definitely hard to forget. So let’s move to the topic of the conference. As a freshman university student, I found the topic so interesting. I didn’t know much yet, but it really thrived my curiosity. These are the list of the topics in The IFIP WG 9.4 Conference:

· Large Scale and Complex Information Systems for Development
· Women Empowerment and Gender Justice
· Social Mechanisms of ICT-Enabled Development
· The Data Revolution and Sustainable Development Goals
· Critical Perspectives on ICT and Open Innovation for Development
· The Contribution of Practice Theories to ICT for Development
· Agile Development
· Sustainability in ICT4D
· Information Systems Development and Implementation in Southeast Asia

And many more! I have a bit preview of the proceeding and plenty of the presentation from the comference so please do contact me by sending me a request to: sabika.amalina@gmail.com.