Mine4Dev 2015 - 1st African Workshop on Open Data and Data Mining for Development

It is now commonly accepted that ICT4D has the potential of drastically enhancing the daily life of millions of people in developing countries. A major challenge of ICT4D however is to build tools and yield results that are in line with the context of developing countries. This challenge can be addressed when relevant data is made available to everyone for mining.
In this context, the momentum of Open Data, which is supported by NGOs, governments and international organizations, has created numerous opportunities for ICT4D. Mining those data to extract hidden information, uncover correlation and predict events based on machine-learning classification is thus the next step for bringing development forward thanks to ICT.
Mine4Dev aims at becoming the premier forum where practitioners, policy makers and researchers meet and discuss about issues and trends, recent research, innovation advances and on-the-field experiences related to open-data and data-mining with a focus on developing countries (and more particularly Africa).
*Topics of Interest*
Mine4Dev is expected to highlight use cases that are based on specific problems linked to local realities both in rural and urban areas. The objective is to unfold realistic scenarios that wisely integrate the social context (e.g. the level of education of the population and its consequences) and the technological environment (e.g. the most common communications technologies) of the concerned areas.
As such, Mine4Dev 2015 solicits high-quality short papers reporting research results and/or experimental results as well as policy proposals/emerging ideas/practice contributions on open-data and data-mining initiatives. Students are also encouraged to submit papers describing on-going work for a Master or PhD program.
Submissions will be judged on their originality, significance, clarity, relevance, and technical correctness. The topics of interest to the workshop include, but are not limited to:
- civic education regarding the increase of public awareness about the functioning of the administration and public services (e.g. network of public transportation)
- wellbeing regarding the anticipation/management of health crises (e.g. effective prevention of high-risk behaviors)
- sustainable development for the savings of resources that can be driven by data mining (e.g. rational use of energy and waste management)
- support mechanisms for helping economic operators to make decisions that lead to profitable outcomes relatively to their activities (e.g. farmers and crop management according to best practices)
- economic growth in terms of business opportunities/business models raised by the availability of open data (e.g. supply of analysis tools dedicated to the informal sector)
- development of smart spaces in which people can make use of digital services that facilitate and enhance their daily life.