The IDIA Conference Series: An Overview of the International Development Informatics Association

The International Development Informatics Association (IDIA) was an academic organization devoted to the scholarly study of information and communication technology in development contexts. Its annual conference series ran from 2007 to 2015, producing eight conferences and a substantial body of peer-reviewed research on ICT4D topics across sub-Saharan Africa, Asia, Latin America, and the Pacific.

This overview covers the IDIA conference series — its origins, the communities it served, its thematic evolution, and its enduring contribution to the ICT4D scholarly literature.

Origins and Institutional Context

IDIA emerged from a community of ICT4D researchers centered in southern Africa, particularly at universities in South Africa (the University of the Western Cape, the University of Cape Town, and institutions in Johannesburg and Pretoria) and in other parts of sub-Saharan Africa. The founding group recognized a gap in the existing conference landscape: while IFIP WG 9.4 (the International Federation for Information Processing’s working group on social implications of ICT in developing countries) was the dominant international venue, southern African researchers wanted a conference closer to home, more attentive to African contexts, and more accessible to scholars from the region.

The founding conference was held in South Africa in 2007, bringing together approximately 80 researchers for paper presentations, panels, and workshops. The organizing model was intentionally inclusive: submission fees and registration costs were structured to enable participation from African university researchers and postgraduate students who might not have the resources for more expensive European or North American conferences.

Conference Locations and Scale

The IDIA conferences moved among countries and regions across their eight-year history:

Year	Location	Theme Focus
2007	South Africa	Southern African ICT4D
2008	South Africa	Expanding scope to African contexts
2009	South Africa	ICT and rural development
2010	South Africa/Botswana	Regional expansion
2011	Multiple venues	Global South perspectives
2012	South Africa	Government and governance
2014	Namibia	Mobile and digital services
2015	Multiple venues	Final conference year

The conferences typically drew 100–250 researchers, practitioners, and postgraduate students. Participation from African universities grew over the series, reflecting the conference’s stated commitment to building regional research capacity.

Research Themes Across the Series

The IDIA proceedings reflect the major research themes of ICT4D over the conference decade:

Early years (2007–2009): Infrastructure and access Early IDIA papers focused heavily on connectivity infrastructure — the status of broadband rollout in southern Africa, telecentre programs, school connectivity, and the barriers to basic ICT access in rural and peri-urban contexts. This reflected the period’s dominant policy concern with closing the access gap.

Middle years (2010–2012): Applications and adoption As connectivity expanded and mobile phones became more widespread, research questions shifted toward applications — mobile health programs, agricultural information services, e-government initiatives, mobile banking. Papers examined adoption patterns, usage practices, and the factors that determined whether deployed systems actually served their intended users.

Later years (2013–2015): Critique and theory By the final years, the conference had developed a more theoretically sophisticated program that included explicit engagement with critical perspectives — postcolonial theory, the capabilities approach, feminist technology studies — alongside empirical work. The community had matured from primarily descriptive work to more interpretive and critical research.

Publication and Archive

IDIA proceedings were published in refereed volumes, with papers subject to peer review before acceptance. The conference produced a significant body of literature — several hundred papers over the series — covering case studies, theoretical contributions, and methodological papers.

The proceedings represent a substantial archival resource for researchers working in ICT4D, particularly on sub-Saharan African contexts. Many papers that appeared in IDIA proceedings were subsequently published in expanded form in ICT4D journals and represent early work by scholars who went on to significant careers in the field.

This site maintains an archival index of the IDIA conference series to ensure that research produced by and for African scholarship communities remains discoverable and accessible.

IDIA’s Contribution to Research Capacity

One of IDIA’s stated goals was to contribute to ICT4D research capacity in southern Africa — to train and support a new generation of scholars who would do ICT4D research from within African institutions rather than primarily from European or North American universities studying African contexts from a distance.

The conference served this goal through:

Postgraduate workshops: Most IDIA conferences included dedicated workshops for PhD and master’s students, providing structured mentoring from established researchers
Affordable registration: Cost structures specifically designed to enable participation from African universities
Publication support: Mentored paths from workshop paper to refereed proceedings publication
Network building: The sustained community of scholars who met repeatedly over eight years created lasting collaboration networks across southern African and international ICT4D research communities

The Legacy

IDIA ceased operations after 2015. The research community it served has continued through other venues — IFIP WG 9.4, the ICT4D conference series, and journals in the field — but the IDIA series stands as a documented archive of ICT4D research in a specific era and region.

For a field that was explicitly committed to centering Global South perspectives and voices, the IDIA archive represents a concrete output of that commitment: scholarship conducted by and for researchers in the communities being studied, rather than scholarship about those communities from a distance.

The papers in this archive are cited in subsequent work by ICT4D researchers around the world. They contributed foundational case studies, theoretical frameworks, and methodological debates that continue to shape the field.

Frequently Asked Questions

Why did IDIA stop holding conferences after 2015? The specific organizational decisions that led to IDIA’s conclusion have not been fully documented publicly. Contributing factors likely included the broader consolidation of the ICT4D conference landscape, changes in funding availability for regional academic conferences, and the evolution of research community structures. The ICT4D field has continued to hold active conferences through other organizations.

Can I still access IDIA conference papers? This archive maintains indexing of IDIA conference papers. Some papers are available through institutional repositories at the universities where authors were based. Researchers seeking specific papers are encouraged to contact the authors directly or their institutional libraries.

Did IDIA overlap with IFIP WG 9.4? Yes, significantly. Many researchers participated in both communities, and some papers were developed in IDIA workshops before being submitted to IFIP venues (or vice versa). The conferences had complementary rather than competing roles — IDIA was more regionally focused on southern Africa and more accessible to early-career African researchers.

Were IDIA papers peer-reviewed? Yes. The conference operated a standard peer review process, with submitted papers reviewed by multiple members of the program committee (researchers active in ICT4D fields) before acceptance for the proceedings.

Who were the key organizers of the IDIA conference series? The founding and organizing community was primarily drawn from South African universities, with participation from international scholars who had long-standing connections to the southern African ICT4D research community. The specifics of organizing roles varied across the series.