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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20181102T093000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20181102T103000
DTSTAMP:20260505T213650
CREATED:20181026T221000Z
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SUMMARY:CID Speaker Series: How Cheap Smartphones and Off-The-Shelf Machine Learning are Changing the Government in Pakistan
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Prof. Umar Saif\, Chairman of the Punjab Information Technology Board 	About the talk: In this talk\, Prof. Saif will present a series of large-scale systems which use cheap smartphones and machine learning to inform policy in the government. Specifically\, the talk will focus on three areas: (1) Agriculture: Their platform\, FoodAtHome.org\, uses free multi-spectral imagery\, smartphone-based ground-truthing and distributed volunteer-computing to make weekly crop yield predictions in Punjab. (2) Vaccination: Their system\, eVaccs\, uses smartphones to track mobile vaccinators and satellite imagery to detect population clusters\, resulting in vaccination improvement from 43% to 87%. (3) Data Collection: Their platform\, SurveyAuto\, enables an uber-style market place for crowdsourcing local data and uses machine learning to automatically analyze the quality of crowdsourced data.       	About the speaker: Prof. Saif is Chairman of the Punjab Informational Technology Board (PITB)\, heading all public-sector IT projects in Punjab\, Pakistan. He is also founding Vice Chancellor of ITU\, a newly setup research university in Lahore. He holds a PhD from Cambridge University and worked at MIT for several years before returning to Pakistan. He was named as one of the top 35 young innovators by the MIT Technology Review in 2011 and a Young Global Leader by the World Economic Forum in 2010. He has received various accolades that include a Google Faculty Research Award\, MIT Technovator\, IEEE Percom Mark Weiser Award amongst others. In 2014\, Prof. Saif was awarded Sitara-I-Imtiaz\, one of the highest civil awards by the government of Pakistan\, and he was named among the 500 most influential Muslims in the world in 2015-2018. Dr. Saif was appointed the UNESCO Chair for ICT for Development in 2018. 
URL:https://growthlab.hks.harvard.edu/event/cid-speaker-series-how-cheap-smartphones-and-off-the-shelf-machine-learning-are-changing-the-government-in-pakistan/
LOCATION:Perkins Room (R429) – Rubenstein 4th Floor
CATEGORIES:Speaker Series
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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20181102T120000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20181102T130000
DTSTAMP:20260505T213650
CREATED:20180815T190500Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250916T175425Z
UID:14851-1541160000-1541163600@growthlab.hks.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:CID Speaker Series: Politicising Inequality: The Power of Ideas
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Alice Evans\, Associate\, Building State Capability Program and Lecturer\, King’s College London 	About the talk: A contemporary challenge is inequality. In this seminar\, Alice Evans will present findings from her paper\, “Politicising Inequality: The Power of Ideas”. The paper illustrates why ideas matter\, and how they can change over time. Inequalities are reinforced when they are taken for granted. But this can be disrupted when marginalised people gain self-esteem; challenge hitherto unquestioned inequalities; and gain confidence in the possibility of social change. Slowly and incrementally\, social mobilisation can catalyse greater government commitment to socially inclusive economic growth. This is illustrated with ethnographic research from Latin America\, where income inequality has recently declined. Clearly\, however\, no single paper can provide a comprehensive account of political change in an incredibly diverse region. By highlighting some ways in which ideas matter (and the limitations of alternative hypotheses about increased fiscal space and democratisation)\, this paper merely seeks to persuade political economists to go beyond ‘incentives’. Future efforts to tackle inequality might harness the power of ideas: tackling ‘norm perceptions’ (beliefs about what others think and do); publicising positive deviance; and strengthening social movements. 	About the speaker: Alice Evans is writing a book on “The Global Politics of Decent Work”. Through comparative research on strengthening corporate accountability\, Alice explores how to resolve global collective action problems and improve workers’ rights. She has published on the causes of falling inequality in Latin America; social movements; rising support for gender equality; cities as catalysts of social change; and the politics of maternal mortality.She is a Lecturer at King’s College London\, with previous appointments at Cambridge and the LSE.
URL:https://growthlab.hks.harvard.edu/event/cid-speaker-series-politicising-inequality-the-power-of-ideas/
LOCATION:Democracy Lab AB (R414 AB) – Rubenstein 4th Floor
CATEGORIES:Speaker Series
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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20181116T130000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20181116T140000
DTSTAMP:20260505T213650
CREATED:20180815T190800Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250916T175425Z
UID:14849-1542373200-1542376800@growthlab.hks.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:CID Speaker Series: New Pathways to Inclusive Growth: Sri Lanka Project in Retrospect
DESCRIPTION:Speakers: Daniel Stock\, Research Fellow\, CID; Timothy O’Brien\, Research Fellow\, CID; Sehar Noor\, Research Assistant\, CID 	About the talk: Starting in November 2015\, the Center for International Development’s Growth Lab has been engaged in economic policy research with the Government of Sri Lanka. Led by Professor Ricardo Hausmann\, the team has focused on a single question: what is holding back investment in Sri Lanka – especially in new and non-traditional export-oriented sectors – and what can the government do about it? In this talk\, members of the Sri Lanka team will show what they learned. First\, a lack of new economic “knowhow” has meant that there are few easy opportunities for innovative investors to exploit. Next\, the investors who do arrive find significant roadblocks to their success; these include policy barriers to reaching markets and key inputs\, and infrastructural gaps at the regional level. As these challenges became clear\, the team partnered with key counterparts in the government and civil society to support potential solutions\, and to better understand the deeper institutional gaps that prevent proactive policymaking. 	About the speakers: Daniel Stock rejoined the Center for International Development’s Growth Lab as a Research Fellow in 2015. He also held this position from 2011-2013. He studies how countries apply proactive strategies to promote structural transformation. His research focuses on using network models to uncover new opportunities for diversifying exports and attracting new sources of investment. Prior to joining CID\, Daniel was a Junior Professional Associate at the World Bank\, working with governments to improve the investment climate for local businesses and FDI. Daniel has also worked as a researcher at the MIT Media Lab’s Macro Connections group\, and a Research Intern at the International Labour Organization (ILO) in Santiago\, Chile. Daniel earned a B.S. in Quantitative Economics and International Relations from Tufts University.  	Tim O’Brien joined the Center for International Development in 2015\, working on both Growth Lab and Building State Capability projects.He has led growth diagnostic research in Albania and Sri Lanka. Tim holds a Master in Public Administration in International Development (MPA/ID) degree from the Harvard Kennedy School and a B.S. in mechanical engineering from Northwestern University. Tim served as a Peace Corps volunteer in Malawi from 2008-2010 and has experience working with the World Bank and in environmental engineering. Tim’s research interests center on the challenges of economic transformation and adapting to climate change in developing countries and vulnerable communities. 	Sehar Noor is a Research Assistant at the Center for International Development’s Growth Lab. Sehar graduated from Rollins College in May 2016 with honors in Economics and International Affairs. While at Rollins\, she served as captain of the debate team\, and studied abroad in Cuba and China. Her previous experience includes conducting fieldwork in disaster relief camps as an intern for the Aga Khan Rural Support Program in Gilgit\, Pakistan\, and interning with the Human Trafficking and Migrant Smuggling Unit of the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime in Islamabad\, Pakistan. 	  	  	 
URL:https://growthlab.hks.harvard.edu/event/cid-speaker-series-new-pathways-to-inclusive-growth-sri-lanka-project-in-retrospect/
LOCATION:Democracy Lab AB (R414 AB) – Rubenstein 4th Floor
CATEGORIES:Speaker Series
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DTSTART;TZID=America/New_York:20181130T130000
DTEND;TZID=America/New_York:20181130T140000
DTSTAMP:20260505T213650
CREATED:20180815T190900Z
LAST-MODIFIED:20250916T175425Z
UID:14835-1543582800-1543586400@growthlab.hks.harvard.edu
SUMMARY:CID Speaker Series: Cash Transfer Programs in Developing Countries: Insights from Indonesia
DESCRIPTION:Speaker: Aaron Berman\, Research Fellow\, Evidence for Policy Design (EPoD) 	About the talk: In this talk\, Aaron Berman will present an overview of EPoD’s research on cash transfers in developing countries\, led by Professors Rema Hanna (HKS) and Ben Olken (MIT). He will focus in particular on two research projects. The first\, “Universal Basic Incomes versus Targeted Transfers: Anti-Poverty Programs in Developing Countries\,” explores several considerations related to the design and implementation of cash transfer programs and weighs the advantages of targeted programs against universal basic income schemes. The second\, “Cumulative Impacts of Conditional Cash Transfers: Experimental Evidence from Indonesia\,” evaluates a large-scale policy experiment involving Program Keluarga Harapan (PKH)\, Indonesia’s conditional cash transfer program\, six years after the program’s launch. In this paper\, Hanna\, Olken\, and co-authors show that the conditional cash transfer continues to have large impacts on incentivized health-seeking behaviors and educational attainment for children ages 7 to 15. Additionally\, the program has had longer-term impacts on health outcomes\, such as stunting\, that may require cumulative investments. This project contributes to a relatively new body of knowledge on the long-term impacts of conditional cash transfer programs\, which have previously been difficult to estimate. 	About the speaker: Aaron Berman is a research fellow at Evidence for Policy Design (EPoD) at Harvard Kennedy School\, where he supports the research portfolio of Rema Hanna\, Jeffrey Cheah Professor of South-East Asia Studies. He has spent his time at EPoD studying the implementation and impacts of various anti-poverty programs in Indonesia and India. Aaron’s research interests focus on the intersection between economics\, public health\, and medicine. He has previously worked on projects related to Ebola response in Liberia as well as on state-level drug pricing legislation in the US. He holds a BA from Yale University and an MPH from the Yale School of Public Health.
URL:https://growthlab.hks.harvard.edu/event/cid-speaker-series-cash-transfer-programs-in-developing-countries-insights-from-indonesia/
LOCATION:Perkins Room (R429) – Rubenstein Building 4th floor
CATEGORIES:Speaker Series
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