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Development

The MD4SG Development working group fosters collaboration and discussion amongst practitioners and academics to understand and tackle issues pertaining to the role and application of technology in addressing challenges in emerging nations and under-resourced settings. We study how techniques from algorithm and mechanism design, computational social science, and optimization can inform and help advance existing development policies and practices.

Ongoing Projects #

Vaccine sharing behaviour in the COVID-19 pandemic: the impact of narratives and peer effects #

  • Authors: Michelle González Amador, Simon Finster, Edwin Lock
  • Project Summary: Our incentivised experiment provides evidence that the willingness to give towards vaccines in low- and middle-income countries is guided more strongly by altruism than self-interest, and is influenced by peer effects. In our study, more than 800 GBP were donated to the COVAX vaccine access initiative.

Directory to Promote Collaboration #

  • Project Summary: One of the challenges of enacting MD4SG is often making connections. Our goal is to create a directory to support making connections between researchers, stakeholders, and students from all over the world. We hope this will lower the barrier to starting this important work.

Past Projects #

  • Rediet Abebe, Irene lo, Dina Machuve, Francisco Marmolejo-Cossío, Moses Namara, Ezinne Nwankwo, and Mwiza Simbeya. “Market and Mechanism Design Challenges in African Agriculture”. In preparation.
  • Ezinne Nwankwo, Chinasa T. Okolo, Cynthia Habonimana. “Topic Modeling Approaches for Understanding COVID-19 Misinformation Spread in Sub-Saharan Africa.” In the AI for Social Good Workshop (Harvard University CRCS), 2020.
  • Chinasa T. Okolo*, Michelle Gonzalez Amador*. “ACIPS: A Framework for Evaluating Patient Perception in the Introduction of AI-enabled Healthcare.” Accepted to the Data4Good: Designing for Diversity and Development workshop at the International Conference on Advanced Visual Interfaces (AVI).
  • Okolo, Chinasa and MD4SG Working Group on Development. COVID-19 in the Global South Part 1. https://medium.com/eaamo/covid-19-in-the-global-south-4ceefeb09165

Working Group Organizers #

Cynthia HabonimanaMachine Learning ResearcherMirza
Elizabeth Bondi-KellyPostdoctoral Fellow, Incoming Assistant ProfessorMIT, University of Michigan
Nuredin AliPhD StudentUniversiy of Minnesota

Working Group Members #

Michelle González AmadorPh.D. FellowUNU-MERIT / Maastricht University
Tejumade AfonjaDoctoral Researcher / Co-founderCispa Helmholtz Center for Information Security, Saarland University / AI Saturdays Lagos
illenin kondoSenior Research EconomistFederal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis
Siphelele DanisaMSc GraduateUniversity of Toronto
Olumurejiwa FatundePostdocRotman School of Management, University of Toronto
Simon FinsterPostdocCREST-ENSAE, Paris
Edwin LockResearch FellowNuffield College, University of Oxford
Chinasa OkoloPh.D. Student in Computer ScienceCornell University
Kennedy Rodgers Odongo
Ajani Adedeji
Azubuike Prince Chinazaekpere
Melsew Belachew
Abdulakeem Yusuf Ademola
Ma. Cristina Bargo
Owolafe OtasowieFederal University of Technology, Akure
Olukayode Akanni
Ruben Martinez-Cardenas
Al-Bashir Muhammad
Calvin Williams
Vijay Keswani
Genevieve SmithPhD CandidateOxford
Charles Van-Hein SackeyPhD StudentCMU
George Obaido
Idowu Aruleba