The United Nations University Institute in Macau, formerly the United Nations University International Institute for Software Technology (UNU-IIST; ;

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

: ''Instituto Internacional para Tecnologia de Programação da Universidade das Nações Unidas'') and then United Nations University Institute on Computing and Society (UNU-CS; ), is a

United Nations University The (UNU) is the think tank and academic arm of the United Nations. Headquartered in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan, with diplomatic status as a UN institution, its mission is to help resolve global issues related to human development and welfare thro ...

global think tank conducting research and training on digital technologies for sustainable development, encouraging data-driven and evidence-based actions and policies to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. UNU-Macau is located in

Macau Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a pop ...

, China.

History

During 1987–1989,

conducted two studies regarding the need for a research and training centre for computing in the developing nations. The studies led to the decision of the Council of the UNU to establish in Macau the United Nations University International Institute for Software Technology (UNU-IIST), which was founded on 12 March 1991 and opened its door in July 1992.https://staff.fnwi.uva.nl/c.a.middelburg/unu-iist.pdf UNU-IIST was created following the agreement between the UN, the governments of Macau, Portugal, and China. The Macao authorities also supplied the institute with its office premises, located in a heritage building Casa Silva Mendes, and subsidize fellow accommodation. As part of the

United Nations The United Nations (UN) is an intergovernmental organization whose stated purposes are to maintain international peace and international security, security, develop friendly relations among nations, achieve international cooperation, and be ...

, the institute was to address the pressing global problems of human survival, development and welfare by international co-operation, research and advanced training in software technology. After the

Transfer of sovereignty over Macau The transfer of sovereignty of Macau (; pt, Transferência da soberania de Macau) from Portugal to the People's Republic of China (PRC) occurred on 20 December 1999. Macau was settled by Portuguese merchants in 1557, during the Ming dynasty ...

, UNU-IIST lost some level of visibility.

United Nations University Institute on Computing and Society

Eventually, in 2015, UNU decided to evolve the former IIST into a new Institute on Computing and Society (UNU-CS). UNU-CS intended to assist the

to achieve its agenda by working as a bridge between the UN and the international academic and public policy communities, training the next generation of interdisciplinary scientists in computing, social sciences, and design for international development. The UNU-CS director Professor Michael L. Best was in charge of building the new succeeding institute "from scratch".

Goal

The goal of UNU-CS was "to nurture the next generation of

computer A computer is a machine that can be programmed to Execution (computing), carry out sequences of arithmetic or logical operations (computation) automatically. Modern digital electronic computers can perform generic sets of operations known as C ...

and

social scientists Social science is one of the branches of science, devoted to the study of societies and the relationships among individuals within those societies. The term was formerly used to refer to the field of sociology, the original "science of soc ...

with the ability to participate in, shape and benefit from the rapid development of the global information society." A research start-up, UNU-CS aims to do the following: * Lead in investigating and inventing human-centred information and communication technologies addressing some of the priorities central to the United Nations such as: sustainability, development, governance, peace and security, human rights and human dignity. * Impact policymakers, within the UN system and beyond, through actionable knowledge and thought-leadership. * Nurture the next generation of inter-disciplinary computing, information and social scientists; and engineers in developing countries. * Embrace the enormous dynamism of the city of Macau and Pearl River Delta region while still working globally. According to its founding director, Professor Michael Best, his goal is "to raise the profile of the Institute as a centre of excellence in the UN system effectively responding to the needs of the developing world in this crucially important area".

Administration

The current director is Dr. Jingbo Huang. ;Former directors * Prof. Michael L. Best (2015–2018): directed the Technologies and International Development Lab as an associate professor at the

Sam Nunn School of International Affairs The Sam Nunn School of International Affairs, at the Georgia Institute of Technology located in Atlanta, Georgia is the only professional school of international affairs at a major technological institution. Founded in 1990, the School was renam ...

and the School of Interactive Computing at Georgia Institute of Technology. He is also a co-founder and editor-in-chief emeritus of the journal ''

Information Technologies and International Development ''Information Technologies & International Development'' (''ITID'') is an open access print and online peer review, peer-reviewed academic journal covering studies on communication and international development, published quarterly by the USC Annen ...

'' and a faculty associate of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University. Professor Best leads the Global Computing column for

Communications of the ACM ''Communications of the ACM'' is the monthly journal of the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM). It was established in 1958, with Saul Rosen as its first managing editor. It is sent to all ACM members. Articles are intended for readers with ...

. He holds a

PhD PHD or PhD may refer to: * Doctor of Philosophy (PhD), an academic qualification Entertainment * '' PhD: Phantasy Degree'', a Korean comic series * ''Piled Higher and Deeper'', a web comic * Ph.D. (band), a 1980s British group ** Ph.D. (Ph.D. albu ...

from

MIT The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is a private land-grant research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Established in 1861, MIT has played a key role in the development of modern technology and science, and is one of the mo ...

and has served as director of Media Lab Asia in India and head of the group at the

MIT Media Lab The MIT Media Lab is a research laboratory at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, growing out of MIT's Architecture Machine Group in the School of Architecture. Its research does not restrict to fixed academic disciplines, but draws from ...

. * Prof. Peter Haddawy (2010–2015) * Prof. Mike Reed (2005–2010) * Prof.

Zhou Chaochen Zhou Chaochen (; born 1 November 1937) is a Chinese computer scientist. Zhou was born in Nanhui, Shanghai, China. He studied as an undergraduate at the Department of Mathematics and Mechanics, Peking University (1954–1958) and as a postgra ...

(1997–2002) * Prof.

Dines Bjorner Dines is a name. It can be a surname which is either English or Yiddish, or it can be a Danish given name. Surname Dines is an English surname. Dines is also a Jewish Romanian surname, derived from a woman named Dina. In Yiddish, it means "Dina's ...

(1992–1997)

Laboratories

As of 2015, three "action-oriented research labs" were being developed: *Digital Peace Lab: ICTs for peacebuilding and to support human security, respond to crises, and mitigate human displacement. *Gender Tech Lab: ICTs that promote women's empowerment and enable sustainable community led development. *Small Data Lab: ICTs that create actionable knowledge from local data, empower citizens with data they trust, and improve global datasets with local data.

Center for Electronic Governance

The Center for Electronic Governance at UNU-IIST is an International Center of Excellence on

research Research is "creativity, creative and systematic work undertaken to increase the stock of knowledge". It involves the collection, organization and analysis of evidence to increase understanding of a topic, characterized by a particular att ...

and practice in Electronic Governance. Established in 2007, the center has been built upon the contribution of UNU-IIST to the eMacao Project (2004–2006) and eMacao Program (2007-now), a collaborative initiative to build and utilize a foundation for Electronic Government in Macao SAR. Since 2010, it has become an official programme of UNU-IIST. The mission of the Center for Electronic Governance at UNU-IIST is to support governments in

developing countries A developing country is a sovereign state with a lesser developed industrial base and a lower Human Development Index (HDI) relative to other countries. However, this definition is not universally agreed upon. There is also no clear agreem ...

in strategic use of

technology Technology is the application of knowledge to reach practical goals in a specifiable and reproducible way. The word ''technology'' may also mean the product of such an endeavor. The use of technology is widely prevalent in medicine, science, ...

to transform the working of public organizations and their relationships with

citizens Citizenship is a "relationship between an individual and a state to which the individual owes allegiance and in turn is entitled to its protection". Each state determines the conditions under which it will recognize persons as its citizens, and ...

business Business is the practice of making one's living or making money by producing or Trade, buying and selling Product (business), products (such as goods and Service (economics), services). It is also "any activity or enterprise entered into for pr ...

es,

civil society Civil society can be understood as the "third sector" of society, distinct from government and business, and including the family and the private sphere.policy Policy is a deliberate system of guidelines to guide decisions and achieve rational outcomes. A policy is a statement of intent and is implemented as a procedure or protocol. Policies are generally adopted by a governance body within an organ ...

research,

capacity building Capacity building (or capacity development, capacity strengthening) is the improvement in an individual's or organization's facility (or capability) "to produce, perform or deploy". The terms ''capacity building'' and ''capacity development'' ha ...

and various forms of development –

strategy Strategy (from Greek στρατηγία ''stratēgia'', "art of troop leader; office of general, command, generalship") is a general plan to achieve one or more long-term or overall goals under conditions of uncertainty. In the sense of the "art ...

development,

software Software is a set of computer programs and associated documentation and data. This is in contrast to hardware, from which the system is built and which actually performs the work. At the lowest programming level, executable code consists ...

development, institutional development and development of

communities of practice A community of practice (CoP) is a group of people who "share a concern or a passion for something they do and learn how to do it better as they interact regularly". The concept was first proposed by cognitive anthropologist Jean Lave and educati ...

. The Center, since July 2014, became United Nations University Operating Unit on Policy-Driven Electronic Governance (UNU-EGOV), following the appointment and relocation from Macau to Guimarães of former members of the Center.

Teaching

The Center regularly organizes and conducts schools,

seminar A seminar is a form of academic instruction, either at an academic institution or offered by a commercial or professional organization. It has the function of bringing together small groups for recurring meetings, focusing each time on some parti ...

lecture A lecture (from Latin ''lēctūra'' “reading” ) is an oral presentation intended to present information or teach people about a particular subject, for example by a university or college teacher. Lectures are used to convey critical inform ...

s and

presentation A presentation conveys information from a speaker to an audience. Presentations are typically demonstrations, introduction, lecture, or speech meant to inform, persuade, inspire, motivate, build goodwill, or present a new idea/product. Presenta ...

s for

government A government is the system or group of people governing an organized community, generally a state. In the case of its broad associative definition, government normally consists of legislature, executive, and judiciary. Government is a ...

leaders, managers, researchers, educators, etc. on various aspects of Electronic Governance. Various courses and presentation materials from these events are available.

Conferences

The center established in 2007 and since then leads the organization of a series of International Conferences on Electronic Governance
ICEGOV
, with the first four editions in

Macao Macau or Macao (; ; ; ), officially the Macao Special Administrative Region of the People's Republic of China (MSAR), is a city and special administrative region of China in the western Pearl River Delta by the South China Sea. With a pop ...

Cairo Cairo ( ; ar, القاهرة, al-Qāhirah, ) is the capital of Egypt and its largest city, home to 10 million people. It is also part of the largest urban agglomeration in Africa, the Arab world and the Middle East: The Greater Cairo metro ...

, Bogota, and

Beijing } Beijing ( ; ; ), alternatively romanized as Peking ( ), is the capital of the People's Republic of China. It is the center of power and development of the country. Beijing is the world's most populous national capital city, with over 21 ...

.ICEGOV2010
/ref>

References

External links

United Nations University Institute on Computing and Society

United Nations University headquarters website

UNU-IIST Website

United Nations University (UNU)

United Nations University Vice-Rectorate in Europe (UNU-ViE)

United Nations University Office in Paris (UNU-OP)

United Nations University Office in New York (UNU-ONY)

Center for Electronic Governance at UNU-IIST

International Conference on Theory and Practice of Electronic Governance
* Center for Electronic Governance: *
Publications
**Projects: **
Developing Electronic Governance in Afghanistan – Assessment, Strategy, Implementation – EGOV.AF
*** Developing Electronic Governance in Cameroon – Assessment, Strategy, Implementation – EGOV.CM **
Evaluation of Electronic Government Training by EU-China Information Society Project
**
Government Enterprise Architecture Framework
**
Government Information Sharing
**
Knowledge Management for Electronic Governance
**
Capacity Building for Electronic Governance
**
IT Leadership and Coordination
**Research: **
Development Models and Frameworks
**
Assessment, Evaluation and Measurement
**
Strategies, Architectures and Alignment
**
Software Infrastructure and Services
**
Knowledge Management and Leadership
**
International Comparative Studies
{{coord, 22, 11, 45, N, 113, 32, 55.75, E, type:landmark, display=title Educational institutions established in 1992 Computer science departments Formal methods organizations International research institutes Research institutes in China Computer science institutes United Nations organizations based in Asia Universities in Macau

International Institute for Software Technology The United Nations University Institute in Macau, formerly the United Nations University International Institute for Software Technology (UNU-IIST; ; Portuguese: ''Instituto Internacional para Tecnologia de Programação da Universidade das Naç ...

1992 establishments in Macau