Michael L. Best is an American computer scientist and international development specialist. He is professor at the

Georgia Institute of Technology The Georgia Institute of Technology, commonly referred to as Georgia Tech or, in the state of Georgia, as Tech or The Institute, is a public research university and institute of technology in Atlanta, Georgia. Established in 1885, it is part of ...

where he holds a joint appointment with 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. He is Executive Director of th
Institute for People and Technology(IPaT)
ref> and Director of th
Technologies and International Development Lab
Best served as founding director of the

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 ...

Institute on Computing and Society established in 2015. Working in the areas of ICT4D, he is co-founder and editor-in-chief emeritus of 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 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 has published on various topics such as formative work in ICT sustainability, rural access, and ICTs for peacebuilding in conflict stressed environments. His work has done much to promote ICT4D as an academic discipline having founded the area's most significant journal ( ITID) and helped to lead its largest conference (ICTD).

Early life and education

Best was born in Los Angeles, California. He attended

UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California. UCLA's academic roots were established in 1881 as a teachers college then known as the southern branch of the California St ...

for undergraduate studies in

computer science and engineering Computer Science and Engineering (CSE) is an academic program at many universities which comprises scientific and engineering aspects of computing. CSE is also a term often used in Europe to translate the name of engineering informatics academic ...

, where for his senior thesis he developed, on a Connection Machine, a massively parallel algorithm for the graph coloring problem. After graduating with a BS in 1989 he joined Thinking Machines Corp in Cambridge, Massachusetts, where he worked on various projects, including parallel programming languages, message passing I/O, and network simulation for the CM 5 supercomputer. Best attended graduate school at the MIT Media Lab, receiving an MS under the supervision of Ken Haase. His PhD work, supervised by Pattie Maes, applied evolutionary theory to problems in text analysis and retrieval.

ICT4D and Georgia Tech

Upon graduating with his PhD in 2000, Best joined the Media Lab as a research scientist and the Center for International Development at

Harvard University Harvard University is a private Ivy League research university in Cambridge, Massachusetts. Founded in 1636 as Harvard College and named for its first benefactor, the Puritan clergyman John Harvard, it is the oldest institution of higher le ...

as a research fellow. He went on to direct the eDevelopment Group at the MIT Media Lab as well as

Media Lab Asia Introduction Digital India Corporation is a not for profit Company set up by Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology (MeitY), Govt. of India, under Section 8 of Companies Act 2013.Digital India Corporation (DIC) leads and guides in reali ...

, at the time an MIT Media Lab collaborative research initiative in India. He has served as fellow or faculty associate of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University since 2003. In 2008, Best joined the Georgia Institute of Technology as an assistant professor. In 2011 he received tenure and was promoted to associate professor and then to full professor. He directs th
Technologies and International Development Lab (TID Lab)
where he has supervised many global projects, in particular in Africa and South Asia. The TID Lab is a multi-disciplinary research collaborative combining social and computer sciences with policy and design. At Georgia Tech he has received substantial recognition for his work including the Ivan Allen Faculty Legacy Award (2009), People & Technology Award (2011), and Stephen A. Denning Faculty Award for Global Engagement (2014). His work has been supported by a variety of sponsors including The MacArthur Foundation,

USAID The United States Agency for International Development (USAID) is an independent agency of the U.S. federal government that is primarily responsible for administering civilian foreign aid and development assistance. With a budget of over $27 bi ...

, and

Microsoft Microsoft Corporation is an American multinational technology corporation producing computer software, consumer electronics, personal computers, and related services headquartered at the Microsoft Redmond campus located in Redmond, Washing ...

. He has published 100 papers in journals, conferences, or books. Best has made numerous contributions towards establishing ICT4D as an academic discipline. He is the founding editor-in-chief, with

Ernest J. Wilson III Ernest James Wilson III (born c. 1948) is an American scholar. Wilson was the Walter Annenberg Chair in Communication, and Dean of the Annenberg School for Communication (USC Annenberg) at the University of Southern California (USC), Los Angele ...

, of the field's highest-rated journal, ''

'' (ITID). In addition he is one of the early organizers of the area's major conference, the International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development, having served as its general chair in 2012. He is founder and lead of the Global Computing column for

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Best, Michael UCLA Henry Samueli School of Engineering and Applied Science alumni Massachusetts Institute of Technology alumni