Sponsored by the Center for Human Potential and Public Policy in Collaboration with the Chicago Council on Science and Technology (C2ST)
Thursday, November 20, 2008
5:15 P.M. - 7:30 P.M.*
The Standard Club
320 S. Plymouth Court | Chicago, IL 60604
Speaker
Robert W. Fairlie is Professor of Economics at the University of California, Santa Cruz and adjunct
researcher at RAND. He was a Visiting Fellow at Yale University and Australian National University. His main research interests include
ethnic and racial patterns of business ownership and performance, entrepreneurship, access to technology and the "Digital Divide," immigration, and
education. He recently finished a book on race and entrepreneurial success with MIT Press. He has written several recent articles on ethnic and
racial disparities in access to technology, the effects of access to technology on educational outcomes, and technology use in developing countries.
He is currently conducting a randomized study of access to home computers among financial aid students at a rural community college and an evaluation
of the Maine one-to-one laptop program. His research on technology has been funded by the William T. Grant Foundation, U.S. Small Business Administration,
the Networks, Electronic Commerce and Telecommunications ("NET") Institute, and the Community Technology Foundation of California. He has also testified
to U.S. Congress and the California State Assembly, Committee on Utilities and Commerce regarding his findings on the Digital Divide. Dr. Fairlie holds a
Ph.D. and M.A. in Economics from Northwestern University and a B.A. with honors from Stanford University.
Panelists
Hardik Bhatt is the Chief Information Officer of the City of Chicago. Mr. Bhatt is also the Commissioner of the Department of
Innovation & Technology of the City of Chicago, the City's primary technology planning, implementation and maintenance organization. As the Chief
Information Officer and the Commissioner of the Department of the Department of Innovation and Technology, Mr. Bhatt's role is protect City's existing
investment in Information Technology while identifying and implementing new and innovative technology solutions that deliver efficiencies in service to
the citizens of the City of Chicago. Mr. Bhatt has worked for the City of Chicago in other technology- focused capacities since 2003. Before joining
city government, Mr. Bhatt worked for private sector companies for 10 years, including at Oracle Corporation and Tata Consultancy Services (India) as a
technology consultant. Mr. Bhatt received an Executive MBA in 2005 from the J.L. Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University and a
Bachelor of Engineering Degree in Computer Science from Maharaja Sayajirao University of Baroda, India.
Eszter Hargittai is Associate Professor of Communication Studies and Faculty Associate of the Institute for Policy Research at
Northwestern University where she heads the Web Use Project. She received her Ph.D. in Sociology from Princeton University where she was a Wilson Scholar.
Her research focuses on differences in people's digital media uses, skills and participation with particular interest in how information technologies may
contribute to or alleviate social inequality. Her current work is sponsored by grants from the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation and the
National Science Foundation. In 2006-07, she was a Fellow at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford. This year, she is a
Fellow at the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard University where she is working on a book about Internet use and social inequality.
Facilitator
Ofer Malamud, an Assistant Professor in the Harris School, primarily conducts research in the fields of labor economics and the economics of education. His work focuses on the labor market outcomes associated with general and specific education. In particular, he has examined the relative returns to academic and vocational education in Romania and the trade-off between early specialization and the gains from delaying the choice of a major field of study in Britain. He has also studied the effect of education on regional mobility using the unintended effect of attending college to avoid the Vietnam draft, and most recently, the effect of home computer use on child and adolescent outcomes. Malamud received his Ph.D. in economics from Harvard University in 2004, where he also graduated magna cum laude with a B.A. in economics and philosophy.
