The three-day international conference on Emerging Multimedia Technology for Social Equity and Empowerment was organised by the Department of Animation and Multimedia, Birla Institute of Technology (BITs), Mesra Ranchi at its Noida Campus. The conference was sponsored by SERB (DST), Ministry of Science and Technology, Government of India, New Delhi. It was partially funded and supported by the Kent State University, Ohio, USA. The other major conference partners were the Kiran Nadar Museum of Arts, Wacom India ltd and Pssamtek Media Pvt ltd.
A progressive need is felt to bring forth the critical need and importance of Communication for Development (C4D) from the esoteric closet where it now lies confined to an open multidisciplinary platform for greater stimulation and application. Behaviour change and participatory communication which are the two most critical C4D application tools is now cliqued in the domain of communication studies but paradoxically their application is not. In fact, most of the applications in terms of communication for social change are often done without most practitioners of development policies even becoming aware of it.
What is also very critical here is the fact that intrinsically a multidisciplinary domain, C4D is undergoing constant and sustained innovation and reinvention due to the progress in the contemporary studies in the sciences, technology, humanities and the arts. It is this need to absorb the best practices in the very applications of communication for social change as well as in its theory that this need to deliberate on the domain on an international platform was felt strongly by the organisers. That the need was current and critical also gets reflected by the international participation and the other industry-institute-government partnership of the conference.