From Rural Village to Smart Village

Heather E. Hudson is a leading global authority on communications for development. She is Professor Emerita at the University of San Francisco, and former Director of the Institute of Social and Economic Research (ISER), University of Alaska Anchorage, and was previously the founding professor in new communication technology and policy at the University of Texas at Austin. Her research focuses on applications and impacts of communication technologies for socio-economic development, regulatory issues, and policies and strategies to extend affordable access to digital connectivity in rural and developing regions. She has planned and evaluated communication projects in northern Canada and Alaska and in more than 50 developing countries and emerging economies in Africa, Asia, the Caribbean and the South Pacific. She has consulted for government agencies, consumer and Indigenous organizations, the private sector, and international organizations including USAID, the World Bank, the ITU, UNDP, UNESCO, CIDA, IDRC, and the Commonwealth of Learning. Professor Hudson has held a Fulbright Policy Research Chair and a Fulbright Asia-Pacific Distinguished Lectureship. She has published numerous articles and written or co-authored eight previous books on information and communications technologies (ICTs) for development, international communications, communications policy, and satellites.