Ernest J. Wilson III
Director
Center for International Development and Conflict Management,
University of Maryland

Ernest J. Wilson III has wide experience in both international affairs and information/communications issues. He has served in senior positions in the White House, the U.S. Information Agency, the private sector and in the academy. In addition to serving as the Director of the Center for International Development and Conflict Management (CIDCM) at the University of Maryland, Dr. Wilson is also Associate Professor of Government and Politics and Afro-American Studies and a Faculty Associate in the School of Public Affairs. He is a Senior Advisor to the Global Information Infrastructure Commission.

Wilson has been involved in international affairs for many years, combining scholarship and writing with applied programs and projects in Africa, Eastern Europe and Latin America. Before coming to the University of Maryland at College Park, Wilson directed the Center for Research on Economic Development at the University of Michigan, where he taught for ten years. Wilson's scholarship focuses on international political economy and public policy. He is the author or editor of several books and studies on the political economy of international oil, the global information revolution, and on economic reform in developing countries. His most recent work, National Information Infrastructure Initiatives, was co-edited with Brian Kahin and published in 1997 by MIT Press.

In 1993-94 he served as director for International Programs and Resources on the National Security Council at the White House, where his responsibilities encompassed foreign assistance and international economic programs as well as the reform of U.S. international broadcasting, including Radio Free Europe, Voice of America, and Radio Asia. He also established and directed the Policy and Planning Unit in the Office of the Director of the U.S. Information Agency. In 1994 he was asked to help create the Global Information Infrastructure Commission (GIIC), a new private sector organization of 40 CEOs and government leaders from around the world. He served as deputy director of the GIIC in 1994-95.

Dr. Wilson is currently preparing a report for the Rockefeller Brothers Fund on the impact of the information revolution on conflict and cooperation in developing countries. His recent report, prepared for the Center for Strategic and International studies (CSIS), "The Information Revolution Comes to Africa," also combines his interest in Africa and the information revolution. Dr. Wilson directs a project on the impact of information technology on development and conflict, sponsored by the U.S. Agency for International Development's Leland Initiative, which is helping to bring greater internet connectivity to Africa. Dr. Wilson appears frequently on CNN, CNN International, ABC, The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Market Place, and other media as well.

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