Michael L. Best

Michael L. Best is an American computer scientist and international development specialist. He is professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology where he holds a joint appointment with the Sam Nunn School of International Affairs and the School of Interactive Computing. He is Executive Director of the Institute for People and Technology(IPaT) and Director of the Technologies and International Development Lab. Best served as founding director of the United Nations University 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 and leads the "Global Computing" column for Communications of the ACM. 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).