[...]this special issue focuses on 1) improving how we understand "development" as more than an arena for empirical research and instead as a vehicle to substantively analyze how ICT can foster it and 2) challenging authors to identify learning in their work in the ICT4D discipline that could inform and contribute to the evolution of the broader IS discipline. The emergence of "reverse innovations" from which mainstream IS can learn from ICT4D research not only reflects the steadily increasing maturity of the ICT4D discipline but also highlights the importance of development as a phenomenon, that concerns each and everyone in the world and not only those living in so-called "developing countries". [...]this special issue is timely given a global context that features great complexity, uncertainty, and new challenges (e.g., security, migration, and, climate change to name a few) and the IS discipline's need to cumulatively evolve to better support these challenges. The more developed countries can learn much from these innovations. [...]sizeable pockets of underdeveloped areas exist in the developed world; indeed, developed countries still need to address extreme social deprivation in some urban and rural settings. [...]we have the stark reality that researchers based in institutions located in developing countries make limited contributions to both the mainstream and ICT4D disciplines.