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This is the nineteenth episode of our podcast based on the vignettes contributed by friends and colleagues to Tim Unwin’s new book Digital Technologies in an Unequal World: An Empancipatory Manfesto. In it, Revi Sterling reflects on the challenges facing gender digital inclusion, and asks: “I wonder what we did wrong for the last twenty years. Were we ahead of ourselves? Were we just Cassandras warning people about restrictive social norms and technology determinism? It’s a petty bitterness I have. There’s a twinge of resentment when I look at the ‘new’ gender and digital inclusion research agendas – re...

This is the eighteenth episode of our podcast based on the vignettes contributed by friends and colleagues to Tim Unwin’s new book Digital Technologies in an Unequal World: An Empancipatory Manfesto. In it, Paul Spiesberger argues that those who can should switch to Linux OS, support initiatives such as Public Money Public Code, encrypt data, use decentralised Internet services, and dusrupt power structures by demanding policy changes.

The full vignette can be read here.

Audio read by Georg Steinfelder

All audio files relating to the book are also available on ou...

Este é o décimo sétimo episódio do nosso podcast baseado nas histórias de amigos e colegas que contribuíram para o novo livro de Tim Unwin, Digital Technologies in an Unequal World: An Empancipatory Manfesto. Nele, Fernanda Scur ilustra como “Qualquer solução digital deve… ser complexa e, acima de tudo, ter em conta tanto o contexto a que se destina como as partes interessadas que precisam de estar envolvidas na sua implementação”. Isto é ilustrado pelo exemplo de como “o governo federal brasileiro ofereceu ajuda financeira de emergência a trabalhadores informais e pequenos empresários durante a pandem...

This is the seventeenth episode of our podcast based on the vignettes contributed by friends and colleagues to Tim Unwin’s new book Digital Technologies in an Unequal World: An Empancipatory Manfesto. In it, Fernanda Scur illlustrates how “Any digital solution must … be complex and above all take into consideration both the context for which it is intended and the stakeholders that need to be involved in its implementation”. This is illustrated through the example of how “Brazil’s federal government offered financial emergency aid to informal workers and small entrepreneurs during the COVID pandemic in the early 2020s”.

This is the sixteenth episode of our podcast based on the vignettes contributed by friends and colleagues to Tim Unwin’s new book Digital Technologies in an Unequal World: An Empancipatory Manfesto. In it, Benita Rowe illustrates how “Digital interventions aimed at preventing or responding to gender-based violence (GBV) have re-emerged in recent years in cyclical form, each positioned as a world-first innovation”. Yet, she argues that “Despite differences in format, these interventions often replicate a flawed set of design assumptions that consistently fail to
account for lived realities”.

The full vignette can be read here...

This is the fifteenth episode of our podcast based on the vignettes contributed by friends and colleagues to Tim Unwin’s new book Digital Technologies in an Unequal World: An Empancipatory Manfesto. In it, Nimmi Rangaswamy concludes that “What was once imagined as a shared, empowering infrastructure has become a personalised, pay-per-use playground — curated for binge and scroll rather than community or collective good. The Internet in India today is more a screen in the palm than a shared window. It entertains more than it empowers, and connects more to content than to community”.

The full vig...

This is the fourteenth episode of our podcast based on the vignettes contributed by friends and colleagues to Tim Unwin’s new book Digital Technologies in an Unequal World: An Empancipatory Manfesto. In it, Nnenna Nwakanma tells the story of her experiences having asked to visit a “school that the media has touted as the ‘model’” of good use of digital tech in education in a West African country. As she notes, “I needed to see things for myself, where the rubber hits the road. I also refused any ‘official’ or ‘media-related’ accompaniment”. The vignette reports on the schocks she encountered when s...

Voici le treizième épisode de notre podcast, inspiré des témoignages d’amis et de collègues qui ont contribué au nouveau livre de Tim Unwin, «Digital Technologies in an Unequal World: An Empancipatory Manfesto». Yuliya Morenets y raconte sa rencontre dans le hall d’inscription d’un événement IGF, illustrant comment l’inclusion des jeunes privilégie souvent la familiarité à l’innovation. Elle conclut : « Si nous voulons une véritable participation, nous devons dépasser le symbolisme. Nous devons investir dans les jeunes, non seulement comme des acteurs, mais aussi comme des bâtisseurs : imparfaits, passionnés et toujours en apprentissage...

This is the thirteenth episode of our podcast based on the vignettes contributed by friends and colleagues to Tim Unwin’s new book Digital Technologies in an Unequal World: An Empancipatory Manfesto. In it, Yuliya Morenets tells the story of an encounter in the registration lobby of an IGF event to show how youth inclusion often rewards familiarity over innovation. She concludes that “If we want real participation, we must move beyond tokenism. We need to invest in youth not just as performers, but as builders—messy, passionate, and still learning. The point is not to polish every voice but to...

This is the twelfth episode of our podcast based on the vignettes contributed by friends and colleagues to Tim Unwin’s new book Digital Technologies in an Unequal World: An Empancipatory Manfesto. In it, David Hollow argues that building a cuture of evidence-driven decision making can help ensure that EdTech is used wisely to mitigate the global learning crisis. He argues that everyone can contribute to building such a culture of evidence-based decision-making in EdTech by asking the following question: will this use of technology lead to an impact on learning outcomes that is cost-effective and works at scale?

This is the eleventh episode of our podcast based on the vignettes contributed by friends and colleagues to Tim Unwin’s new book Digital Technologies in an Unequal World: An Empancipatory Manfesto. In it, Janet Longmore provides a summary of the six main learnings from the work of Digital Opportunity Trust with young people drawing especially on their recent experiences in Rwanda and Uganda. Implementation of these learnings can provide a fundamental ‘mindset shift’ that reflects new skills and an entrepreneurial socially responsible spirit, resiliency and adaptability among young people that are critical for navigating employment and self-employment opportunities in a d...

This is the tenth episode of our podcast based on the vignettes contributed by friends and colleagues to Tim Unwin’s new book Digital Technologies in an Unequal World: An Empancipatory Manfesto. In it, Nick Hughes argues that “we must use technology to create new economic wealth by either helping someone make money or save money: market-creating innovation“. He then provides insights into how he thinks this can happen, suggesting that “The next phase of development will see digital payments linked to real-time economic output data. The use-cases are multiple, with the following being just a few: clean energy from dis...

This is the ninth episode of our podcast based on the vignettes contributed by friends and colleagues to Tim Unwin’s new book Digital Technologies in an Unequal World: An Empancipatory Manfesto. Our dear friend and colleague, Nigel Hickson was to have written one of these vignettes based on his wealth of experience working on Internet Governance, especially for the British Government and ICANN, but his untimely death meant that he was unable to complete it. Instead, some of his friends have contributed very short pieces on what it was that made him so special, and a model to fo...

This is the eighth episode of our podcast based on the vignettes contributed by friends and colleagues to Tim Unwin’s new book Digital Technologies in an Unequal World: An Empancipatory Manfesto. Our dear friend and colleague, Nigel Hickson was to have written one of these vignettes based on his wealth of experience working on Internet Governance, especially for the British Government and ICANN, but his untimely death meant that he was unable to complete it. Instead, some of his friends have contributed very short pieces on what it was that made him so special, and a model to fo...

This is the seventh episode of our podcast based on the vignettes contributed by friends and colleagues to Tim Unwin’s new book Digital Technologies in an Unequal World: An Empancipatory Manfesto. In it, Hari argues that “Empowering marginalised groups through our work with digital technologies, and striving to make the world a better place as a result may be lofty aspirations, but they are worth pursuing. That will require us all to get out of our comfort zones and find ways to prioritise outcomes, commit time and resources, and engage with communities on the ground, rather than in the...

This is the sixth episode of our podcast based on the vignettes contributed by friends and colleagues to Tim Unwin’s new book Digital Technologies in an Unequal World: An Empancipatory Manfesto. In it, Mei Lin Fung suggests that “The painful history of poorly defined land rights, which in the past led to displacement through lack of formal documentation, offers a crucial lesson for the digital age”. She concludes optimistically that “We still have time to shape the digital future so that it reflects the dignity of everyone it touches — and ensures meaningful participation for anyone, anywhere”

The full vig...

This is the fifth episode of our podcast based on the vignettes contributed by friends and colleagues to Tim Unwin’s new book Digital Technologies in an Unequal World: An Empancipatory Manfesto. In it, Domenico asks the important question “So who has the power today to ‘represent’ digitally the world’s languages, the core of human cultures?”. He answers: “It is a group of Western, predominantly English-speaking and U.S.-based corporations”. However, he concludes optimistically that “the real Web is becoming multilingual and multicultural, regardless of all its hegemonic and mainstream representations”

Audio in Italian

The full vignette...

This is the fourth episode of our podcast based on the vignettes contributed by friends and colleagues to Tim Unwin’s new book Digital Technologies in an Unequal World: An Empancipatory Manfesto. Our dear friend and colleague, Nigel Hickson was to have written one of these vignettes based on his wealth of experience working on Internet Governance, especially for the British Government and ICANN, but his untimely death meant that he was unable to complete it. Instead, some of his friends have contributed very short pieces on what it was that made him so special, and a model to fo...

This is the third episode of our podcast based on the vignettes contributed by friends and colleagues to Tim Unwin’s new book Digital Technologies in an Unequal World: An Empancipatory Manfesto. In it, Ken focuses perceptively on the reasons why so many digital initiative notionally intended to help the poor often fail to do so. As he says “I worked for 15 years trying to give a voice to, and support, the work of grassroots organisations through digital tech, but
my frustration in a wider development system that didn’t seem to want to do what they knew was be...

This is the second episode of our podcast based on the vignettes contributed by friends and colleagues to Tim Unwin’s new book Digital Technologies in an Unequal World: An Empancipatory Manfesto. In it, Marine focuses critically on aspects of the digital privatisation of India’s administrative systems. The vignette can also be read here.

Marine is a sociologist and a CNRS Fellow at the Center for the Study of Social Movements (EHESS-Paris) and French Institute of Pondicherry in India. Her research focuses on digital policies in Asia and Africa and more particularly on digital heal...

This is the first episode of our podcast based on the vignettes contributed by friends and colleagues to Tim Unwin’s new book Digital Technologies in an Unequal World: An Empancipatory Manfesto. In it, Tendani highlights how digital tech is being used to exploit young women in southern Africa. The vignette can also be read here.

Tendani is a passionate and driven professional committed to making a difference through inclusive leadership, academic excellence, and impactful research. She advocates for representation and social justice, using technology to empower communities. Her work bridges academia (UCT), corporate insight, and public en...

Members of the UNESCO Chair in ICT4D led an exciting  collaborative initiative between June and September 2020 to produce a Report on practical guidance for governments on using digital technologies to enhance their education systems once the immediate crisis caused by the COVID-19 pandemic had passed (see Summary).  The Report is (relatively) short, succinct and practical, and includes a series of brief Guidance Notes addressing the most important actvities that governments need to address to ensure the inclusion of some of the world’s poorest and most marginalised people.  This work was funded by DFID (now FCDO) and the World...