Development and Democracy/Research

Towards Democratic Governance of Digital Society is the January 2024 edition of the WACC's Media Development Journal. This issue seeks to address growing concerns around the potential for governments, security services, and Big Tech to misuse digital technologies to suppress and exploit users.…

Our Research Associate, Ranjitha Kumar, authored a paper titled, ‘Realising Data Cooperatives in the Digital Epoch: SEWA’s Journey to Reclaim Agri-Value Chains’ for the sixth issue of COOP Dialogue on Positioning Cooperatives in the Gig and Platform Economy, published by the International…

IT for Change is pleased to announce the call for applications for the second edition of its residential institute on ‘Frontiers and Frames for a New Digitality,’ organized by the School of Digital Justice, IT for Change and supported by the Fair, Green and Global Alliance.

Please note…

In this project, IT for Change, the Institute of Development Studies (IDS), and country partners unpack how micro, small and medium enterprise (MSME) participation in the global economy is increasingly shaped by the rapid deployment of digital technologies, as well as the mediating impact of…

This report explores the digitalization of Micro, Small, and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) in India's agriculture and allied sectors, focusing on how these enterprises are navigating the evolving digital landscape. MSMEs are a critical part of the Indian economy, contributing significantly to…

The entry of generative AI applications in the digital marketplace has intensified recent public debates about AI. Silicon Valley’s ‘move fast’ techno-optimism is now under the scanner. A humane and just AI system requires a radical restructuring of the global political-economic regime of…

Tech titans are fostering new forms of digital colonialism, both within wealthy countries and on the global stage. But it’s not too late to build a digital economy that works for everyone.

The digital economy is not working.

Democracy, freedom, and prosperity were the original…

The Roots of Resilience Conference, a collaborative effort by the Kerala Development and Innovation Strategic Council (KDISC), IT for Change (ITfC), and the Platform Cooperativism Consortium (PCC) unfolded in Thiruvananthapuram, Kerala, India, from 30 November to 2 December 2023. One key outcome…

IT for Change and the Kerala Development and Innovation Strategic Council (K-DISC), held a half-day expert roundtable on 9 September 2023 in Thiruvananthapuram, India, bringing together 30 stakeholders (the list of participants is attached in Annexure 1).

The aim was to gather…

Digital labour platforms function in markets through “matching…the supply of and demand for paid work through an online platform”. One of the major ways in which matching platforms function is through algorithms, which collect vast amounts of data both from the workers and their customers in…

This baseline report, conducted as part of IT for Change’s broader partnership with LabourNet under the ‘Re-wiring India's Digitalising Economy for Women's Rights and Well-being’ project, aims to provide data-backed, specific recommendations for the development of the SAHI Serve app, recognizing…

Data cooperatives offer an alternative to the enclosure of data in digitalized agricultural supply chains by large agri-tech platforms. Despite their potential, experiments in data cooperativism face challenges in a rapidly privatizing technopolitical ecosystem. In India, platforms addressing…

Over the past two years, there have been concerning instances of excess and malpractice by Big Tech, leading to serious social, political, and economic consequences. These include data extractivism, increased worker precarity, setbacks in gender justice, the domination of developing countries'…

In this policy brief, the authors examine the challenges that currently prevent Least Developed Countries (LDCs) from harnessing a capabilities-based approach to leveraging digital transformation for development.

The Asian region is in the eye of a perfect storm for a wholesale digital transformation, one that has been accelerated in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The region is home to two-thirds of the world’s population and a significant market base for dominant Chinese and US tech interests today…