digital economy

Digitalization is rapidly changing the economic landscape. Advances in platformization and AI have thrown up a range of new realities to contend with respect to the future of work and workers’ rights. ‘Gigification’ and servicification of multiple sectors has proliferated non-standard employment arrangements and…

The European Commission’s proposal for a European Declaration on Digital Rights and Principles for the Digital Decade – an important milestone towards a foundation for our shared digital world – reflects a predictable unease. It mirrors the fraught politics of our times; the tall order to recover the planet and people from the insatiable profit…

The faster pace of digitalization during the pandemic has tended to increase gender injustice. Systemic analysis, respect for the rule of law and a solidarity-driven strategy are essential to create a digital future that will benefit women.

The pandemic’s severity, scale…

The Centering Women in India's Digitalizing Economy project team at IT for Change made policy recommendations for inclusive entrepreneurship and sustainable social business as part of Gender Park, an undertaking of the Department of Women and Child Development, Government of Kerala. The recommendations focused on how policy support can deliver…

The Indian Government appears convinced that cryptocurrency is a dangerous proposition. Cryptocurrency enables relatively invisible transactions, with serious implications for crime, terrorism, money laundering, tax evasion, etc. Another worry is that the crypto mania is getting built of purely…

IT for Change's research series on Intelligence Infrastructures interrogates essential digital infrastructures that underpin the economy, society, and governance, putting the spotlight on the need for democratic control of these building blocks of tomorrow. Policies must straddle a people-centric vision of tech-design and institutional…

In recent years, the Philippines has seen a trend of platformization in domestic and care work through small-scale digital platforms that offer on-demand cleaning services. The nascent and informal nature of this system has given rise to new modes of employment and labor relationships that do not conform with the traditional models of domestic…

This paper examines the influence of digital platforms on Chinese workers across two booming on-demand service industries: ride-hailing and food-delivery. Though digital platforms have attracted considerable scholarly and legal attention in the past few years, this project is among one of the first to center on worker’s experience, and through…

IT for Change contributed an input on gender and digital technology in the post-Covid moment to a report for the NITI Aayog, titled 'Covid-19: Impact on Women and Girls'. This report was prepared by a group of organizations working for gender equality and women's empowerment. The input is based on our ongoing project, ‘Centering Women in India'…

Data is almost universally recognised as the most valuable economic resource today. Seven out of the top 10 companies globally by market capitalisation are data-centric. In these circumstances, it appears strange that there has hardly been any worthwhile attempt to look at who has economic rights to various kinds of data, and how these rights…