Digital Inclusion in an Unequal World (Episode 10) – Nick Hughes OBE on “The Power of Micro-Transactions”

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 distributed solar; earnings from tiny retail outlets unlocking working capital; and the lock-up of carbon into biochar rewarding buyers and sellers in the carbon markets”

The full vignette can be read here.

All audio files relating to the book are also available on our podcast with a new episode every week.

Nick is an innovator and practitioner, passionate about building digital ventures that help solve real world problems. His work spans Africa (e.g. M-PESA and M-KOPA) and Asia (e.g. bKash). 4R Digital Ltd is his latest venture, where he and his team apply digital technology to bring radical transparency and more equitable flow of funds into B2B value chains.

Full details of the book are available through the following links:

Order your copy direct from Routledge here

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Nimmi is a Professor at the Kohli Centre on Intelligent Systems, IIIT, Hyderabad. She teaches on the society-technology interface, bringing an anthropological perspective to explore the impacts of AI. Her research in Human-Computer Interaction foregrounds local practices of technology diffusion and how communities engage with digital systems — through sharing, learning, training, and adaptation Full … Continue reading Digital Inclusion in an Unequal World (Episode 15) – Nimmi Rangaswamy on “Social, Shared and Sustainable: Whatever Happened to the Community Internet?”
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