Digital Inclusion in an Unequal World (Episode 20) – Dato’ Mohamed Sharil Tarmizi on “It’s about what technology can do for society”

This is the twentieth 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, Dato’ Mohamed Sharil Tarmizi draws on his experiences in Malaysia to reflect on what has changed over the last two decades in terms of how and why digital tech is being used, from the days of kedai.com which was seen as being a way to “bridge the digital divide” to the contemporary period when Malaysia is still providing free collective broadband to rural and underserved communities. He concludes that “the technology has evolved and yet inequalities still remain. In the end, it’s never about the technology but it’s about what technology can do for society. Let’s begin by agreeing on the societies we want, then apply the appropriate technologies to make them thrive”.

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.

Sharil, from Malaysia, trained and practised as a lawyer, became a policy maker, went into corporate finance and then moved on to become a telco regulator and a trade negotiator. Thereafter, got involved in corporate restructuring, automotive, infrastructure and aviation, whilst dabbling in a spot of angel investing, startup mentoring, media and movie making. He is currently serving as the Chairman of the Civil Aviation Authority of Malaysia.

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

Order your copy direct from Routledge here

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Tim is the Catalyst of the ICT4D Collective, and Emeritus Professor of Geography at Royal Holloway, University of London, and was the editor of ICT4D: Information and Communication Technology for Development (Cambridge University Press, 2009) and author of Reclaiming Information and Communication Technologies for Development, (Oxford University Press, 2017). Full details of his new book … Continue reading Digital Inclusion in an Unequal World (Episode 25) – Tim Unwin on “Lessons from Imfundo: Partnership for IT in Education” ICT4D Collective » ICT4D is made with Jetpack Podcast. Full show notes and every episode at https://ict4d.org.uk/
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