Digital Inclusion in an Unequal World (Episode 23) – Ugo Vallauri on “The Right to Repair”

This is the twenty-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, Ugo Vallauri shows how “it’s possible to give devices a second lease of life, to create abundance and digital access out of Big Tech’s deliberate attempts to make products obsolete, with extortionate pricing of spares, repair-averse design and increasingly using software as a weapon”. He shows how Restart Parties and Repair Cafés provide part of the answer to a more sustainable digitsal future, noting that “in Africa, Asia and South America repair remains vital: a necessity, not a privilege”.

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.

Ugo is co-founder/co-director of The Restart Project, a charity which promotes repair to change our throwaway economy. He’s a co-founder of Right to Repair Europe, a coalition advocating for ambitious right to repair legislation. Ugo is a fellow of the Ashoka Foundation in Italy, with 20 years of experience in the not-for-profit sector

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


Other recent episodes

Digital Inclusion in an Unequal World (Episode 25) – Tim Unwin on “Lessons from Imfundo: Partnership for IT in Education” ICT4D Collective » ICT4D

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/
  1. Digital Inclusion in an Unequal World (Episode 25) – Tim Unwin on “Lessons from Imfundo: Partnership for IT in Education”
  2. Digital Inclusion in an Unequal World (Episode 24) – Tom Wambeke on “Beyond the Cable: ‘The embrace of co-designed, plural futures'”
  3. Digital Inclusion in an Unequal World (Episode 23) – Ugo Vallauri on “The Right to Repair”
  4. Digital Inclusion in an Unequal World (Episode 22) – Jamie Proctor on “The Right People, Building Things They Understand, and Striving to Deliver Directly for Citizens”
  5. Digital Inclusion in an Unequal World (Episode 21) – Ettie Unwin on “Crafting a More Equitable Framework for Global Epidemiological Research Practice: Working With Not On”

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