Our initiatives

Tim Unwin’s book is for all those who want to ensure that the world’s poorest and most marginalised people and communities can benefit from the use of digital technologies, rather than being further marginalised and enslaved through them. It diagnoses why these technologies are increasing inequalities rather than reducing them and it concludes with a clear responsibilities-based manifesto for individuals, governments, civil society and private sector companies.

In recent years, several members of the ICT4D Collective have gone back to their roots and started focusing once again on the critical importance of safe, wise and secure use of digital tech if people are to benefit from its positive aspects. Some of the most marginalised people in the world, with little or no training in the basic use of digital tech, are among the most vulnerable to the harms for which it can be used.  Much of our present work in this area has come from the Collective’s involvement in the UKRI-GCRF funded MIDEQ Hub, where we worked with migrants and their organisations, particulalry in Nepal and South Africa, to develop resources that could be used to provide basic training in how they can use these technologies safely, wisely and securely.  These are now being developed to serve the needs of many other groups of people across the world.

This link reports and shares knowledge and resources on the UKRI GCRF South-South Migration, Inequality and Development Hub (MIDEQ), led by Heaven Crawley of Coventry University, of which the UNESCO Chair in ICT4D was a partner, and the ICT4D Collective continues to be involved.  Our interdisciplinary work focuses at the interface between technology, inequality and migration, and is led by Prof. G. “Hari” Harindranath, supported by Tim Unwin. Dr. Maria Louisa Lorinia was a post-doctoral research assistant on this project and conrtibuted significantly to its success.