Tag: digital platforms
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Globalized creative economies: rethinking local craft, provenance, and platform design
[By Laura Herman] Can you recognize your friends’ and family members’ hand gestures? People have distinctive gestures: maybe your friend clasps her hands when she’s nervous, your mom taps her fingers together when she’s excited, or your cousin wags two fingers when making an argument. Now, imagine local artisans who hand-make their wares. Their hand…
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Ethical consumerism: Gig economy’s road ahead
[By Brinda Gupta] “PM Modi announces a 21-day nation-wide lockdown as COVID-19 toll touches 12” read the headlines of the Hindu newspaper on March 24th, 2020. Offices indefinitely closed, shops shut, and gatherings banned. People pushed into their homes, unknown of what will happen next. A mask, a sanitizer, and a six-foot distance became the…
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“The support has to come from home”: Evidence-based assessment of platform work in India
[By Sreelakshmi Ramachandran] When considering the strategies for India’s economic rebound, it is imprudent to overlook the potential of the wider digital economy, as this all-pervasive technology has altered urban landscapes and living in the last decade in the country. An explosive combination of cheap handsets, lowest data costs in the world and rapid advances…
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Centered but invisible – On the contradictions of service design at Urban Company
[By Sai Amulya Komarraju] Ting! A beauty worker checks her mobile. A ‘lead’ appears on her mobile screen from the platform service aggregator she has registered with. She accepts it, calls the customer through the platform that has helped her become a microentrepreneur, confirms the request and location of the customer and rides off to…
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Is feminist design a solution to platform workers’ problems?
[By Pallavi Bansal] Imagine a scenario in which you do not get shortlisted for a job interview – not because you are underqualified – but because the algorithms were trained on data sets that excluded or underrepresented your gender for that particular position. Similarly, you found out that you are consistently paid less than your colleagues…
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“Side hustle” is not a swear word: How to make gigs work for young Africans
[By Sharmi Surianarain and Julia Taylor] Across the African continent, the concept of a “side hustle” is not new. Slow job growth, accompanied by a high number of labour market entrants, has meant that young people have for a long time been engaging in informal ‘side’ work to make ends meet. Young people in African…
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Platform drivers: From algorithmizing humans to humanizing algorithms
[By Pallavi Bansal] I remember getting stranded in the middle of the road a few years ago when an Ola cab driver remarked that my trip had stopped abruptly and he could not take me to my destination. Frantic, I still requested him to drop me home, but he refused saying he cannot complete the…
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Digital pessimism: Can we break out of the negativity loop?
[By René König] A few years ago, when I was in Cape Town, South Africa, I quickly learned that Uber rides were the best way to navigate the city. They seemed relatively affordable, quick, comfortable, reliable, and safe. But I was a little conflicted about my choice, being well-aware of the long list of scandals…
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