Advancing knowledge, shaping policy and inspiring practice on digital development is critical to achieving our vision of a more equitable and sustainable world, where people everywhere can live their lives free from poverty and injustice.
The digital revolution has ushered in transformative changes to the ways we communicate and organise, with cascading effects across social, economic and political spheres. Mobile phones and internet technologies are being used positively by women and marginalised groups to access information resources, increase their agency and well-being, and to influence policy and political change. However the same technologies are also used for surveillance, distortion of democratic discourse and to dampen dissent by civil society.
Our cutting-edge research and analysis on the reality of digital development provides insights and ideas for policymakers and practitioners within development and humanitarian organisations seeking to better understand and realise the promise of the digital revolution for poor and marginalised communities.
We focus on three interconnected themes;
- Gender and technology: Mobile phones and other ICTs can contribute to women’s economic and political empowerment but the same technologies are often sites of gender exclusion and online violence. Our research looks at these barriers and the pathways to womens’ active participation in digital economies as creators, innovators and entrepreneurs.
- Innovation and ‘frontier technologies’: Frontier technologies hold the potential to rapidly address large-scale economic, social or political challenges. However they may also involve the displacement of existing livelihoods and social relations and so carry considerable uncertainty and risk. If technology choices in international development are to be based on more than vendor and media hype then new sources of digital and technology expertise must urgently be made available to development decision-makers.
- Digital citizenship: New digital public spheres are opening up online, often in response to the closing of offline civic spaces. This is becoming the new frontier on which development policy debates and narratives are being formed. We explore new ways to accelerate innovation in the field of digital citizenship to enable the democratic potential of ICT to amplify citizen voices to be realised.
Collaboration for impact
The quality and impact of our work depend upon us collaborating with governments, philanthropic foundations, academic institutions and civil society organisations to transform approaches to progressive social, political and economic change.
Consulting services
Our consulting services focus on our clients’ most critical issues and opportunities surrounding digital strategies for human development. We bring strong technical, cross-disciplinary expertise grounded in real-world experience and are known for bringing a holistic lens that acknowledges the economic, political and social contexts of digital development. Recent clients include the Digital Impact Alliance, The Malala Fund, UK Department for International Development, USAID, German Corporation for International Cooperation (GIZ) and Australian Government Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.
Key contacts
