Community in Tension (CiT)

The development and availability of Information Communication Technology (ICT) impacts many sectors yet a digital divide is still present amongst citizens in communities. Not only is there a digital divide evident but also many other factors that causes tension in communities. This paper defines a Community in Tension (CiT) as a community where the wellbeing of its citizens is being threatened. This provides an opportunity to use these available ICTs in communities and have it locally appropriated to empower the citizens and stabilise these communities

Artificially Intelligent Technology for the Margins: A Multidisciplinary Design Agenda

There has been increasing interest in socially just use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) and Machine Learning (ML) in the development of technology that may be extended to marginalized people. However, the exploration of such technologies entails the development of an understanding of how they may increase and/or counter marginalization. The use of AI/ML algorithms can lead to several challenges, such as privacy and security concerns, biases, unfairness, and lack of cultural awareness, which especially affect marginalized people. This workshop will provide a forum to share experiences and challenges of developing AI/ML health and social wellbeing technologies with/for marginalized people and will work towards developing design methods to engage in the re-envisioning of AI/ML technologies for and with marginalized people. In doing so we will create cross-research area dialogues and collaborations. These discussions build a basis to (1) explore potential tools to support designing AI/ML systems with marginalized people, and (2) develop a design agenda for future research and AI/ML technology for and with marginalized people

Design for the Other 90% and Appropriate Technology: The Legacies of Paul Polak and E.F. Schumacher

Recent movements showcase engineering design activities on behalf of poor people, inspiring engineering educators to create global service-learning programs. People who encourage engineers to “design for the other 90%” envision globally engaged businesses paving a new way forward for poverty eradication while other engineers pursue forms of “appropriate technology”to create socially-just technological systems. The engineering practices related to these phrases raise questions of which people benefit from engineering design for poverty alleviation, how engineers define “poor” people, what indicates “success” when engineers design for poverty alleviation, and how engineering educators create meaningful global service-learning programs for students.This paper uses mediated discourse analysis to place engineering design for poverty alleviation in context. Mediated discourse analysis allows researchers to connect a rhetorical framework used in problem definition to the real-world prototyping activities of engineers. Therefore, this methodology permits rigorous assessment of implemented engineering designs. The researcher selected two high-profile technical non-governmental organizations providing similar technical tools to developing communities for a comparative case study. Each organization has strong rhetorical allegiance to either “Design for the Other 90%” or “Appropriate Technology.” The researcher analyzed project implementation reports to uncover relationships between the designed tools and targeted users.Results from this research show that the two organizations do pursue similar projects but target vastly different users. Globally engaged business projects can target poor people living at or just below the income poverty line who have certain key assets such as land, literacy, and previous experience. Conversely, sustained concern for social justice enables an organization to reach chronically poor, vulnerable, or otherwise insecure households. Further, this research shows considerable animosity between the different organizational approaches. Greater awareness of international development theoretical frameworks of poverty, vulnerability, and participation could bridge the gap between approaches and support efforts of engineering educators to design meaningful global service-learning programs

Equity in the Digital Age: How Health Information Technology Can Reduce Disparities

While enormous medical and technological advancements have been made over the last century, it is only very recently that there have been similar rates of development in the field of health information technology (HIT).This report examines some of the advancements in HIT and its potential to shape the future health care experiences of consumers. Combined with better data collection, HIT offers signi?cant opportunities to improve access to care, enhance health care quality, and create targeted strategies that help promote health equity. We must also keep in mind that technology gaps exist, particularly among communities of color, immigrants, and people who do not speak English well. HIT implementation must be done in a manner that responds to the needs of all populations to make sure that it enhances access, facilitates enrollment, and improves quality in a way that does not exacerbate existing health disparities for the most marginalized and underserved

Connected seeds and sensors: co-designing internet of things for sustainable smart cities with urban food-growing communities.

We present a case study of a participatory design project in the space of sustainable smart cities and Internet of Things. We describe our design process that led to the development of an interactive seed library that tells the stories of culturally diverse urban food growers, and networked environmental sensors from their gardens, as a way to support more sustainable food practices in the city. This paper contributes to an emerging body of empirical work within participatory design that seeks to involve citizens in the design of smart cities and Internet of Things, particularly in the context of marginalised and culturally diverse urban communities. It also contributes empirical work towards non-utilitarian approaches to sustainable smart cities through a discussion of designing for urban diversity and slowness

A Review of Age Friendly Virtual Assistive Technologies and their Effect on Daily Living for Carers and Dependent Adults

Many barriers exist in the lives of older adult’s, including health, transport, housing, isolation, disability and access to technology. The appropriate integration of technology within age-friendly communities continues to offer possible solutions to these barriers and challenges. Older adults and disabled people continue to be affected and marginalized due to lack of access to the digital world. Working collaboratively with planners, policy makers and developers, social and living spaces in the future will ensure that residents are equipped to live in an era that continues to be led by, and is dependent upon, access to technology. This review paper uniquely draws together the small volume of literature from the fields of gerontology, gerontechnology, human computer interaction (HCI), and disability. This paper examines the national and international age-friendly frameworks regarding older adults who are carers of dependent people with disabilities

Going Beyond the T in CTC : Social Practices as Care in Community Technology Centers

Community technology center (CTC) is a term usually associated with facilities that provide free or affordable computer and internet access, and sometimes training, to people in underserved communities. Despite the large number of studies done on CTCs, the literature has focused primarily on the use of ICTs as the main, if not the only, activity in these centers. When it comes to addressing social concerns, the literature has often seen them as an outcome of ICT use. It does not highlight CTCs as an inherent and important social space that helps to tackle social issues. Thus, in this study, I present an ethnographic account of how residents of favelas (urban slums in Brazil)—who are from understudied and marginalized areas—used these centers beyond the “T” (technology) in order to fulfill some of their social needs. I highlight the social practices afforded by the CTCs that were beneficial to the underserved communities. By social practices, I focus exclusively on the acts of care performed by individuals in order to address self and community needs. I argue that CTCs go beyond the use of technology and provide marginalized people with a key social space, where they alleviate some of their social concerns, such as lack of proper education, violence, drug cartel activities, and other implications of being poor

Theorising social justice within the smart city: expanding urban paradigms by the notion of the right to the city

This essay explores the emergence of a supposed smart city paradigm shift, in which the new paradigm would be focused on solving social problems, in alternative to the previous, which concentrates on technology and economic growth. However, both paradigms have shortcomings by representing urbanizations which are entrenched with the neoliberal ideology and its discontents. In contrast, the right to the smart city is interpreted as an extension of the new paradigm, considering technology as a tool to achieve citizens' needs and employing participatory processes, although incorporating a social justice element, thus, representing the establishment of an authentic paradigm shift. Highlighting the underlying challenges of actually existing smart cities, this essay proposes a theoretical framework founded on social justice, assembling democratic participation, redirecting outcomes to the most pressing causes and redistributing benefits to particular - marginalised and excluded, instead of generic, citizens. Therefore, it suggests a radical change of perspective in smart city studies, decentralising theory through a post-colonial and subaltern lens.info:eu-repo/semantics/publishedVersio