Digital inclusion - bridging digital divides

Open source, open data and digital inclusion; a state, a condition and a right. Digital inequality has meant those without access and means are restricted to their immediate market, Digital exclusion impacts the individual, the family, community and increasingly the ability to engage in the political and democratic process.

Peace Through Prosperity

The hypothesis; if we make the products and services of the micro-entrepreneurs accessible to the digitally included,  their micro-businesses will experience further growth and innovation in Karachi; a rapidly growing megacity in the developing world. Within the Project's environment (i.e. Karachi) majority if not all of the informal economy is digitally excluded; their services and wares are not discoverable online, therefore invisible to the digitally included. Simply not on the screens of the side where the wealth rests. Without a bridge connecting the two, likelihood of access to wider opportunities for the digitally excluded are greatly reduced. Connecting the two is a win-win, it provides all involved access to wider opportunities it.

Digitally Lead Social Transformation

Peace Through Prosperity is building that bridge for the 214 micro-entrepreneurs engaged in the project in Karachi and making them, their goods and services discoverable to the digitally included in the city and beyond. Peace Through Prosperity is narrowing the digital divide further by making selective data on individual micro-entrepreneurs Open for local tech-entrepreneurs to make use of to create a wider market place for the micro-entrepreneurs.

For example by building an App that uses the open data to enable the digitally included to locate fruit and vegetable vendors who provide home delivery services, or finding the juice and snack cart with the highest ratings in their locality… the opportunities are endless! I shall keep y'all posted on progress.