David Olanrewaju Akisanmi, Olugbenga Itunu OGUNDERU
With Lagos facing significant challenges due to rapid urbanization, including inefficient food distribution systems and limited market access for farmers, this decentralized approach proposes an innovative solution. By leveraging blockchain technology, decentralized finance (defi), and smart contracts, the platforms aim to streamline transactions, reduce intermediaries, and ensure fair pricing. This paper explores the potential of utilizing Telegram decentralized web-3 mini-applications as e-commerce platforms to connect smallholder farmers with structured markets, enhancing the sustainability of food supply chains in Lagos, Nigeria. The paper examines the role of these technologies in improving transactional transparency, empowering smallholder farmers, and fostering equitable participation in the urban food supply system. It also proposes a comprehensive framework for platform implementation, assessing its potential economic, environmental, and social impacts. The study recommends a pilot project, policy advocacy, capacity building, and scalability plans to ensure the platform’s success and long-term sustainability. Ultimately, this decentralized e-commerce platform holds promise for revolutionizing food supply chains, empowering farmers, and promoting sustainable development in Lagos and other regions across Nigeria and Africa.
There is growing demand for innovation in social sector fundraising.The conventional model relies on emotions rather than evidence, brand recognition instead of outcomes and marketing over impact.In this paper, we sketch out a prototype for an online giving platform modelled on a Pay for Success mechanism where donors pay retroactively for tangible impact already achieved.It uses impact certificates, currently limited to the carbon credits industry, to fund verified past impact from three civic participation organizations in India.The demo shows how blockchain can ensure single sale per outcome and enforce a fundraising cap based on impact created.Drawing on the historical database of over 5000 impact reports of the three partner organizations, we minted 27 impact certificates on the Ethereum testnet.Over the course of creating the demo, we raised USD 4034 from 133 contributors through the donation matching platform Gitcoin for purchase of these certificates.
Open access
ICT in Developing Communities
E-Government and Public Services
Innovative Approaches in Technology and Social Development
Bruno Henrique Sanches, Marlei Pozzebon, Eduardo Henrique Diniz
Abstract Westernised paradigms dominate the information systems (IS) field, often overshadowing alternative epistemologies. This study challenges the prevailing hegemonic view and contributes to the decolonization of IS research and practice by proposing a Latin American and decolonial approach to technological development that emphasises community centrality and epistemic justice through recognition of local knowledges and Indigenous traditions. Using design ethnography, we follow the development of a solidarity cryptocurrency in a Brazilian favela. Our paper offers two key contributions. By introducing tecnologia social , an underrepresented perspective in IS, we highlight ecology of knowledges, centrality of the local and decolonial reconfiguration as principles that can enrich the understanding of IS projects from a decolonial perspective. In addition, we propose a new concept—epistemic dialogical tension—as a process wherein different epistemologies coexist and accommodate each other, encouraging a dynamic interplay of distinct human experiences and worldviews. It offers new paths to IS scholars and practitioners in navigating the complexities of epistemic plurality. We argue that tecnologia social and epistemic dialogical tension provide fertile ground for developing reimagined, decolonized approaches where multiple epistemologies can coexist, favouring the often‐silenced communities they are intended to benefit.
Aman Shekhar, Sagar Vashnav, Rishav Jha, Pallavi Pandey
Refugees seeking asylum in India often face numerous challenges, including a lack of legal documentation, limited access to essential services, and the risk of exploitation. In this paper, we propose a decentralized system that leverages smart contract technology to create digital identities for refugees, enabling them to access essential services such as employment and housing. Our system stores all their data, including biometrics, in a secure and decentralized manner on the Ethereum blockchain. Based on this data, we create a working permit and a temporary identification card in the form of non-fungible tokens (NFTs) that can be used to access essential services. Additionally, we create a crypto wallet linked to their digital identity, enabling them to perform regular transactions like purchasing rations, paying for their housing and electricity bills and other necessities. Furthermore, we would design a smart contract that tracks the refugees’ monthly income and provides government financial aid directly to their crypto wallet. The contract also automatically adjusts the amount of financial aid based on the refugee’s income, ensuring an even and non-corrupted distribution of government funds. Through our system, we aim to empower refugees with financial stability, enabling them to lead healthy and productive lives while contributing to India’s economy. Our solution is transparent, secure, and easily accessible, making it a viable option for addressing the challenges faced by refugees in India.
Faiqah Hafidzah Halim, Nor Aimuni Md Rashid, Nur Farahin Mohd Johari, Muhammad Amirul Hazim Abdul Rahman
In Malaysia, private healthcare providers keep computerized records of vaccination data, including personal information, diagnostic results, and vaccine prescriptions. However, such sensitive information is commonly stored using a centralized storage paradigm which subsequently brings about the issue of maintaining user privacy. Concerning this, unauthorized access to crucial information such as identity details and ailments that a patient is suffering from, as well as the misuse of patients' data and medical reports, are common threats to user's (patient) privacy. To overcome this problem, the researchers suggest leveraging IPFS (Interplanetary File System) and blockchain technology to create a decentralized children's immunization record management system. While respecting patient privacy, the proposed system also allows authorized entities, such as healthcare professionals, and provides easy access to medical data (e.g., doctors and nurses). The proposed decentralized system integrates IPFS, blockchain, and AES cryptography to ensure consistency, integrity, and accessibility. A permission Ethereum blockchain allows hospitals and patients within private healthcare providers to connect. We utilized a combination of symmetric and asymmetric key encryption to provide secure storage and selective records access. The proposed system was analyzed using Wireshark to evaluate the overall system's performance in terms of integrity and accessibility while sharing patient records. This project aims to provide automated system keeper using autonomous agents collaboratively with the role of blockchain for further enhancement.
Chamath Liyanage, U. A. D. S. Kavinda, Dinuka Dasanayaka, P. G. J. Shehara · 5 authors
In many cases, children between this age are using smartphones and other technology devices, to play games, watch cartoons, take photos and sometimes the chance is getting higher than we think that children access unnecessary contents due to lack of guidance and unawareness of parents. This interactive mobile application is used as an adaptive learning tool for the primary school students. Utilizing children’s comfort with technology allows for the development of their talents. In math skills development, some attractively designed gamified activities to solve basic math questions are given according to the skill level the child is currently in. The accuracy was much higher in the Convolutional Neural Network approach as it recorded a value of 0.9919. In environmental skills development component, the app will ask child to identify the surroundings according to a flow, starting from the house and towards the garden using object detection and the results were detected with a higher accuracy level around 0.9-0.99 after training the Machine Learning model. And in the language skills development component the child is given activities to develop pronunciation skills using audio processing and finally the verification of online achievements of a child by Non-Fungible Token technology, is fulfilled via the app.
This is a capstone project summary of an in-depth market analysis titled how DeFi transforms the Banking Industry. Decentralized finance (DeFi) is an open and global financial system built for the internet age. There are limitations on the existing banking system, and DeFi has potential to solve those pain points. Various fintech companies in Asia have leveraged permissioned blockchain for financial services solutions with enhanced security and efficiency. The future DeFi will continue to shape the banking system for better service, and for a wider population.
Developing Countries in Africa in general and Zambia in particular, have seen a rapid rise in use of mobile payment platforms. This has not only revolutionized access to finance for the poor but also allowed them access to other financial products such as savings or insurance. With a growing number of mobile money providers in Zambia, there is need for a solution that would enable integration of the mobile money provider’s systems using a central clearinghouse for purposes of clearing and settlement to achieve mobile money interoperability. In this study, we first reviewed the technical landscape and features of mobile payment systems in Zambia and then assessed the feasibility of using blockchain technology in proposing a settlement and clearing system that would facilitate mobile money interoperability. A prototype system was then designed in which amounts being interchanged between providers are managed as assets on a permissioned blockchain. The system runs a distributed shared ledger, which provides non-repudiation, data privacy and data origin authentication, by leveraging the consistency features of blockchain technology.
Chris Elsden, Kate Symons, Chris Speed, John Vines · 5 authors
Abstract The OxChain project is investigating the design of blockchain applications in partnership with a large and traditionally trusted institution, Oxfam. We outline some of the potential opportunities that distributed ledger technologies could offer the charity and development sector as a whole, but focus on the challenges of undertaking co-design work in the context of large institutions. We suggest the need to leverage existing trusted relationships and understand the unique value that such institutions offer.
Bettina Nissen, Larissa Pschetz, Dave Murray-Rust, Hadi Mehrpouya · 6 authors
Design and HCI researchers are increasingly working with complex digital infrastructures, such as cryptocurrencies, distributed ledgers and smart contracts. These technologies will have a profound impact on digital systems and their audiences. However, given their emergent nature and technical complexity, involving non-specialists in the design of applications that employ these technologies is challenging. In this paper, we discuss these challenges and present GeoCoin, a location-based platform for embodied learning and speculative ideating with smart contracts. In collaborative workshops with GeoCoin, participants engaged with location-based smart contracts, using the platform to explore digital 'debit' and 'credit' zones in the city. These exercises led to the design of diverse distributed-ledger applications, for time-limited financial unions, participatory budgeting, and humanitarian aid. These results contribute to the HCI community by demonstrating how an experiential prototype can support understanding of the complexities behind new digital infrastructures and facilitate participant engagement in ideation and design processes.
Nelson Bore, Samuel Karumba, Juliet Mutahi, Shelby S. Darnell · 6 authors
Several initiatives have been proposed to collect, report, and analyze data about school systems for supporting decision-making. These initiatives rely mostly on self-reported and summarized data collected irregularly and rarely. They also lack a single independent and systematic process to validate the collected data during its entire lifecycle. Furthermore, schools in developing countries still do not maintain complete and up-to-date school records. Due to these and other factors addressing the education challenges in those countries remains a high priority for local and international governments, donor and non-governmental agencies across the world. In this paper, we discuss our initial design, implementation, and evaluation of a blockchain-enabled School Information Hub (SIH) using Kenya's school system as a case study.
Digital currencies represent a new method for exchange -- a payment method with no physical form, made real by the Internet. This new type of currency was created to ease online transactions and to provide greater convenience in making payments. However, a critical component of a monetary system is the people who use it. Acknowledging this, we present results of our interview study (N=20) with two groups of participants (users and non-users) about how they perceive the most popular digital currency, Bitcoin. Our results reveal: non-users mistakenly believe they are incapable of using Bitcoin, users are not well-versed in how the protocol functions, they have misconceptions about the privacy of transactions, and that Bitcoin satisfies properties of ideal payment systems as defined by our participants. Our results illustrate Bitcoin's tradeoffs, its uses, and barriers to entry.
This proposal is to exhibit the work named Crypto Heater which is part of a design fiction [c.f 1,5,8:30] series intended to explore a near future world in which cryptographic currencies such as Bitcoin [6] have become commonplace. This work opens up space for discussion about the activities of the distributed peer-to-peer network of so-called "miners" that ensure the security of the Bitcoin network and regulate the supply of new currency in the Bitcoin economy. The physical part of the work (the heater itself) is set within a fictional near-future reality. In this reality, Bitcoin has become central to our financial service industry, and "mining" in domestic settings is promoted by the government, as a means of heating our homes and to ensure security of the network. A "story world" is constructed using devices such as promotional materials from the UK Government's Ministry of Crypto Currency; technical specifications; customer testimonials; and the heater itself. The main element of the exhibit is a fully working Crypto Heater prototype. This device is (in the fictional world, and the real world) part of the distributed network of Bitcoin miners. Through computation, it converts electrical energy into cryptographic currency. Uniquely Crypto Heater dissipates the heat energy (a by-product of the computational effort required to be a Bitcoin miner) through a standard household radiator. By offsetting the value of the cryptographic currency produced, against the cost of electricity used, the heater provides subsidized domestic heating.
Are there differences between the sale of an unopened Super Mario Bros. computer game and of the digital collage of 5,000 images? Viewed from the perspective of the doctrine of exhaustion, we can easily conclude that the two transfers have significant differences. The auction of the tangible data carrier of the Super Mario’s 1986 edition (for $660,000) 1 fits well into the doctrine. The auction of the NFT (non-fungible token) representing Beeple’s “Everdays: the First 5000 Days” (for an equivalent of an astounding $69.3 million) 2 seems to be hype with a snowball effect rather than a modern encapsulation of digital exhaustion. Some commentators, 3 including the present author in collaboration with Alexandra Giannapoulou, João Pedro Quintais, and Balázs Bodó, 4 have thoroughly introduced the incompatibility of the NFT mania with the existing copyright status quo, and so – in connection with the present book’s topic – the sale of tokenized information, which is capable of representing information related to digital artworks, is practically excluded from the scope of the exhaustion of the right of distribution. At the same time, NFTs de facto offer a “code-based digital ecosystem that has practical consequences for the copyright-relevant fields of creativeness.” 5 The sale and resale of NFTs is possible; an exchange of information and title to “own” and “trade” information related to copyrightable subject matter is technologically guaranteed. In line with that, a quasi-exhaustion regime has also emerged. As such, the NFT mania can practically evidence the need for and modern technology’s capability of offering digital marketplaces for artworks as well.