Dispatch from the Digital Planet is a monthly bulletin that talks about new updates in digital innovation across the world and their impact.
We studied the role of Systems Orchestrators in driving systemic changes on the ground to boost digital ecosystems and create jobs. We found that these orchestrators bring distinct advantages to transforming perceptions in the region.
In collaboration with Dalberg
Innovative businesses are key to sustainable development. This research highlights three companies: Husk Power Systems (sustainable energy), Nexsis (solar panels for essential services), and ThredUp (secondhand e-commerce). Insights emphasize the value of pay-as-you-go models, digital tech’s role in sustainability, women’s empowerment via regenerative tech, the need for government support in renewables, and maintaining consumer demand.
In this second edition of the case compendium, we cover three
enterprises working in the education technology (ed-tech)
and upskilling industry in three distinct emerging markets.
Women remain under-represented in high-paying technical and decision-making roles in STEM professions. This disparity is a vexing problem and the Achilles’ heel of the entire technology industry.
IDEA 2030’s report studies the link between digital inclusion and innovation. Key insight: As more join the digital economy, value creation focuses on affluent users, widening digital disparities. Policy interventions are needed for inclusive innovation.
Post Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover, hate speech surged. We examined antisemitism, anti-LGBTQ+, racial hate. Analysis (Mar’22-Jan’23) revealed: hate speech volume increased, discourse quality worsened. Despite slight policy shift, toxicity persisted under Musk’s Twitter.
Examining 16.3M tweets (Feb-Oct ’22) from 5 nations on Elon Musk’s Twitter takeover, reactions shifted: positive to criticism, negativity to buyout plan, sadness on his control. Across countries, emotions followed Musk’s moves on Twitter.
Inclusive businesses use digital tech to advance global sustainability, worth $12-15T yearly. Studies highlight the need for trust, low-tech solutions, and environmental focus.
How did Twitter react to the Roe v. Wade announcement from the Supreme Court? What does this mean for abortion rights in America?
For Pride Month, Digital Planet investigates the degree to which LGBTQ+ community finds solidarity among STEM fields. Analysis reveals the share of workers who express their identity as or affiliation with the LGBTQ+ community on their resumes is smaller among STEM graduates than college graduates overall. Women in STEM were twice as likely as men to profess an affiliation with the gay community on their resumes. Younger STEM candidates display a higher rate of LGBTQ+ affiliation than their older colleagues but still significantly trailed younger college graduates overall.
The needs of the global sustainable development agenda are both broad and urgent, and innovation models are central to addressing them in a timely, efficient, and scalable manner, from promoting inclusive growth and ensuring the longevity of natural resources to addressing issues across the state of the human condition.
Despite significant strides in college attainment, Black people in America face multiple obstacles in their pursuit of rewarding, lucrative careers. Even among Black professionals holding some of the most marketable degrees (STEM), highest-paying and highest-growth jobs in the technology sector remain elusive.
All methods of storing value have some environmental cost associated with them. We explore the environmental costs of US cash notes, which amount to $0.26 annually per note, based on resources used and CO2 released. We then compare our cash estimate to the environmental costs of crypto assets, using Bitcoin as the basis, and totals $70 annually per coin in terms of CO2 released. However, when considering all the US banknotes in circulation in the aggregate, and all the mined Bitcoin currently available, we find that the overall environmental impact of cash notes ($12.9 billion USD) far exceeds the environmental cost of Bitcoin ($1.3 billion USD).
For Pride Month, Digital Planet investigates the degree to which LGBTQ+ community finds solidarity among STEM fields. Analysis reveals the share of workers who express their identity as or affiliation with the LGBTQ+ community on their resumes is smaller among STEM graduates than college graduates overall. Women in STEM were twice as likely as men to profess an affiliation with the gay community on their resumes. Younger STEM candidates display a higher rate of LGBTQ+ affiliation than their older colleagues but still significantly trailed younger college graduates overall.
Given the pandemic induced changes in the way companies are recruiting talent and organizing around remote and hybrid work and the movement of talent away from the traditional major hubs, how can we seize this moment as an unprecedented opportunity to improve the representation of under-represented talent (e.g. Black, Hispanic, female) in the high skilled workforce sought after by tech and bio-medical companies? How can organizations locate these diverse talent pools in the major metro areas across the United States?
Why are we so divided about the true state of the digital divide in America? What steps might the Biden-Harris administration take to clarify the reality of this divide and move toward closing the gap? This webinar examines how these changes can be transformational for a recovering, yet socially distanced economy.
Pandemic-induced work-from-home policies—now slated to be in place for most of 2021, if not indefinitely—could serve as a catalyst for the tech industry to narrow its growing regional and demographic disparity; allowing more cities and demographics to contribute to and prosper from the industry’s economic growth potential. We examined this issue using metrics such as digital readiness, cost of living, and diversity of tech talent pools for a group of states and major cities in the US to assess whether pandemic-induced work-from-home policies could offer the industry an inclusive growth path forward.
An interactive research report that indexes trust in the digital economy and its evolution across 90 economies during the COVID-19 pandemic. This report features a collaborative research platform that provides data and evidence-driven actionable insights to leaders in government, business and technology.
The two major political parties in the United States are in an all-out sprint leading up to the presidential election. Neither has had a shortage of digital mediums to amplify their views to the public. The American public’s increased reliance on social media as a source of news is worrisome because of the propensity of these platforms to spread misinformation. The COVID-19 pandemic has only exacerbated this trend, tethering people ever more to their personal electronic devices and fostering a boom of both digital crime and misinformation.
In the US, women make 82¢ for every man’s $1––a significant disparity that is exacerbated by factors like race and education. As the pandemic rages on, women are bearing the brunt if it on multiple levels: 1) as essential workers on the frontlines; 2) being over-represented in occupations that are not conducive to working from home, and losing jobs crucial to their economic stability; and 3) being under-represented in jobs that could shift to a digital medium, and all this while paying the price of chronic pay gaps and an unequal division of household labor.
The delivery of public services online requires two necessary conditions: the infrastructure — hardware and software — for governments to deliver public services digitally, and abundant availability of affordable internet access. We scored and arrayed 42 countries on these two aspects: (1) digital public services and (2) inclusive and affordable internet. Additionally, we wove in a snapshot of the stringency of government lockdown and social distancing mandates into this analysis.
How emerging technologies and digital transformations can accelerate economic and societal growth in 6 African countries.
The African Leapfrog Index (ALI) is a novel framework that draws upon the primary levers that facilitate the translation of digital technologies into development and inclusive growth. The framework evaluates six African countries against a continent-wide “best-performance” benchmark to identify strengths to build upon and the opportunities to close gaps.
The Digital Evolution Index: Latin America and Caribbean Edition (DEI LAC) is a data-driven study of the pace of digital growth in 24 LAC countries across four key drivers of supply, demand, institutional environment, and innovation. It utilizes 99 unique indicators measured over a ten-year period (2008 – 2017) to create an overall digital evolution score and digital momentum score.
If the yardstick of effectiveness of any scorecard or ranking were tangible efforts, by those graded, to “improve bad ratings or maintain good ones,” few come even remotely close to the World Bank’s annual Doing Business survey.
Which countries help expedite entry, growth, and exit of technology-based businesses?
The Digital Evolution Index 2017 is a data-driven holistic evaluation of the progress of the digital economy across 60 countries, combining more than 100 different indicators across four key drivers: Supply Conditions, Demand Conditions, Institutional Environment, and Innovation and Change. The resulting framework captures both the state and rate of digital evolution and identifies implications for investment, innovation, and policy priorities.
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The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University
