The current AI innovation paradigm is driven by large-scale extraction and (mis)appropriation of creative and cultural resources into proprietary AI systems. As AI systems increasingly mediate cultural production and information access, questions of who controls these knowledge infrastructures have become increasingly urgent. These developments…
Development and Democracy
IT for Change's work in the area of development and democracy critically examines the digital paradigms of development and the opportunities and challenges it presents for deepening democracy, global justice and citizen rights. We believe that an equitable information society can flourish only through inclusive and informed debate, involving all stakeholders, especially from the global South. Given the prevalence of Northern perspectives and market-centric thinking in current ICTs for development approaches, we have consciously attempted to articulate alternatives through our research and policy engagement. Techno-architectures must be designed and governed for democratising power, so that countries, communities and individuals at the peripheries can renegotiate their place in the world. From concerns spanning e-governance, public information systems and data in governance to emerging policies in global trade, data governance and the very architectures of Internet policy, ideas of justice must be coded into the legal-institutional architectures of digital technology.
RECENT
IT for Change is celebrating a critical milestone: 25 years of imagining and building a just and equitable digital world.
From feminist engagements with the digital economy to pioneering work on technology in education, community informatics, and global policy advocacy, IT for Change’s work has consistently challenged dominant digital…
Current debates in the AI context turn to prevailing Intellectual Property (IP) frameworks and their applicability to the AI moment. Yet, this only intensifies the crisis of the knowledge commons. As experts have noted, on the one hand, copyright frameworks and their ‘fair use’ exemptions may not be fit-for-purpose to deal with questions of…
Anita Gurumurthy, Nandini Chami and Rudraksh Lakra authored a policy brief on "Designing an effective data-sharing framework for AgriStack". The brief outlines a binding, sector-specific data-sharing framework for agricultural data systems. It addresses both personal and non-personal data governance issues and calls for strong safeguards around…
IT for Change submitted its feedback/comments on the draft amendment to the Information Technology (Intermediary Guidelines and Digital Media Ethics Code) Rules, 2021 ("IT Rules") relating to synthetically generated information released by the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology. Our submission highlighted two key issues of the…
IT for Change joined with Privacy International, Human Rights Watch, Derechos Digitales, TEDIC in a group of more than 30 civil society organisations and labour unions in endorsing the call for the International Labour Organization (ILO) to adopt a binding Convention supplemented by a Recommendation to secure decent work in the platform economy…
