Systems Thinking Applied to Digital Divide

More than half of the human society is offline, and a majority of those who are online have a very limited access to internet due to a multitude of reasons. The internet technology had the promise of bridging societal inequalities by enabling interactions across all sections of the society at low costs, but things did not turn out that way - what happened? Just like the birth of all societal inequalities, the reinforcing feedback loop of adding value to those who already have access got stronger due to the economic incentive structures, while the reinforcing feedback loop of bringing people online took the opposite direction. Luckily, there is a sense of saturation in the online market size, as well as new use-cases like autonomous vehicles emerging that are shifting the discussions towards better connectivity. The recent pandemic has also reminded the governments across the world of their responsibility towards the lower sections of the society, and the promise of the internet that could enable them with it. "Digital Divide" is a term that is commonly thrown around for multiple reasons. There is a lack of standardization and vocabulary that limits collaboration and creates barriers to entry for new entrants, let alone awareness among others who have not even been exposed to the issue. Due to this fragmentation between stakeholders, the reporting on the issue is inconsistent across different sources and the efforts being implemented by stakeholders across the globe are rarely able to learn from each other’s successes and failures. The "technological determinism" mindset, although widely acknowledged, is still embedded in the measurements, and there is a lack of acknowledgement of the complex identity structures in the modern society. This thesis aims to tackle these challenges by leveraging the systems thinking approach. It provides with a beneficiary-first perspective of the issue, and derives a revised definition for this issue that is relevant for the current timeframe (2022). Finally, a root-case analysis model in conjunction with assessment framework is proposed to empower stakeholders with the right tools for assessing and finding solutions.

Name thesis:degree_name

Master

Department dc:contributor.department

System Design and Management Program.

Grantor dc:publisher

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Year dc:date.issued

2022

Author dc:creator

• Singla, Akshit

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Rhodes, Donna

Statement dc:rights

• In Copyright - Educational Use Permitted
• Copyright MIT

Licence dc:rights.uri

• http://rightsstatements.org/page/InC-EDU/1.0/

Handle dc:identifier.uri

https://hdl.handle.net/1721.1/147370

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:dspace.mit.edu:1721.1/147370