Category Archives: Value

Infrastructures of inclusion and informality: who drives the design of sociotechnical systems?

By Niti Bhan | Published: August 25, 2021

A recent Debate (Development and Change, Vol 52, No. 4) on the infrastructures of inclusion, informality and the social contract expands the notion of infrastructure beyond the tangible and the technological, to the systemic and economic, as well as societal structures and processes that are intended to facilitate inclusion. As Kate Meagher says in her […]

Also posted in Design, Innovation Planning, Literature review, Mobile platform, Perspective, Prepaid Economy & Informal Sector, Sub Saharan Africa, Systems, Technology | Tagged design, informal economy, infrastructures of inclusion, sociotechnical systems | 1 Response

The Global System’s Fulcrum has Changed in Location and Trajectory

By Niti Bhan | Published: November 15, 2020

Where, the innovation flowed outwards from age old centers of world system changing such as the Bay Area of the US Pacific Coastline or more recently, in the first visible shift this century, from the Pearl River Delta region of mainland China, now has shifted its locus of pivoting the levers of the system into […]

Also posted in Analysis, ASEAN, Ecosystem, Emerging Futures, Mobile platform, Perspective, Philipines, Strategy, urban | Leave a comment

Half a year, 2020 : The Remote Resilience and Recovery Project

By Niti Bhan | Published: August 8, 2020

I have umpteen drafts saved, of posts I began writing since the last published one on 29th February this year, and never finished. 2020 has outdone itself in its impact on all of human society, across our entire planet. I have been active on Twitter, where my literature reviews, in service of the pivot I […]

Also posted in Africa, Base of the Pyramid, Biashara Economics, Design, Ecosystem, Flexibility, Frameworks, Informal & Flexible, Innovation Planning, Mama Biashara, Marketing, Perspective, Prepaid Economy & Informal Sector, Retail in Africa, rural, Strategy, Sub Saharan Africa, Systems, urban, User research | Tagged design thinking, farm to fork, informal market, market women, nairobi, remoteresilienceproject, resilience, urban food systems, vcd, workshops | Leave a comment

Less Technologically Advanced Societies are not necessarily backward or primitive: Assume at your own risk

By Niti Bhan | Published: December 26, 2019

This illustration by Jeroen Meijer of Jam Visueldenken of Amsterdam, The Netherlands, was created for our team during a workshop to capture the insights from a feasibility study on agritech we had completed for the Dutch government’s sustainable agricultural value chain development at Wageningen University’s Economic Research unit back in mid 2013. I’m pulling it […]

Also posted in Africa, African Consumer Market, Afrique francophone, Airtime, Analysis, Assumption filter, Base of the Pyramid, Biashara Economics, Business Models, Cashless transactions, Consumer Behaviour, Design, East African Community, Ecosystem, Emerging Markets, Frameworks, Indigenous & Traditional, Informal & Flexible, Innovation Planning, Kenya, Marketing, Mobile platform, Perspective, Prepaid Economy & Informal Sector, Research, Rural Economy, Strategy, Sub Saharan Africa, Technology, UCSD | Tagged africa, business model, design, Flat and fragmented, mobile, prepaid, user research | Leave a comment

Africa’s Delivery On Demand Apps are Transforming the Informal Economy

By Niti Bhan | Published: December 10, 2018

When women in rural Rwanda can buy sanitary napkins and contraceptives, on demand, simply by pushing a few buttons on their phones, you know the digital informal economy is here to stay. And, its not just imported apps and social enterprises pushing this digital commercial activity. The “uberization” of the African informal economy is well […]

Also posted in Africa, African Consumer Market, Biashara Economics, Business Models, Commerce en ligne (e-commerce), Consommateurs, Consumer Behaviour, Distribution, Ecosystem, Emerging Futures, Flexibility, FMCG, Frameworks, Informal & Flexible, Innovation Planning, Mama Biashara, Marchés africains, Marketing, Mobile platform, Perspective, Platforms, Prepaid Economy & Informal Sector, Retail in Africa, Strategy, Sub Saharan Africa, Technology | Tagged app economy, apps, informal economy, mobile apps, prepaid economy, uberization of african informal economy | Leave a comment

What happens when the informal economy is not criminalized? : Case of Hargeisa, Somaliland

By Niti Bhan | Published: December 3, 2018

In Hargeisa, the role of the informal economy during and after conflict has been vital to conflict prevention and peace-building. A recently released report by Cardiff University and Somaliland research partners on their work related to the role of urban informal economies in conflict zones offers us perspective from another angle. A little thin on […]

Also posted in Africa, Biashara Economics, East African Community, Economy, Ecosystem, Informal & Flexible, Perspective, Prepaid Economy & Informal Sector, Report Review, Research, Sub Saharan Africa, Systems, urban, User research | Tagged hargeisa, informal economy, policy, research, somaliland, urban informal economy | Leave a comment

Chinese investments in African tech will transform the fintech landscape

By Niti Bhan | Published: October 20, 2018

A recent article brought to my attention this report on the pattern of funding experienced by fintech startups in East Africa and India with rather damning results. 90 percent of the capital invested by “Silicon Valley-style” investors went to startups, technically in East Africa, with one or more North American or European founders. These results […]

Also posted in Africa, African Consumer Market, Airtime, Alternative currency, Analysis, Assumption filter, Banking, Business, Business Models, Cashless transactions, China, Commerce en ligne (e-commerce), Compétitivité, Economy, Ecosystem, Emerging Markets, Flexibility, Loans, Marchés africains, Marketing, Mobile platform, Perspective, Platforms, Risk, Strategy, Sub Saharan Africa, Systems, Technology | Tagged china, dfs, digital financial solutions, financial inclusion, fintech, funding, silicon valley, startups, technology, venture capital | Leave a comment

The comparative global impact of Alibaba vs. Amazon

By Niti Bhan | Published: July 5, 2018

Alibaba Business School and the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) brought 29 young entrepreneurs from 11 countries across Africa to the Alibaba campus in Hangzhou, China for the third eFounders Fellowship cohort. Chinese corporate soft power influence is production driven, not consumption focused. Alibaba, the e-commerce giant with digital payment tentacles, has […]

Also posted in Africa, Business Models, China, Commerce en ligne (e-commerce), Ecosystem, Emerging Markets, Innovation Planning, Marchés africains, Marketing, Mobile platform, Perspective, Platforms, Retail in Africa, Strategy, Sub Saharan Africa, Systems, Technology | Tagged africa, alibaba, business model, business model disruption, comsumption based model, digital, e-commerce, entrepreneurship, jack ma, production based model, productivity, youth | Leave a comment

The Strategic Entry of China’s Transsion into the Vacuum Left by Nokia in Africa

By Niti Bhan | Published: February 14, 2018

If you’re outside Africa, you’ve never heard of them before, but a mobile phone brand called Tecno has been painting Kenya blue ever since I started fulltime fieldwork there in late 2011. It was in Mombasa that I first noticed the name and wondered what it was about. Over the years, I saw the line […]

Also posted in Africa, African Consumer Market, Afrique francophone, Business, China, Commerce en ligne (e-commerce), Consumer Behaviour, Design, Emerging Markets, Innovation Planning, Marchés africains, Marketing, Mobile platform, Perspective, Prepaid Economy & Informal Sector, Retail in Africa, Strategy, Sub Saharan Africa, Technology | Tagged africa, china, consumer brand, infinix, itel, mobile phone, tecno, tecno mobile, transsion | Leave a comment

Trading economics: a new theoretical system

By Niti Bhan | Published: February 3, 2018

From the Financial Times, a snippet from a guest post by Wang Zhenying, director-general of the research and statistics department at the PBoC’s Shanghai head office and vice chairman of the Shanghai Financial Studies Association, summarising the arguments in his new Chinese-language textbook on economics. “Trading economics” is one new theory emerging against this backdrop. […]

Also posted in Analysis, Assumption filter, Base of the Pyramid, Biashara Economics, Business Models, China, Consumer Behaviour, Economy, Ecosystem, Emerging Markets, Frameworks, Informal & Flexible, Marchés africains, Platforms, Prepaid Economy & Informal Sector, Report Review, Research, Systems, UCSD | Tagged design for complex adaptive systems, economic ecosystems, trading economics, value web | 1 Response