New paper: Digital labour and development: impacts of global digital labour platforms and the gig economy on worker livelihoods

21 March 2017 0

As ever more policy-makers, governments and organisations turn to the gig economy and digital labour as an economic development strategy to bring jobs to places that need them, it becomes important to understand better how this might influence the livelihoods of workers. Drawing on a multi-year study with digital workers in Sub-Saharan Africa and South-east… Read More: New paper: Digital labour and development: impacts of global digital… »

Mapping The Global Knowledge Economy

16 March 2017 0

The geography of published and codified knowledge has always had stark core-periphery patterns. Just look at the below map of where academic articles are published from. However, increasing digital connectivity has sparked many hopes for the democratization of information and knowledge production in economically peripheral parts of the world. If you can access the sum… Read More: Mapping The Global Knowledge Economy »

New Publication: Engagement in the Knowledge Economy: Regional Patterns of Content Creation with a Focus on Sub-Saharan Africa

15 March 2017 0

We have a new publication out: Ojanperä, S., Graham, M., Straumann, R. K., De Sabbata, S., & Zook, M. (2017). Engagement in the knowledge economy: Regional patterns of content creation with a focus on sub-Saharan Africa. Information Technologies & International Development, 13, 33–51. It is open access, so please navigate to the journal site to download the… Read More: New Publication: Engagement in the Knowledge Economy: Regional Patterns of… »

Digital gig work and outsourcing in Africa- Update on Geonet

27 February 2017 0

This is a short post about the research that I lead into digital work and the digital economy in Sub-Saharan Africa. The work that I do (in tandem with my Geonet colleagues) specifically looks at the growth of digital gig economy and the business process outsourcing activities in four African countries namely South Africa, Kenya, Nigeria… Read More: Digital gig work and outsourcing in Africa- Update on Geonet »

Are mobile phones transforming Africa?

14 December 2016 0

The latest version of the Economist contains a boldly-titled piece: ‘Mobile phones are transforming Africa‘.  The general sense in the piece is that, where connectivity exists, mobile phones and computers are an important contributor to economic growth. However, connectivity is uneven and Africa’s economic development is hampered by a lack of access. This is an… Read More: Are mobile phones transforming Africa? »

Hiring a Researcher at Oxford: Digital Entrepreneurship | Economic Geography | Sub-Saharan Africa

9 December 2016 1

We are recruiting a full-time Researcher to work with us at the Oxford Internet Institute (University of Oxford) on a project that critically assesses the changing landscape of digital entrepreneurship in Sub-Saharan Africa. The Researcher will conduct a grounded, comparative empirical study of digital entrepreneurship in African cities. We are interested in the practices of digital entrepreneurship,… Read More: Hiring a Researcher at Oxford: Digital Entrepreneurship | Economic Geography | Sub-Saharan… »

Mapping Twitter

5 December 2016 0

I’ve been working with Antonello Romano to update some of our older research into the geography of Twitter. Above you can see some maps from a sample of about 2.5 million tweets collected worldwide over 48 hours in October 2016. These are collected using the Twitter streaming API (at most a 1% sample). Because of the… Read More: Mapping Twitter »

Mapping the Availability of Online Labour

21 October 2016 1

Digitalization and the increasing connectivity across the globe have capacitated the emergence of an online labour market. A number of platforms now facilitate transactions between employers and employees, often based in very separate locations. These platforms cater for a variety of job types, ranging from simple tasks to complex projects and services and are estimated to provide employment to tens… Read More: Mapping the Availability of Online Labour »