TY - GEN
T1 - The Persistence of Paper
T2 - 7th International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development, ICTD 2015
AU - Ghosh, Ishita
AU - Chen, Jay
AU - Ming, Joy
AU - Abouzied, Azza
PY - 2015/5/15
Y1 - 2015/5/15
N2 - Paper as a medium persists as the de facto standard for information collection, storage, and transfer in many low-resource developing contexts. Of these contexts, the microfinance industry continues to be fascinating in the ongoing ICTD conversation due, in part, to its elimination of paper by digitizing money transfers using mobile banking. This success invites scholars, designers, and industry practitioners to design technology solutions to eliminate the perceived inefficiencies of paper in microfinance and other industries. In this work, we take a step back to assess the role and value of paper in order to give designers pause when considering a blanket digitization of existing processes, norms, and transactions. Specifically, we study a microfinance ecosystem in the city of Tema in Ghana and find that paper passbooks are able to deliver valuable context-specific information to its owners that derive from the specific affordances of paper itself. Our findings encourage a more nuanced view of paper?s place in microfinance, and consequently, in similar low-resource settings.
AB - Paper as a medium persists as the de facto standard for information collection, storage, and transfer in many low-resource developing contexts. Of these contexts, the microfinance industry continues to be fascinating in the ongoing ICTD conversation due, in part, to its elimination of paper by digitizing money transfers using mobile banking. This success invites scholars, designers, and industry practitioners to design technology solutions to eliminate the perceived inefficiencies of paper in microfinance and other industries. In this work, we take a step back to assess the role and value of paper in order to give designers pause when considering a blanket digitization of existing processes, norms, and transactions. Specifically, we study a microfinance ecosystem in the city of Tema in Ghana and find that paper passbooks are able to deliver valuable context-specific information to its owners that derive from the specific affordances of paper itself. Our findings encourage a more nuanced view of paper?s place in microfinance, and consequently, in similar low-resource settings.
KW - ICTD
KW - Microfinance
KW - Paper
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=84955304557&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84955304557&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1145/2737856.2738029
DO - 10.1145/2737856.2738029
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84955304557
T3 - ACM International Conference Proceeding Series
BT - Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Information and Communication Technologies and Development, ICTD 2015
PB - Association for Computing Machinery
Y2 - 15 May 2015 through 18 May 2015
ER -