The Interledger Community 🌱: Smriti Parsheera

Researching Financial Inclusion in the Global South — ILF Ambassador Final Report

Smriti Parsheera — Tue, 02 Sep 2025 09:58:45 +0000

Project Overview

As a 2024 Research Ambassador, my aim was to study the impact of digital technologies on society and contribute to deepening the state of knowledge on issues of financial inclusion, access, and digital equity. As the ambassadorship draws to a close, I am pleased to update the community on the key activities that were undertaken towards pursuing these goals. This report summarizes the findings of my research project to understand the state of digital and financial inclusion in the Lahaul & Spiti region of India, which was previously discussed here. In addition, it provides the details of a few other initiatives that I was involved in, such as the launch of Interledger's new Call for Papers grant to support research on financial inclusion and payments interoperability.

Research Project -- Pinging Paradise

My research project, 'Pinging Paradise', sought to study the lived experiences of digital and financial inclusion in the remote district of Lahaul & Spiti in the state of Himachal Pradesh in India. The project's name was inspired by the breathtaking landscape, poetic isolation, and rugged terrain of the region, and the desire to understand how its residents 'ping' or interact with the digital world.

The motivation for this study stemmed from two main factors. First, my personal connect with the area as a native of the region. Second, the general gap in knowledge about digital and financial inclusion among India's tribal or adivasi (original inhabitants) population. The majority of Lahaul & Spiti's residents belong to the notified Scheduled Tribes (STs), a group that constitutes about 8.6% of the India's population. Tribal regions are often characterized by their geographical seclusion, unique cultural traditions and slower pace of development. Notably, the data shows that ST households formed the most financially excluded social group in India. This makes it relevant to understand the contours of digital and financial inclusion in tribal regions while also locating that inquiry in the local context and customs of each community.

This qualitative study is based on the insights gathered from semi-structured interviews with community members, small businesses, women's collectives (mahila mandals), bank officials, school administrators and the district's elected representative. The field visits were carried out in two phases, the visit to the Spiti region was in July, 2024 and to Lahaul in September. The respondents were selected through a mix of convenience and purposive sampling. The latter took into account factors such as geographic location, internet connectivity, professional profile and specialized knowledge of the issue. During these interactions, I asked the respondents about their internet usage patterns, use of online and offline banking and financial services, and perceptions about the relationship between the region's digital and physical infrastructure.

It was promising to find a near-universal penetration of bank accounts -- all the respondents and their family members had bank accounts, regardless of age, gender and educational qualifications. But when it came to the use of online banking the experience was more varied, with adoption being mainly concentrated among the younger and middle aged individuals. This was also true for the adoption of the Unified Payment Interface (UPI), India's real-time digital payments infrastructure. Almost everyone that I spoke to was familiar with the concept of UPI's mobile-based inter-bank payments although many of them were not using it themselves.

Older women were the least likely to use digital financial services. Many of them were uneducated, some had acquired basic reading and writing skills under the government's adult literacy mission. With that, they felt comfortable dialing numbers using a basic phone and signing their names but not to conduct digital transactions. Even among the younger women, who were educated and digitally savvy, many limited their use of smartphones to services like WhatsApp, Facebook and YouTube but did not undertake online financial transactions.

It was also interesting to find that users displayed differing levels of familiarity and comfort with digital services based on the nature of the transaction. For example, display of QR codes for receiving UPI payments was a common sight in small roadside eateries, shops, homestays and even for accepting donations in temples. However, some users reported that their use was limited to being a passive recipient of the payment and they did not feel confident initiating transactions on their own. The reasons given for the reluctance or selective use of digital finance ranged from comfort with traditional branch-based banking, mistrust and fear of incurring losses, and reliance on other family members who could handle online transactions.

Another useful observation that emerged was on the role of the community as a unit for understanding the status of digital and financial inclusion. Village Demul in Spiti, which runs a community-based homestay project, presents an example. The residents of the village explained that they took turns to let out rooms in their homestays and the income from that was distributed among all participating households. Notably, the village did not have internet access, which made it difficult for homestay owners to manage online bookings. This was addressed by appointing local coordinators who managed the booking process on behalf of the entire village, sometimes by visiting areas with connectivity. In doing so, Demul had created a unique model of financial empowerment relying on trust and cooperation within the community.

While not a part of the original study design, the field visits also shed light on the experiences of migrant workers who had came to Lahaul & Spiti for contractual work in farms and road construction activities. Workers belonging to other Indian states, who mostly came from the region of Bihar and Jharkhand, often asked their employers to send all or a part of their wages directly to their family through UPI. This saved them the trouble of handling cash and dealing with intermediaries. In contrast, temporary workers from the neighboring country of Nepal were still paid in cash due to the lack of an equivalent system for cross border transfers. Upon receiving cash payments from the contractor this group would visit an informal exchange agent who would facilitate the transfer to a bank account in Nepal upon payment of a commission.

Learnings from the Project

This study offers caution against the tendency to homogenize the experience of digital and financial inclusion. On the one hand, there is the narrative of radical and universal digital transformation in India, enabled by the growth of services like UPI. One the other, there is another narrative about the purported backwardness of tribal populations, characterized by poverty and deprivation. The reality of Lahaul & Spiti does not fit in either of these extremes.

It is a region that demonstrates a high level of bank account ownership with mounting awareness of digital payments. Awareness and use of other financial services like insurance, mutual funds, and voluntary retirement schemes still remains low. Moreover, digital experiences within the community vary drastically based on factors such as age, gender, and education level.

Further, although large parts of the district are now connected to the internet, pockets of under connectivity still remain. The fragile ecological structure of the region, which is prone to cloud bursts, landslides and other damage during heavy snow and rainfall, also takes its periodic toll on the region's physical and internet infrastructure. The combination of these factors with the community's local practices and realities present a unique context that is cannot be boxed in universalizing narratives of digital inclusion or exclusion.

Call for Papers and Future|Money Podcast

Alongside the work on my research project, I was involved in a few other initiatives geared towards untangling the complexities of financial inclusion. This included design and moderation of a Future|Money Podcast session on Practising financial inclusion in the Global South. In this conversation with James Ogada of the Busara Centre and Susan Thomas of XKDR Forum, we unpacked the concept of financial inclusion and why it matters. The discussions covered suitable metrics for the measurement financial inclusion, the behavioral science behind inclusion interventions, and the contours of responsible digital credit.

Earlier this year, Interledger launched a new grant to support research on financial inclusion, with a focus on encouraging perspectives from the Global South. The idea behind it was born out of an ideation session with Lawil Karama from the Program Team in which we discussed possible ways to deepen Interledger's engagement with the research community, particularly in the developing world. It has been my privilege to collaborate with the Program Team in shaping and executing this initiative. This included work on planning the themes for the call and engaging with a stellar group of academics who formed the Academic Steering Committee and guided the review and selection of the research proposals.

Internet Governance Forum

In June this year, I was part of the Interledger delegation that attended the Internet Governance Forum (IGF) meeting held in Lillestrøm, Norway. IGF is an United Nations initiative designed to promoted multistakeholder conversations on building a safe and open internet and promoting human rights in the digital age. At this year's IGF, I collaborated with the Freedom Online Coalition to organize a workshop titled Universal Principles, Local Realities: Multistakeholder Pathways for DPI.

The session (available here) covered global trends in the deployment of digital public infrastructure and how implementation choices reflect broader societal contexts and governance models. The discussion was moderated by Sabhanaz Rashid Diya of Tech Global Institute and we had a fantastic line up of speakers that included Armando Manzueta from the Government of Dominican Republic, Bidisha Chaudhury of University of Amsterdam, Keith Breckenridge from University of the Witwatersrand, Luca Belli of FGV Law School, Rasmus Lumi from the Estonian Ministry of Foreign Affairs and SB Singh from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.

The IGF also saw the launch of the Policy Blueprint for Interoperable Payment Protocols, which was developed by the IGF Dynamic Coalition on Digital Financial Inclusion. As a member of the Dynamic Coalition, I gained immensely from the interactions with this group over the last one year. I also contributed to the development of the blueprint and was grateful for the opportunity to participate in the meeting organized by Ayden Férdeline to introduce this work before members of the IFG community.

Communications and Engagement

One of the components of my research plan was to host a workshop to seek inputs on my project proposal from the policy and research community in India and introduce them to the Interledger Foundation. This led to the organization of an in-person Workshop on Digital and Financial Inclusion in New Delhi last year, which was discussed in an earlier post.

In addition, events such as the Future|Money Podcast and the IGF meetings presented a platform to introduce key ideas from my research project to a wider audience. I was also delighted to engage virtually with the Interledger team to present the research process and findings of my project during a Lunch and Learn Session in July.

Lastly, I would like to share the details of a policy brief co-authored with Bruna Cataldo, Larissa Magalhães and Nicolo Zingales. The brief was published by the Think Tank 20, an official engagement group of the G20, during Brazil's G20 presidency in 2024. In it, we discussed the development and implementation of standardized digital payments DPIs in Brazil and India and the lessons they may hold for other countries. The ideas covered in it emerged from our discussions during a session on DPI at the 2023 Interledger Summit in Costa Rica.

What’s Next?

The next step on the Pinging Paradise project involves the publication of the research paper detailing the motivation, methodology and findings of the project. I am on the look for suitable venues for the publication of the paper, which may include a journal or a book chapter.

In addition, I look forward to the next phase of the Call for Papers initiative, as the new research ideas emerging from it are executed and published over the coming months. To begin with, I am eager to learn more about and interact with the authors of the selected papers at the upcoming Interledger Summit.

Community Support

My journey as an Interledger Ambassador has been an immensely fulfilling one, in large part due to the richness of the interactions with this community. In particular, I would like to thank Lawil Karama, Ayesha Ware, Chris Lawrence, Ayden Férdeline, and Vineel Pindi for their support and collaboration over the course of the ambassadorship. I am also grateful to the Interledger leadership and the Program Team for their enthusiastic support for my research project and the Call for Papers initiative. I trust that the Interledger community will continue to deepen its engagement with the academic and research networks and carry on encouraging lesser heard voices.

'Pinging Paradise' — ILF Ambassador Progress Report

Smriti Parsheera — Thu, 05 Sep 2024 11:36:55 +0000

Project Update

The goal of my Interledger project ‘Pinging Paradise’, which I had introduced here, is to understand the experience of digital financial inclusion among the people of district Lahaul & Spiti in Himachal Pradesh, India. As a researcher who studies issues of access, connectivity and digital rights, it has been a long-standing desire to explore these issues in the context of my home district and I am most grateful to the Interledger Foundation for their support in enabling this work.

This interim report presents an overview of the activities that I have undertaken as part of this project over the last five months. Being a research-centric exercise, this has involved activities such as literature review, interaction with experts, design of the questionnaires and implementation of the interviews. Below, I explain these events in more detail, classifying them under the heads of – a) scoping the landscape, b) research design and planning, and c) field experience.

In terms of key highlights, the workshop on digital and financial inclusion and the field trip to the Spiti region for the first phase of the interviews have been the two most enriching experiences in the journey so far. These events led me to interact with two very different communities, both of which have played an instrumental role in the distillation of the research plan and gathering of insights. The first was the community of researchers, policy professionals and practitioners who participated in the workshop and provided valuable guidance on how to fine-tune the project’s scope and methodology. The second community, which is the focus of my study, consisted of the warm and generous people of Spiti, who enriched the study by sharing their stories and digital experiences.

Progress on Objectives, Key Activities

In the initial project plan, I had broken down the process of understanding the state of digital connectivity and financial inclusion in Lahaul & Spiti into five steps. These were – 1) desk research and design, 2) brainstorming workshop, 3) fieldwork, 4) analysis and report writing, and 5) dissemination. Standing near the half-way point of the project, I am happy to report that a good part of the first three activities have been completed during the project’s first phase, which lasted from April to August.

Scoping the landscape

The first step in the process was to understand the breadth and the depth of the existing knowledge on this research subject. Accordingly, I began by gathering the relevant literature on the topics of financial inclusion and the state of digital connectivity, focusing mainly on research papers, reports, and policy initiatives that spoke to the Indian context. While there was a reasonably sized body of work on these issues at the national level, the information became scarcer at the sub-national/ state level and even more so at the district level. This was a useful reminder of the under-researched nature of some of these issues, particularly in the context of remote and underdeveloped regions like Lahaul & Spiti.

Alongside the literature review, I worked on identifying other useful sources of information, such as data put out by the Reserve Bank of India and the Finance Ministry on financial inclusion and by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India on Internet access. I was also keen to learn about the distribution of telecommunication towers in district Lahaul & Spiti and how that compares with other parts of the state. The website containing this information (maintained jointly by the government and the telecommunication industry) did not provide this information in a easily accessible format. I reached out to the community for help and Interledger Ambassador Santosh Viswanatham was kind enough to guide me through the process of navigating this resource more efficiently.

Research design and planning

Next, I began to flesh out the research methodology and formulate the interview questionnaire. I presented these ideas at the workshop on digital and financial inclusion that was organized in May. In addition to offering rich insights on the policy and practice of financial inclusion, which were discussed in my last post, the workshop helped me in sharpening the research design in several ways. One of the important suggestions that came up was regarding the scope of the project. Some of the participants pointed out that instead of trying to capture the whole gamut of digital and financial experiences, which would be challenging to do in practice, it may be better to focus the interviews on a smaller set of financial services. Building on this feedback, I tailored my questions to concentrate mainly on the use of banking and payment services.

We also had a useful discussion on the subject of participant compensation and related issues of fairness and incentives. This was in response to my initial idea of offering an entry-level mobile phone to each of the surveyed households. The idea was that this could be a compensation for their participation while also serving as an intervention that could be used to gauge how the mobile phone was actually being put to use and by whom. However, taking into account the feedback from the participants and legitimate execution challenges, I decided to exclude this idea from the project design.

Field experience (Phase 1)

Lahaul and Spiti are two separate administrative divisions with significant distances between them. I therefore decided to divide the field work into two phases, the first part of which was carried out in the Spiti region in July. The journey by road from Manali, in district Kullu, to Spiti’s divisional headquarter, Kaza, took about 10 hours. Most of this time was spent on unmetalled roads (or at times, no roads) and with no mobile connectivity. While the spectacular landscape more than made up for this discomfort for the occasional traveler, it was impossible not to think of the safety concerns and inconvenience that it spelled for local residents.

Over the course of a week, I traveled to different villages in Spiti and carried out 15 detailed interviews. This was coupled with many shorter conversations along the way. The interviews were conducted using a convenience sampling methodology, which means that the interviewees were selected based on their accessibility and availability to participate in the discussion. The persons that I spoke to included agriculturalists, homemakers, small business owners, bank staff, and school employees. I also ended up having some interesting conversations with migrant workers from outside the state who were engaged in road construction activities along the highway. While my primary focus was on the local community, these unplanned encounters offered a window into the unique challenges that arise at the intersection of low connectivity settings and the precarity of migrant work.

I was also interested in measuring the state of internet connectivity in different pockets of the region. To do this, I procured the SIM cards of the three main telecommunication service providers that serve the region – Reliance Jio, Airtel and BSNL. The speed and responsiveness of these providers were tested across multiple locations using Ookla’s Speed Test app. The results showed that although a large part of the road from Manali to Spiti and the roads within the valley had no mobile connectivity, the situation got much better when you hit the main villages, where the mobile towers were located. Yet, there were villages like Hikkim, which boasts of the world’s highest altitude post office, and parts of the Pin valley, which still had no internet access.

Project Impact & Target Audience(s)

The people of Lahaul & Spiti belong to a constitutionally protected minority known as the ‘scheduled tribes’. This refers to communities that have been recognized as distinct tribal groups based on their unique cultural characteristics, geographical isolation, and social and economic underdevelopment. Yet, despite various affirmative measures, the marginalization of tribal communities still persists. Among other things, this is reflected in their delayed access to physical and digital infrastructures and invisibility from research studies on these subjects. The project’s aim is to dilute this pattern of invisibility by generating new knowledge on the lived experiences of the community of Lahaul & Spiti.

The study’s target audience is, however, not limited to the community itself. Rather, it can help a broader ecosystem of stakeholders, including policy planners, technologists and businesses, to deepen their understanding of how users in challenging and remote environments engage with digital financial services and the interventions that may be needed to improve that situation.

Communications and Marketing

The workshop on digital and financial inclusion was the main forum in which I discussed my project plans with domain experts. This was accompanied by a broader conversation on other aspects of the Interledger Foundation's work, its projects and available grant opportunities. Besides this, I have had many one-on-one conversations about the project and my ambassadorship with people in my network. Following the completion of the project, I will continue these communication initiatives, with a focus on the dissemination of the findings through existing networks, social media, and speaking opportunities at relevant conferences and events.

What’s Next?

In the next phase of the project, which goes on till December, I will focus on the second leg of the interviews and the speed testing exercise in the Lahaul region. In line with the original proposal, I will make best efforts to interview multiple individuals within each household in order to learn about the intra-household dynamics of financial inclusion. This is something that I was not able to achieve during the first phase of the interviews. Following the completion of the information gathering phase, I will condense and analyze the learning from the interviews and other sources to put together the final project report.

Alongside these project-specific activities, I will continue to engage with the Interledger community in various other ways. This includes participation in the meetings of the IGF Dynamic Coalition on Digital Financial Inclusion being led by Interledger Ambassador Ayden Férdeline and planning an upcoming episode of the Future | Money Podcast on ‘Practicing Financial Inclusion in the Global South’ in collaboration with Lawil Karama.

Community Support

One of the ideas that I was keen to pursue was to automate the internet speed measurement tests – to do this simultaneously using multiple SIM cards and at regular scheduled intervals while I was on the road. I spoke to a few people to figure this out but eventually settled on a manual testing method, using the Speed Test app on multiple mobile devices. While I was comfortable with this process, I remain open to any ideas on how this methodology may be improved for the next leg of the field work. I would also welcome any feedback on the research path described here and additional avenues that may seem worth exploring in the context of this project.

Additional Comments

Let me end with a few words about some of my other work, which may be of interest to those who are thinking about the field of digital public infrastructures (DPIs). I have been studying the developments around DPIs in India for the last few years. Drawing on that work, in April this year I published an article titled ‘Stack is the New Black?: Evolution and Outcomes of the ‘India-Stackification’ Process’ in the Computer Law & Security Review. This was followed by a shorter piece called ‘Digital Public Infrastructure and the Jeopardy of “Alt Big Tech” in India’ for the Center for the Advanced Study of India. I plan to present some of this work – mainly on the competition policy implications from the rise of monopolistic digital infrastructures – at the upcoming Interledger Summit. Hope to see and interact with some of you there.

Thank you for taking the time to read the report. I would welcome any questions or comments.

Project Update - Workshop on Digital and Financial Inclusion in India – ILF Ambassador Report (Part 1)

Smriti Parsheera — Mon, 26 Aug 2024 15:05:56 +0000

As part of my Interledger Research Ambassadorship, I am working on a project titled ‘Pinging Paradise’ that focuses on the lived digital experiences of people belonging to my native region of district Lahaul-Spiti in Himachal Pradesh, India. Although my study concentrates on a specific region and its unique characteristics, it felt useful to start the process by understanding the broader context of digital and financial inclusion in India. With this in mind, I had organised a one day Workshop on Digital and Financial Inclusion in New Delhi in May.

In this post, I summarise the key reflections from the workshop. Part 2 of the Progress Report, which will follow in a few days, will discuss some of the other activities undertaken as a part of my project.

The workshop was attended by twenty six individuals from different research organisations, civil society groups, industry associations, think tanks, and behavioural labs. This included organisations such as Ashoka University, Busara Center, Carnegie India, Cashless Consumer, Good Business Lab, Gram Vaani, ICRIER, Internet Freedom Foundation, NASSCOM, NIPFP, Trustbridge Rule of Law Foundation, and XKDR Forum. I was able to draw upon the expertise of this group to brainstorm about my research plan and to introduce them to Interledger’s work -- this part of the conversation was led by Vineel Reddy Pindi from the ILF team.

In this process, we saw a vibrant debate on a range of topics, a summary of which is presented here under the heads of a) defining and measuring financial inclusion, b) open payments and financial inclusion, and c) notes from the field of behavioural studies.

Defining and measuring financial inclusion

The discussions in this segment began with an articulation of the multiple ways in which we can understand the concept of ‘financial inclusion’. An instrument wise definition would, for instance, treat a person as being included if they have access to specific instruments like a bank account or credit facilities. A demographic group centric definition may focus on specific groups like the poor, women and other marginalised groups. Further, it was suggested that the gaze of financial inclusion should not just look at individuals and households but also capture the needs of small and medium sized businesses.

The participants acknowledged that the agenda of inclusion needs to go beyond the initial step of facilitating access to an account to assessing how effectively the financial products are being utilised and what are the results. One of the speakers explained this as the ‘input, output and outcome’ approach of measuring financial inclusion. The focus of their work was on understanding the actual financial participation of households and its impact on their wellbeing. Another speaker brought out the ‘form’ versus ‘function’ distinction in understanding the state of financial inclusion. They illustrated with the example of having a bank account, which deals with the ‘form’ aspect, whereas the purposes for which the account is deployed relates to its ‘function’.

As per this viewpoint, the functional focus of India’s financial inclusion story has primarily been on the use of bank accounts for the payment of government subsidies and welfare benefits. This emphasis on the function of direct benefit transfers may have come about at the cost of holistic financial inclusion. The speaker reasoned that this has contributed to the situation where we see high figures on the number of people with bank accounts but the account usage statistics remain low.

The discussion then moved on to the policy issues surrounding financial inclusion. This included topics like the focus on ID based verification for financial accounts, use of regulatory sandboxes, data collection and consumer protection practices. We also saw a debate on the central place that digital public infrastructure (DPI) has come to acquire in India’s digital payments strategy. In the context of the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), India’s DPI for digital payments, the group acknowledged the importance of this system in terms of growth trends, scale, and volume of transactions. However, many also felt the need for more granular data reporting about the system. We also touched upon questions about the depth of UPI adoption in rural areas, extent of its openness (given that standard setting is controlled by one entity and not through an open process), data governance practices, and impact on the market’s competitive dynamics.

Open payments and financial inclusion

The next session engaged with the challenges and opportunities of pursuing open payments at the global level, with a focus on the role that the Interledger Protocol (ILP) can play in this space. Vineel introduced the group to the work of the Interledger Foundation, its vision of promoting open and interoperable payments, and some of the projects that are underway. This was followed by a conversation on the importance of open payment systems that prioritise user agency and privacy, while ensuring fairness and equity in the digital payments space. One of the speakers pointed that the need to enable fair competition should also be considered alongside the goals of inclusion, efficiency and innovation.

While acknowledging the revolutionary potential of ILP for cross-border open payments, the participants recognised the difficulties that could arise in cross country standardisation due to the highly regulated nature of the sector and differences in market dynamics. For instance, a speaker illustrated that the United States is a cards-first market whereas India is prioritising bank to bank fast payments through its UPI system. The integration of these systems can therefore be harder, at the policy and operational levels, compared to the cross-border integration among real time payment systems like UPI and Singapore’s PayNow. This led to the interesting question of what role can ILP play in the interconnection between domestic payment DPIs and what needs to be done at the international standard setting level for ILP to acquire such a role?

A participant suggested that digital payments systems should be seen as consisting of a 'technology' layer, a 'settlement system' layer and a 'store of value' layer and it might be useful to identify the innovation and regulatory roadblocks that emerge at each of these layers. Another participant suggested that it would be desirable to be able to de-link payments transactions from the necessity of having a bank account and asked if ILP can help with that. For instance, instead of having a bank account as a store of value, could open payments allow the individual to hold different asset classes digitally (mutual funds, gold, etc) and dynamically liquidate a portion of their selected assets every time they want to make a payments transaction?

Lastly, one of the speakers observed that since the ILP seeks to do what the TCP/IP did for the internet, it implies that future adopters of the protocol will play a role in shaping its underlying values, use cases, and outcomes. While this opens the field for tremendous innovation, it could also include use cases that may be considered undesirable by certain regulatory authorities.

Notes from the field of behavioural studies

In the last segment, we shifted gears from the policy, measurement, and innovation related issues to focus on the behavioural aspects of financial inclusion. The speakers in this segment came from different behavioural study groups and shared their experiences about the types of interventions being deployed in the field and their role in understanding the financial well being of users.

For instance, one of the speakers described a ‘flexi salary advance’ product that allowed factory workers to draw an advance on their next month’s salary from their employer. The introduction of this product had led to a reduction in informal borrowing, which is often offered at very high interest rates, helping workers in managing their financial stress. We then discussed the use of ‘financial diaries’ as a method to maintain a systematic record of all financial transactions by a user over a period of time. This can help draw a comprehensive picture of their financial lives and aid in making more informed decisions. Some of the participants observed that this methodology could give rise to privacy concerns leading to a discussion on informed consent and data governance practices.

We heard about other interesting methodologies like the use of the ‘photo voice’ method where participants use photographs as a tool to express their perspective, especially on sensitive subjects. Other examples included the deployment of various gamification tools, ‘mock ATMs’, and communication channels like Whatsapp groups to facilitate peer learning effects. Another interesting theme that came up was the role of ‘digital confidence’, distinguished from digital literacy or financial literacy, in the financial inclusion agenda. One of the speakers emphasised the importance of good UI/UX design for building digital confidence.

In addition to these points, intra-household decision-making dynamics, particularly from the perspective of women, and the barriers of information, skills, and trust faced by marginalised groups were a recurring theme across the sessions. We concluded the workshop with an overview of Interledger’s engagement strategies and grant opportunities.

Following the event, I put together this list of resources containing links to some of the suggested readings and resources that came up during the workshop. I plan to keep on building this list with other useful readings. Please feel free to reach out with any suggestions on that or thoughts on any of points discussed here.

Research project: Lived digital experiences of a Himalayan community

Smriti Parsheera — Tue, 23 Apr 2024 17:24:02 +0000

I am Smriti Parsheera, a lawyer and public policy researcher from India. Starting this month, I have embarked on an exciting new journey as an Interledger Research Ambassador. My project, tentatively titled ‘Pinging Paradise’, will study the lived digital experiences of people living in my native region of Lahaul-Spiti in the state of Himachal Pradesh in northern India.

I will be studying the interactions between the region’s remote location in the Himalayas and the state of its physical and digital infrastructure. Relying on a series of in-depth interviews, I hope to cast the spotlight on how those living far away from the everyday digital buzz of big cities perceive and interact with digital and financial services.

This project forms a part of my broader research interest in studying the interaction between digital technologies and society, across areas like digital inclusion, privacy, data governance, and digital public infrastructure. Until last year, I was a Research Fellow with the CyberBRICS Project at FGV Law School in Rio de Janeiro where I worked alongside researchers from other BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) countries to study the digital transformation strategies in these countries. Before that, I led the technology policy vertical at New Delhi’s National Institute of Public Finance and Policy, where I worked closely with several government agencies and committees on Indian tech policy issues. I have also held research positions with India’s competition regulatory authority and the United Nations Development Programme. For anyone who may be interested, this page contains links to my published research.

I have already met some of the amazing people from this community during the Costa Rica summit and through the ambassadors network. Look forward to getting to know many more of you in the coming months. I will keep the community posted on the developments with my project and would welcome your feedback and suggestions along the way. Please do get in touch if you want to exchange notes about this project or tech policy developments more generally.