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Coding from the margins
Development | ICT

Coding from the margins

Development | ICT

In the last decades the globe has witnessed an acceleration of the globalization process thanks to ICTs and the existence of the Internet. Applied to our professional and personal spheres, both of them have facilitated social, cultural and economic exchange. Thus, the access to wider political perspectives, the easiness of acquiring foreign goods or the enjoyment of educational programs from abroad —just to mention a few and simple examples—, have become an undeniable right for part of the global population and an exceptional fact for the rest.

The appearance of new technologies has been historically linked to Northern countries, not only if taking into account its use, but also if considering its conception. It is here where we may find the origin of the already mentioned inequalities: new ICTs and the development of the Internet have been specially devised by and for Northern countries’ privileged populations.

However, reports recently published by both public and private global organizations evidence a crescent tendency of professionals from the so-called margins who are working as coders and developers; in short, as artificers of the new tools that are shaping the present and future of the world we inhabit.

Developing technology from the Global South

At the understood as geographical margins and in the scope of digital businesses, today it is possible to find the most prolific regions in Asia Pacific, Africa and South America. According to the Global Developer Population and Demographic Study, countries such as China, India, Egypt, Kenya, Morocco, Nigeria and South Africa, stand out with a large number of ICTs entrepreneurs and professionals who code.

In terms of growth in the number of software developers, the Asia Pacific area showed the strongest development, with a high rate of students graduating each year. And South America has the second strongest growth rate observed in 2019.

The programming sector is nowadays one of the most widespread industries across the world, specially after the Covid-19 crisis and the consequences it has had for the work environment. It is a common thread to see teams based in Western economies that outsource part of their projects to Southern professionals and enterprises. At some point, we may think that this practice perpetuates historical colonial relationships or develop new inequalities between developed and developing countries. However, it is important to highlight the positive derivatives of finding qualified professionals who code from the Global South (not only for the North but also for their own territories), as well as to define the actual limitation for the expansion of these incipient communities.

The UN Digital Economy Report differentiates the goodness of digital development between first-order benefits and second-order benefits. The first ones guarantee “increased competitiveness, productivity, wealth and wellbeing”, whereas the second ones are centered in “long-term growth, job and wealth creation, and lasting positive effects on productivity and competitiveness”.  

In this sense, the so-called indigenous technology arises not only as a key to unlock new markets by developing countries, but also as the most accurate response to sociologic, cultural and economic local needs.

“People from the West often can’t imagine or create the solutions needed in emerging markets, as they don’t have the context and do not understand the ‘mobile [technology] first’ paradigm” (Hersman 2012a, 67). This statement covered by Mark Graham at his book ‘Digital Economies at Global Margins’ perfectly materializes the existing disconnection between the technology created by companies from the North and the actual needs of Southern inhabitants.

One of the main differences between their technological production is the context where the code is crafted. And without matter if we refer to urban or rural areas, the basic needs for favouring these jobs are not always covered. As the author describes in regards to Africa (Graham 2019, 199), it’s possible to enumerate some minimums that are not always guaranteed. We could point at the existence of appropriate physical spaces for work, an acceptable network of public transport or a broadband Internet connection. The lack of these essentials, summed to the suffering of electricity cutoffs or the limitation of access to financial resources (these last ones sometimes promoted by the African governments theirselves), are currently conditioning the development of technology across the continent.

Furthermore, it would be fair to consider additional and not-so-obvious disadvantages between the tech sector in the developed and developing countries. The African Manifesto for Science, Technology and Innovation raised awareness in 2010 of how necessary it is the cooperation between institutions from the public and private spheres:

“Innovation does not happen in the disciplinary silos, but in interactions amongst the key actors in an innovation system, including policymakers, private sector actors, science experts and the civil society. These interactions must be profound and mutually reinforcing as in a quadruple helix of policy, science, industry and civil society”.

Despite all these limitations, Africa and its diverse network of technological hubs has meant an alternative to other traditional economic activities, and has awakened the interest of numerous personalities from the sector and the political arena. The specific case of iHub can be understood as the paradigm of all these meeting points that have succeeded throughout the continent over the last years. Nicolas Frederici frames this idea at ‘Digital Economies at Global Margins’ (Graham 2019): “Fast Company named iHub as Africa’s most innovative company in 2014, and the list of dignitaries and technology celebrities who have visited iHub has grown to include Uhuru Kenyatta (Kenya’s president), Ban Ki Moon (outgoing UN general secretary), Mark Zuckerberg (CEO and founder of Facebook), Eric Schmidt (former Google CEO), and Vint Cerf (one of the inventors of the Internet)” (Frederici, Graham 2019, 202).

Let’s not forget that the simple possession of technology is not often sufficient and it should be accompanied by the specific education for performing at its best. Thus, it is here where the existence of technological hubs make all the possible sense, since they are key to favour collaboration and knowledge exchange, and manage to “gain more respect and attention from the outside world” (Erik Hersman 2009).

Lastly, we should not forget to highlight free trade agreements as facilitators of e-commerce and digital businesses. According to the e-Conomy Africa 2020 report (written by IFC in collaboration with Google), the sign of the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA) agreement in 2018 has been a major milestone that allows startups to seamlessly scale their size across Africa, and brings a common thread to the economies of the different countries.

Women do code as well

As it happens with tech crafters from the Global South, the mere presence of women in ICTs cannot be translated into an increase of development, even though it implies higher incomes. The economist Amartya Sen affirmed throughout her social choice theory (1999) that the primary development outcome is choice itself.

In this sense, we can affirm that the presence of working women within the digital sector is not exclusively linked to the access to knowledge or technology itself. It would be important as well to take into account their empowerment and a major recognition as qualified professionals: specifically, by offering them the acquisition of positions with greater responsibility, and —in consequence— the enjoyment of a greater socioeconomic independence. In 1970 Ester Boserup already pointed out that the modernization process had not liberated women from subordinated positions. The context from today is vastly different; however, the idea remains the same.

One of the most remarkable facts of the tech sector is that Southern regions gather a major amount of women who code. According to Wired magazine, in 2014 the proportion of programmers in India who were women was at least 30% (taking on account that in the US it was 21%). Additionally, Quartz emphasizes how women currently make up 21% of developers in African countries, compared with the 15% of junior developers in the US.

Conclusions

As one of the most relevant outcomes, we can affirm that the access to software and hardware does not guarantee the proliferation of indigenous technology if the minimum economic and educational conditions don’t happen.

On another hand, it is not only about the possession of technology, but also about its connection to the world wide web, and the specific knowledge we may need for its use. In the case of women and junior programmers from the Global South, it’s important to take into consideration their recognition as qualified professionals of a complex and competitive work environment.

The adaptation of Northern technology to Southern needs is extremely feasible if the first ones include the second in their production teams or in their educational programmes, guaranteeing diversity and different perspectives at the heart of the biggest technological companies. In the same line, if we refer to data justice, Linet Taylor defends that “algorithmic models must be constantly recalibrated using feedback from the events they are supposed to predict” (Taylor 2017, 7). Thus, the presence of professionals from Africa, Asia and South America coding for the big ones is highly desirable.

But the same token, education, citizenship values and surveillance are key factors for the proliferation of tech developers in the margins. One cannot forget that the number of these professionals is directly linked to an improvement of digital equity and data justice.

Last but not least, it is not always about a geographical matter: the margins can be found both at the Global North and South. These are times for justice and diversity.

 

References

  • Bijker, Ogbu, Urama (1992): ‘The African Manifesto for Science, Technology and Innovation’. Nairobi: African Technology Policy Studies
  • Graham, M. (ed.) 2019: Digital Economies at Global Margins. Ottawa, ON/Boston, MA: IDRC/MIT Press
  • Kleine, D. (2013): Technologies of Choice? : ICTs, Development, and the Capabilities Approach. Cambridge, Mass: The MIT Press
  • Taylor, L. 2017: ‘What is data justice? The case for connecting digital rights and freedoms globally’. Big Data & Society