Our concern in this proposal is for Base of the Pyramid (BoP) users, that is, those who are the most socio-economically disadvantaged. For these communities, there are several challenges to the digital utopia that governments and industry are regularly heralding. These range from low technological and textual literacy, a paucity of relevant, appropriate content, to a lack of affordable, high-bandwidth data connections. With the ubiquity of mobile phones, it is clear that now, and in the future, these platforms will be the most influential ICT solutions for these users in the poorest regions of the world. Understandably, a good proportion of the work in Human Computer Interaction for Development (HCI4D) and ICT for Development (ICTD) has focused on the technologically lowest common denominators - for example "dumbphones" and "feature" phones, the precursors to smartphones - to reach as many people as possible. In contrast, this proposal addresses the need to look ahead to a future that promises widespread availability of increasingly sophisticated devices. The most likely future in the next 5-10 years is that BoP users will have access to handsets that developed world users are now taking for granted. This trend is exemplified by the affordability of so-called "low-end smartphones." The GSMA - the global industry body for mobile service providers, one of our partners in this project - predicts that this trend will continue worldwide, with these devices already retailing for as little as £30. These devices are equipped with rich sets of sensors, connectivity facilities and output channels (from audio-visual to touch-output). While there is plentiful research on how to use and extend these platforms for more "natural" interaction (e.g., creating mobile pointing and gestural interfaces), the work has largely been from a "first world" perspective. That is, the techniques have been designed to fit a future, in terms of resource availability, cultural practice and literacy, that is out of joint with that lying ahead for BoP users. Our aim is to radically innovate for key future interaction opportunities, drawing on a network of organisations and individuals deeply connected to BoP users, along with BoP end-users themselves. These stakeholders have helped shape the proposal and will be integral to the work itself. The programme will be comprehensive and integrative, involving three driver regions in Kenya, South Africa and India, each allowing us to consider needs from three perspectives: the urban, sub-urban and rural. In solving pressing problems of effective interaction for BoP users we will also seek new basis premises of HCI design in the wider developed world. In our view, the established information interaction techniques (like copy/paste) derive from desktop, textual and knowledge work framings of interaction. Mobile interaction articulates an alternative framework - sociality, personal narrative and highly context orientated practices of friendship, family and community. With the emergence of smartphones and their remarkable processing powers, the temptation to make them mini-PCs, with all the interaction principles to match, has led many HCI researchers to avoid designing for those social practices, blurring the distinction between the mobile and the PC. Given that most of those who have access to these devices are living in cultures where knowledge work is the norm, this tends to be accepted - sociality is often achieved through by-passing the device and engaging with 'apps.' The "living lab'' of our BoP communities, where exposure to and suitability of desktop UIs is very low, provides an exciting resource that draws attention to how users seek to appropriate mobile devices for social ends in and through the device itself. This in turn can provide the basis for uncovering new better basic and innovative HCI principles that can allow these ends to be more readily achieved.

Rural contexts do not naturally nurture large scale, sustainable enterprises. Rural enterprises wanting to grow, struggle without the honed infrastructures for collaboration, communication and distribution found in urban-industrial areas. The difficulties in achieving sufficient scale create barriers to entrepreneurial activity and prohibit rural business ecologies thriving, in particular the transaction costs associated with dealing with many micro-level organisations. This project addresses the fundamental challenge of scaling up rural enterprises within the UK and India and how we might exploit digital technologies to achieve this. Economies of scale and scope have enabled the creation of large-scale multinational corporations that sit atop the 'apex' of large supply chains. In order to provide the cheapest product possible companies place enormous price pressure on their suppliers, often exploiting digital technologies to manage their supply chains and co-ordinate supply and demand worldwide. Rural enterprises involved in supply chains are often disadvantaged and there are a significant number of examples where local producers participating in supply chains of national or global conglomerates are squeezed in the 'race to the bottom'. In the UK this has pushed many farming communities to the point of bankruptcy. Furthermore, since many value chains worldwide are now oligopolies, there are few other customers for these rural communities to sell their products, making it very difficult for them to change their role in the supply chain - they are beholden to sell their products to those companies that agree to buy. The need for enterprise innovation in this domain is recognised, not least as a means to combat poverty, the issue is how rural communities might achieve this scaling up and support it. Rural communities are currently uncertain of the appropriate forms of enterprise needed to scale up their endeavours and lack access to the appropriate IT enterprise capabilities to support these. Scaling up is essential if these communities are to obtain higher than subsistence income levels for the materials they produce. For example, many rural enterprises and their associated communities of practice cannot ensure the ability to deliver according to schedule a certain amount of product at a certain quality level. Without achieving sustainable economies of scale and of scope, rural enterprises will not be able to participate fully in the global economy. We need to innovate both in terms of the enterprise and the technologies uses to support these enterprises. Within this project we wish to understand the next generation of rural enterprises that may be enabled by mobile devices in rural settings. First generations rural enterprises have emerged that exploit the timely delivery of information and expertise using mobile devices with considerable success in rural areas. Our focus in this proposal is the establishment of the next generation of enterprise where these mobile devices are used to scale up the activities of a rural enterprise by support the definition and management of enterprise wide processes between distributed members of these emergent rural enterprises.

The Centre for Digital Citizens (CDC) will address emerging challenges of digital citizenship, taking an inclusive, participatory approach to the design and evaluation of new technologies and services that support 'smart', 'data-rich' living in urban, rural and coastal communities. Core to the Centre's work will be the incubation of sustainable 'Digital Social Innovations' (DSI) that will ensure digital technologies support diverse end-user communities and will have long-lasting social value and impact beyond the life of the Centre. Our technological innovations will be co-created between academic, industrial, public and third sector partners, with citizens supporting co-creation and delivery of research. Through these activities, CDC will incubate user-led social innovation and sustainable impact for the Digital Economy (DE), at scale, in ways that have previously been difficult to achieve. The CDC will build on a substantial joint legacy and critical mass of DE funded research between Newcastle and Northumbria universities, developing the trajectory of work demonstrated in our highly successful Social Inclusion for the Digital Economy (SIDE) hub, our Digital Civics Centre for Doctoral Training and our Digital Economy Research Centre (DERC). The CDC is a response to recent research that has challenged simplified notions of the smart urban environment and its inhabitants, and highlighted the risks of emerging algorithmic and automated futures. The Centre will leverage our pioneering participatory design and co-creative research, our expertise in digital participatory platforms and data-driven technologies, to deliver new kinds of innovation for the DE, that empowers citizens. The CDC will focus on four critical Citizen Challenge areas arising from our prior work: 'The Well Citizen' addresses how use of shared personal data, and publicly available large-scale data, can inform citizens' self-awareness of personal health and wellbeing, of health inequalities, and of broader environmental and community wellbeing; 'The Safe Citizen' critically examines online and offline safety, including issues around algorithmic social justice and the role of new data technologies in supporting fair, secure and equitable societies; 'The Connected Citizen' explores next-generation citizen-led digital public services, which can support and sustain civic engagement and action in communities, and engagement in wider socio-political issues through new sustainable (openly managed) digital platforms; and 'The Ageless Citizen' investigates opportunities for technology-enhanced lifelong learning and opportunities for intergenerational engagement and technologies to support growth across an entire lifecourse. CDC pilot projects will be spread across the urban, rural and costal geography of the North East of England, embedded in communities with diverse socio-economic profiles and needs. Driving our programme to address these challenges is our 'Engaged Citizen Commissioning Framework'. This framework will support citizens' active engagement in the co-creation of research and critical inquiry. The framework will use design-led 'initiation mechanisms' (e.g. participatory design workshops, hackathons, community events, citizen labs, open innovation and co-production platform experiments) to support the co-creation of research activities. Our 'Innovation Fellows' (postdoctoral researchers) will engage in a 24-month social innovation programme within the CDC. They will pilot DSI projects as part of highly interdisciplinary, multi-stakeholder teams, including academics and end-users (e.g. Community Groups, NGO's, Charities, Government, and Industry partners). The outcome of these pilots will be the development of further collaborative bids (Research Council / Innovate UK / Charity / Industry funded), venture capital pitches, spin-outs and/or social enterprises. In this way the Centre will act as a catalyst for future innovation-focused DE activity.

Rural contexts do not naturally nurture large scale, sustainable enterprises. Rural enterprises wanting to grow, struggle without the honed infrastructures for collaboration, communication and distribution found in urban-industrial areas. The difficulties in achieving sufficient scale create barriers to entrepreneurial activity and prohibit rural business ecologies thriving, in particular the transaction costs associated with dealing with many micro-level organisations. This project addresses the fundamental challenge of scaling up rural enterprises within the UK and India and how we might exploit digital technologies to achieve this. Economies of scale and scope have enabled the creation of large-scale multinational corporations that sit atop the 'apex' of large supply chains. In order to provide the cheapest product possible companies place enormous price pressure on their suppliers, often exploiting digital technologies to manage their supply chains and co-ordinate supply and demand worldwide. Rural enterprises involved in supply chains are often disadvantaged and there are a significant number of examples where local producers participating in supply chains of national or global conglomerates are squeezed in the 'race to the bottom'. In the UK this has pushed many farming communities to the point of bankruptcy. Furthermore, since many value chains worldwide are now oligopolies, there are few other customers for these rural communities to sell their products, making it very difficult for them to change their role in the supply chain - they are beholden to sell their products to those companies that agree to buy. The need for enterprise innovation in this domain is recognised, not least as a means to combat poverty, the issue is how rural communities might achieve this scaling up and support it. Rural communities are currently uncertain of the appropriate forms of enterprise needed to scale up their endeavours and lack access to the appropriate IT enterprise capabilities to support these. Scaling up is essential if these communities are to obtain higher than subsistence income levels for the materials they produce. For example, many rural enterprises and their associated communities of practice cannot ensure the ability to deliver according to schedule a certain amount of product at a certain quality level. Without achieving sustainable economies of scale and of scope, rural enterprises will not be able to participate fully in the global economy. We need to innovate both in terms of the enterprise and the technologies uses to support these enterprises. Within this project we wish to understand the next generation of rural enterprises that may be enabled by mobile devices in rural settings. First generations rural enterprises have emerged that exploit the timely delivery of information and expertise using mobile devices with considerable success in rural areas. Our focus in this proposal is the establishment of the next generation of enterprise where these mobile devices are used to scale up the activities of a rural enterprise by support the definition and management of enterprise wide processes between distributed members of these emergent rural enterprises.

As digital technologies - the internet, web, mobile phones, social networks, 3D printers, etc - spread around the world, both work and business are changing via creation of digital economies. There has already been impact in developing countries: thousands of digital startups, millions working in the ICT sector, millions more undertaking online work for platforms like Upwork. And the potential is even greater: hundreds of millions could access online work platforms, digital businesses like Uber and Airbnb are spreading rapidly, demand for digital enterprises is high, 3D-printing could level the manufacturing playing field, etc. But problems are also arising: most digital startups and digital careers fail; most citizens are unable to participate in digital economies; the benefits of digital work and trade seem to flow more to big corporations in the global North than to workers, enterprises or governments in the global South. The speed of change means much of this is happening in a knowledge vacuum. Researchers are playing catch-up to try to understand these new trends in the global North, but very little research on digital economies looks at developing countries or is done by researchers in those countries. As a result, there are four knowledge gaps about digital economies in the global South. We don't know: - what's going on and where; - the development impact e.g. whether digital economies are increasing or reducing inequalities; - what governments, NGOs and businesses should be doing to create an effective "digital ecosystem" that works for the benefit of all. And as researchers we are not sure what concepts and methods to apply. The "Development Implications of Digital Economies" (DIODE) Strategic Network aims to help fill these knowledge gaps. It has three main objectives: - To assess the current state-of-play and identify a future research agenda around the four knowledge gaps above. - To create a research network with the capacities to implement this research agenda on digital economies and development. - To develop specific research proposals that address identified research priorities. The network consists of senior and junior researchers from the UK, developing countries and other locations around the world who - along with those working in digital economy policy and practice - will work together to fulfil these objectives. Following initial synthesis studies to understand the current state-of-play, we will meet in four workshops - two in developing countries, two in the UK - each of which will address particular knowledge gaps through presentations and working group sessions. Alongside the network itself, by the end we will have produced a final report that provides a future research agenda; a strategy brief to guide those involved in digital economy policy/practice; and a set of research proposals that can put the agenda into practice. Initially, the main beneficiaries will be network members: we will have a far better understanding of what to research next and how to research it, with stronger capacity to undertake this work, and dense contacts to ensure our research is relevant to policy and practice. We will have created research capacity within and between developing countries, so that work on this important and growing phenomenon can be driven from and undertaken in those countries. GCRF and other researchers - especially in developing countries - will benefit from having a clear sense of research priorities and tools, but also from understanding how important digital economies are becoming in the global South. Digital economy policy-makers, entrepreneurs, worker organisations and other practitioners will understand what good-practice actions to take. Through that policy/practice connection, and through the outputs from later implementing our research agenda, we will make a difference to development: helping ensure digital economies work to deliver development goals.