Payal Arora

Last updated
Payal Arora
NEXT19 (48765542407).jpg
Payal Arora in September 2019
Born
Bengaluru, India
Alma mater Columbia University
Harvard University
OccupationProfessor of Inclusive AI Cultures
Employer Utrecht University
Known for The Next Billion Users
Awards Erasmus University Rotterdam Education Prize (2017)
EUR Fellowship Award (2012)
Association of American Publishers PROSE award for Best book in Business, Management, and Finance (2020)
Website payalarora.com
https://femlab.co/
https://www.uu.nl/staff/PArora

Payal Arora is a digital anthropologist, author, and Professor and holds the Chair in Inclusive AI Cultures at Utrecht University. [1] She is the co-founder of FemLab, a feminist future of work initiative. [2] Her work focuses on internet usage in the Global South, specifically on global digital cultures, inequality and data governance. She is Indian, American, and Irish and currently lives in Amsterdam.

Contents

Career

Payal Arora is a Professor and Chair in Inclusive AI Cultures at the department of Media and Culture Studies at Utrecht University. Prior to that, she was at Erasmus University Rotterdam for 15 years where she served as a Professor of Technology, Values and Global Media Cultures [3] and expert leader in UX Research and Global Tech Design at the Erasmus Center for Data Analytics. [4] In 2020, she co-founded FemLab, a feminist future of work initiative that translates digital ethnographic insights around user-experiences of women workers at the margins using digital tools into actionable policies and platform interventions.

She has extensively written on digital cultures and inequality in the Global South. She has authored and co-edited numerous papers and books and delivered hundreds of talks around the world, including two TEDx talks on the future of the internet [5] and on why we need less innovation. [6] Forbes called her “next billion champion” [7] in reference to her award-winning book [8] “The Next Billion Users: Digital Life Beyond the West” [9] which examines the online behavior of citizens in India, China, South Africa, Brazil, and the Middle East. The book has been featured by publications such as The Economist, [10] TechCrunch [11] and Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. [12] Engadget stated that her Harvard book is one of “the most interesting, thought-provoking books on science and technology we can find.” [13]

In 2021, the UNHCR Innovation Services commissioned Arora to execute a field study and report on the digital leisure divide and the forcibly replaced in Brazil. [14] In 2016, she was commissioned by UNESCO to write up a report on prize-based incentives for innovations in ICTs in education which was presented at the Mobile Learning Week at UNESCO Paris. [15]

Arora is a member of several boards and advisory committees, including Facebook's Social Science One and ICRIER Prosus Centre for Internet and Digital Economy. [16] She is a Rockefeller Bellagio Resident Fellow. [17]

In 2017 her teaching was awarded with the Erasmus University Rotterdam's Education Prize. [18] She holds a Master's degree in International Development Policy from Harvard University and a doctoral degree in Language, Literacy & Technology from Columbia University. [19]

In the media

Arora writes extensively about the impact of new digital technologies in the Global South, with a special focus on India, Brazil, Namibia, and Bangladesh where she conducted substantive fieldwork. She gets invited by public and private organizations to comment on how to build technologies that include the world. Her work has been featured in international media outlets including the Het Financieele Dagblad (Netherlands), [20] The Economist (UK), [21] Quartz (USA), [22] Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (Germany), [23] Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, [24] De Standaard (Belgium), [25] and Times of India. [26]

She was invited on the popular "We the People" NDTV Indian Television Talk Show in 2019 to discuss "Is social media deciding self-worth?" [27] In 2020, she was invited on the award-winning podcast 99% Invisible on the theme ‘next billion users.’ [28] On this podcast, she discussed with host Roman Mars on how these new online users are changing the ways in which we think and use technology. In 2020 she wrote an op-ed for NRC Handelsblad critiquing the viral essay by Rutger Bregman on "The real lord of the flies" [29] by arguing that it was a typical white savior focused story, and not representative of the historical colonial context. [30] She was an early contributor to the Ideas section for the award-winning [31] global media outlet Rest of World, with the opinion piece "AI isn’t going to save us." [32]

Bibliography

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Internet</span> Global system of connected computer networks

The Internet is the global system of interconnected computer networks that uses the Internet protocol suite (TCP/IP) to communicate between networks and devices. It is a network of networks that consists of private, public, academic, business, and government networks of local to global scope, linked by a broad array of electronic, wireless, and optical networking technologies. The Internet carries a vast range of information resources and services, such as the interlinked hypertext documents and applications of the World Wide Web (WWW), electronic mail, telephony, and file sharing.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Chatbot</span> Program that simulates conversation

A chatbot is a software application or web interface that is designed to mimic human conversation through text or voice interactions. Modern chatbots are typically online and use generative artificial intelligence systems that are capable of maintaining a conversation with a user in natural language and simulating the way a human would behave as a conversational partner. Such chatbots often use deep learning and natural language processing, but simpler chatbots have existed for decades.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Internet in China</span>

China has been on the Internet intermittently since May 1989 and on a permanent basis since 20 April 1994, although with heavily censored access. In 2008, China became the country with the largest population on the Internet and, as of 2024, has remained so. As of July 2023, 1.05 billion use internet in China.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Munich Security Conference</span> Annual conference on international security policy

The Munich Security Conference is an annual conference on international security policy that has been held in Munich, Bavaria, Germany since 1963. Formerly named the Munich Conference on Security Policy, the motto is: Peace through Dialogue. It is the world's largest gathering of its kind.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Erasmus University Rotterdam</span> Public university in the Netherlands

Erasmus University Rotterdam is a public research university located in Rotterdam, Netherlands. The university is named after Desiderius Erasmus Roterodamus, a 15th-century Christian humanist and theologian.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">UST (company)</span> American technology company

UST, formerly known as UST GLOBAL, is a provider of digital technology and transformation, information technology and services, headquartered in Aliso Viejo, California, United States. Stephen Ross founded UST in 1998 in Laguna Hills. The company has offices in the Americas, EMEA, APAC, and India.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Shoshana Zuboff</span> American scholar (born 1951)

Shoshana Zuboff is an American author, professor, social psychologist, philosopher, and scholar.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Tencent</span> Chinese conglomerate holding company

Tencent Holdings Ltd. is a Chinese multinational technology conglomerate and holding company headquartered in Shenzhen. It is one of the highest grossing multimedia companies in the world based on revenue. It is also the world's largest company in the video game industry based on its equity investments, with Tencent Games being the subdivision of Tencent Interactive Entertainment Group (IEG) focused on publishing of games.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Virtual assistant</span> Software agent

A virtual assistant (VA) is a software agent that can perform a range of tasks or services for a user based on user input such as commands or questions, including verbal ones. Such technologies often incorporate chatbot capabilities to simulate human conversation, such as via online chat, to facilitate interaction with their users. The interaction may be via text, graphical interface, or voice - as some virtual assistants are able to interpret human speech and respond via synthesized voices.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Just Eat Takeaway.com</span> Online food ordering company

Just Eat Takeaway.com N.V. is a Dutch multinational online food ordering and delivery company, formed from the merger of London-based Just Eat and Amsterdam-based Takeaway.com in 2020. It is the parent company of food delivery brands including Takeaway.com, Lieferando, Thuisbezorgd.nl, Pyszne.pl, 10bis in Israel, and those acquired from Just Eat, including SkipTheDishes and Menulog. Since the merger, the company has acquired Grubhub in the United States and Bistro.sk. Just Eat Takeaway operate various food ordering and delivery platforms in twenty countries, where customers can order food online from restaurants’ menus, and have it delivered by restaurant or company couriers directly to their home or workplace using an app or website. The company also partners with IFood in Brazil and Colombia.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Fintech</span> Subset of technologies used in finance

Fintech, a clipped compound of "financial technology", refers to firms using new technology to compete with traditional financial methods in the delivery of financial services. Artificial intelligence, blockchain, cloud computing, and big data are regarded as the "ABCD" of fintech. The use of smartphones for mobile banking, investing, borrowing services, and cryptocurrency are examples of technologies designed to make financial services more accessible to the general public. Fintech companies consist of both startups and established financial institutions and technology companies trying to replace or enhance the usage of financial services provided by existing financial companies.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Katherine Maher</span> American media executive

Katherine Roberts Maher is an American businesswoman. She is the incoming chief executive and president of NPR. She will begin her tenure in March 2024, succeeding John Lansing. Before accepting the position at NPR, she served as chief executive officer of Web Summit and chair of the board of directors at the Signal Foundation. She will continue as Web Summit's CEO until March, then will remain with the group as their non-executive chairperson. She is a former chief executive officer and executive director of the Wikimedia Foundation.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Unified Payments Interface</span> Indian instant payment system

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References

  1. "Prof. dr. Payal Arora". Utrecht University. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
  2. "FemLab" . Retrieved 4 February 2024.
  3. "Payal Arora is appointed as Full Professor at ESPhil". Erasmus University Rotterdam. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
  4. "UX Research and Global Tech Design Design for the next billion users". Erasmus Center for Data Analytics. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
  5. "Who is in charge of the future of the internet? | Payal Arora | TEDxErasmusUniversity". YouTube. 10 January 2017. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
  6. "Why the World Needs less Innovation?". YouTube. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
  7. Armstrong, Paul (23 August 2019). "10,000 People In Copenhagen Are About To Determine A Better Future For You". Forbes. Retrieved 20 January 2020.
  8. "2020 Winners". Association of American Publishers. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
  9. Arora, Payal (2019). The Next Billion Users: Digital Life Beyond the West. Cambridge, Massachusetts: Harvard University Press. ISBN   978-0674983786.
  10. "How the pursuit of leisure drives internet use". The Economist. 8 June 2019. Retrieved 20 January 2020.
  11. Crichton, Danny (8 March 2019). "Who are the next billion users and what do they want" . Retrieved 20 January 2020.
  12. van Blazekovic, Jessica (1 April 2019). ""Jetzt gehen selbst die ärmsten Menschen online"". Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. Retrieved 20 January 2020.
  13. Tarantola, Andrew. "Hitting the Books: Modern surveillance and 'the science of happiness'". Engadget. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
  14. "The Digital Leisure Divide and the Forcibly Displaced" (PDF). UNHCR. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
  15. "Dr. Arora to be Project leader for UNESCO Report on prize-based incentives for innovations in ICT's in Education". Erasmus University Rotterdam. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
  16. "Advisory Board". ICRIER Prosus Centre for Internet and Digital Economy. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
  17. "The Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center Announces 2023 Residents and Opens Call for 2024 Applicants". The Rockefeller Foundation. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
  18. "Payal Arora receives Education Prize". Erasmus University Rotterdam. 5 September 2017. Retrieved 20 January 2020.
  19. "Curriculum Vitae" (PDF). Retrieved 20 January 2020.
  20. Arora, Payal. "Techbedrijven onderschatten de kracht van het mondiale Zuiden". Financieele Dagblad. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
  21. "How the pursuit of leisure drives internet use". The Economist. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
  22. Arora, Payal. "The biggest myths about the next billion internet users". Quartz. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
  23. von Blazekovic, Jessica. "„Jetzt gehen selbst die ärmsten Menschen online"". Frankfurter Allgemeine. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
  24. "Despite limited access, online habits of the developing world aren't that different from ours". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
  25. "'Dat armen internet vooral gebruiken voor entertainment? So what?'". De Standaard.
  26. Shastri, Parth. "Girls online have hacks against patriarchal wall". Times of India. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
  27. "We The People: Is Social Media Deciding Self-Worth?". NDTV. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
  28. "The Next Billion Users". 99% Invisible. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
  29. Bregman, Rutger. "The real Lord of the Flies: what happened when six boys were shipwrecked for 15 months". The Guardian. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
  30. Arora, Payal. "Altijd maar weer die witte redders". NRC. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
  31. "Awards & Recognition". Rest of World. Retrieved 4 February 2024.
  32. Arora, Payal. "AI isn't going to save us". Rest of World. Retrieved 4 February 2024.