ABSTRACT
Indigenous communities in Bangladesh are comparatively disadvantaged and face several barriers regarding rights. Access to technology and ICT can help indigenous communities open new economic, political, and social dimensions. The recent COVID-19 pandemic necessitated technology adoption for routine use, which is equally important for indigenous communities, but their technology adoption scenario remains unexplored in HCI research. Considering the research gap, we interviewed n=36 (Female 26 and Male 10) indigenous people from six different indigenous communities in Chattogarm and Sylhet divisions in Bangladesh. We found that they are strongly connected in communities, have independent technology access, and have no gender differences. They have a strong interest and eagerness to learn available technologies that help them in their professions, enrich their technical skills, communication, social participation, and expand the business. The study also revealed some challenges while using technology, but that did not negatively impact their usage. The study also discussed the community-centric strengths that helped them fight against the COVID-19 crisis and work for their development. This research impacts HCI literature, revealing the technology adoption scenarios of Indigenous communities in Bangladesh. © 2022 ACM.
ABSTRACT
Risk communication during COVID-19 is essential to have support, but it is challenging in developing countries due to a lack of communication setup. It is more difficult for the low-income, marginal communities, and specifically, women in developing countries. To understand this, particularly during the COVID-19 pandemic, we conducted a qualitative study among N = 37 women (urban 20, rural = 17) across Bangladesh that presents the risk communication factors related to social and financial challenges. It reveals that the majority of the urban communities lack communication with local authorities, where urban low-income communities are the worst sufferers. Due to that, the majority of the urban participants could not get financial support, whereas the rural participants received such support for having communications with local authorities during the pandemic. However, access to technology helped some participants share and receive pandemic-related information about risk communication, and the adoption of financial technology helped to get emergency financial support through risk communication. Moreover, this work is expected to understand the role of risk communication during the COVID-19 pandemic among women in Bangladesh.
ABSTRACT
Women in developing nations lag behind from self-empowerment because of some cultural barriers where the integration of technology and digital financial services helps them to be empowered. On the other hand, to avail such technology-based services as Digital Financial Services (DFS), there are also additional challenges for women in developing countries. During the COVID pandemic, the situation has changed all over where both genders had to rely on and adopt technology for working and financial purposes. Our research is an ongoing research and currently we explored n=20 urban formally working women in Bangladesh to understand how COVID impacts them to adopt technology and technology-based services. These women had comparatively less exploration in digital services before the pandemic. COVID instantly increased their technology adoption significantly. However, COVID grows some negative concerns regarding excessive technology impact on their work-life, kids, and finance. Based on findings, we mention a few design recommendations regarding ways of technology usage that will help women to reduce their excessive technology-adoption concerns and help them to use the technology in better ways. © 2021 ACM.