When trying to solve social issues with ‘improved’ technologies, the idea of ‘improvement’ can’t be based just on criteria defined by technocrats, but rather on the needs of the final users. Failing to acknowledge this limits the possibilities of achieving impact. — In 2012 I was working as a research assistant in Project Capital, an initiative that aimed to promote financial inclusion among vulnerable populations in different Latin American countries. During that year, while doing fieldwork research for the project, I started noting something strange in many rural communities in the Andes…
