The Elephant in the Room: How Culture Enables Technology
In the past decade, India has emerged as a hotspot for tech companies looking to expand, particularly for apps, services and content. As the country edges towards more than a billion users online in this decade, there is still little understanding of how the deep-rooted cultural nuances and diversity interact with technology and its products. Culture often gets villainised as an ‘issue’ or ‘barrier’ instead of being envisioned as a facilitator.
In this workshop I will lead you through examples of invisible cultural norms and beliefs and how they have impacted businesses in tangible ways. Using case studies and covering a wide array of issues from product design to delivery, I hope to bring alive the opportunities rather than simply the challenges of doing business in a market like India.
Some key questions we will explore:
- How do Indian cultural beliefs frame the context in which technology operates?
- How do New to Internet users in India experience the online world?
- How can technology makers begin to integrate a ‘for India’ lens into their products as they enter a highly complex and diverse market?
Who should attend this workshop
Workshop Leader
Gayatri Sapru is an anthropologist who works with businesses to unpack cultural norms and structures that lay the framework for how products, services and innovations are experienced. In the past decade, she has worked across categories like content, tech, wellness and social enterprises to deliver an understanding of people through their own lived experiences. As the new decade dawns, she sees an urgent need to address the gap between businesses and the people they are serving.
She engages with corporates and students alike, through workshops and university courses, and encourages the adoption of anthropological insight into business and marketing practices.
WORKSHOP DETAILS
- Leader: Gayatri Sapru
- Date: Monday 12 October
- Time: 13:00-14:30 BST (London)
- Who should attend: Technology and business leaders who are interested in how the social sciences can facilitate an understanding of new markets.
- Number of attendees: 20-30
REGISTER
This workshop is free to A+T 2020 delegates who have purchased a ticket, on a first-come, first served basis. Have your Ticket Number handy (you will find this on your e-ticket).
By registering, you agree to your name, organisation, and email being passed to the workshop leader(s) for the purposes of communicating with you about this workshop.