Healthy Talks: Facilitating Collective Speculations and Co-design for Local Content Services
Abirami Sankar · 2023
Despite 800 million additional individuals joining the Internet between 2019-2021, a significant digital divide persists. Moreover, monopoly over Internet Infrastructure has led to people having little control over their data. Community Networks (CNs) are an emerging solution providing autonomy and safe spaces in the digital context. While CNs can improve accessibility to the Internet, another critical component is local content, which makes the Internet more relevant for users. This paper explores methods and practices that can be adopted to promote local content production and dissemination. The research/study was conducted with the local front-line health workers (Health Navigators/HNs), the primary content creators of the COWHKI initiative. The Co-design and Speculative design activities reveal insights about the challenges and experiences of the HNs in engaging with content and technology. These insights have been translated into recommendations for Papad, the digital interface used for creating and curating content in the COWHKI initiative.