PROTIC 2 - Informatics

Bangladesh has seen a sharp rise in active-users of the internet (especially of social media)
and of mobile technology over the last decade. With rising internet penetration, more of the
relatively underprivileged communities are getting access to ICT directly or indirectly.
However, the skyrocketing growth of digital access has not been matched with a growth in
digital literacy, which means that grass-roots communities have not been able to use this new
resource to support their economic and social ventures and improve their situation.
This PhD project is part of the second phase of PROTIC II, a collaborative project between
researchers from Monash University Faculty of Information Technology and Oxfam in
Bangladesh, which is tackling issues resulting from unequal access to digital technology and
aiming at empowering disadvantaged communities through access to information. The
second phase of the project seeks to articulate the impact of societal digital transformation
initiatives on disadvantaged and low-literacy communities and to develop contextually and
culturally-sensitive strategies and actions to ensure that citizens are not marginalised further.
As a cross-disciplinary inquiry, it will use methods and concepts from community
informatics, Information and Communication Technologies for Development (ICT4D)
design, the social sciences, human-computer interaction, and computer science.
We are seeking candidates with relevant background and interests in community informatics,
with a particular emphasis on digital continuity, digital literacy or cybersecurity, and
experience working in Bangladesh.