Bridging the digital divide

#Digital access for newcomers to the internet

#Improving the lives of underserved and marginalized communities globally

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Blog posts

Ainul 9 Ainul at the TikTok office after a paper making workshop where they invited several educational TikTok creators. She was there as a participant and made her own paper
September 18, 2023

Why Are There So Few Women in Tech? Content Creator & Software Engineer Ainul Md Razib Speaks Up

In the second of this 4-part series, SpudnikLab has a conversation with content creator and software engineer Ainul Md Razib about the gender gap in the tech industry, her experience being female in the tech field, and what can be done to get more women into tech.

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August 30, 2023

Why Are There So Few Women in Tech? Compelling Stats on Gender Discrimination in the Tech Field

Why are there so few women in tech? In this 4-part series, SpudnikLab looks at some data and speaks to 3 women in the tech industry.

Latest Projects

D.Lit Toolkit

D.Lit (short for ‘Digital Literacy’) is a fun and interactive toolkit for the elderly to learn how to use their mobile phones and gain digital confidence.

KaiOS reviews

Our ‘pet’ project Kobi is a review platform for KaiOS apps, for smart feature keypad phones that are widely used in developing economies.

The Boy and the Coin

In our short animated film, ‘The Boy and the Coin’, a boy has to buy his sister, who has Covid-19, some food. It turns out to be not such a simple task. 

A Covid-19 guide

Our audio guide on how to protect yourself from Covid-19, designed for the Bengali-speaking migrant worker community in Singapore. 

MISSION & Vision

At SpudnikLab, we believe that digital access can be a powerful socio-economic leveler for underprivileged individuals and communities around the world.
However, about 4 billion people globally live with no access to the internet. That’s why we’ve made it our mission to help bridge the digital divide (the gap between the digital access haves and have-nots) through low-cost innovation and appropriate technology. Appropriate technology is a movement involving technological application that’s small-scale, decentralised and labor-intensive. It’s also energy-efficient, environmentally sound and locally autonomous. We think it’s fantastic.
Our solutions to bridge the #digitaldivide aim to:
  1. Facilitate digital access for those coming to the internet for the first time.
  2. Harness the benefits of digital access to improve the lives of underserved and marginalized communities around the world.

OUR TEAM

Melissa De Silva

Melissa De Silva

Editor-in-chief

Melissa is a writer and storyteller who believes in the agency of stories to promote empathy across the lines of culture, socio-economics and other differences, and to deepen our understanding of what it means to be human. Melissa comes from a background in publishing and journalism. She is also the author of the book, ‘Others’ is Not a Race, about growing up Eurasian in Singapore, which won the Singapore Literature Prize 2018 (Creative Nonfiction).
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Farah H. Sanwari

Partnership Catalyst

Farah is a social innovation leader with a keen interest in sustainable development and learning communities. She facilitates and fosters relationships between SpudnikLab and partner organisations, finding collaboration opportunities for transformational change. Her experience and expertise in social innovation, social entrepreneurship, systems design and futures thinking are instrumental in tackling complex systemic issues through tri-sector collaboration and innovation. She recently completed her Masters in Tri-Sector Collaboration at the Singapore Management University.
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Jamie WOnG

writer & researcher

Jamie believes that knowledge should be shared and accessible, and finds meaning in enabling people to learn and do good. She is a content creator, maker, debater, artist, speaker, avid volunteer and whatever else she deems required in her quest to bring positive change to the world. She’s mostly here, but a tiny bit of her is always with the unbothered terrapins swimming around Singapore Quarry. 
Marketing Lead SpudnikLab

WENSHAN LEONG

MARKETING LEAD

Wenshan is a skilled professional with decades-long experience in public affairs and publishing. She has had the privilege of working in sectors like book publishing, non-profit, aviation, higher education, the performing arts, and now technology & innovation. Her work has brought her to China, Bhutan, India, Indonesia and Timor Leste. Working across cultures and on new subject matters energise her. In her free time, she volunteers with arts and social service organisations.
Niky Ayu Lestari Digital Solution Developer

Niky ayu lestari

DIGITAL SOLUTIONS DEVELOPER

Niky was born and raised in the easternmost region of Indonesia. She defines what it means to be both developer and creator with a bit of business sense. Whether building technical concepts, analysing and designing project requirements or digging through data, she enjoys doing research and development through sustainable digital solutions. She holds a Bachelor of Science in Informatics Engineering on a full scholarship program and spends time on productivity and charity. Says Niky, “While we love what we do, we know that life is about more than work, like sharing and being an influence of good to others.”
Bimo Arief Wicaksana_Portrait

Bimo arsa

digital solutions developer

Arsa is a scientific artist aspiring to make the world just a little more fun, one project at a time. At SpudnikLab, he does research and development of digital solutions, turning ideas into functional technologies. In his free time, Arsa expresses his aesthetic in more artsy ways like music, poetry and photography. 
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Saad chinoy

Chief geek

Saad is a professional geek with a passion for technology and OpenSource methodology. Previous to SpudnikLab, he was conceptualising tech solutions for digital publishing company Tusitala (also part of Potato Productions). He brings his experience developing digital solutions that leverage smart-phone interactivity and his expertise with AR / VR / stop-motion animation and other digital tools to create innovative solutions to bridge the #digitaldivide. When not taking computers apart, Saad volunteers globally with several non-profits and is a self-confessed maker and coffee epicure.
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