Decentralized, Locally-Tailored Technology

Through this blog series, we are exploring what the world can look like when technology is designed and deployed for the benefit of all. These broad, near-future speculative pieces are designed to de-center dominant narratives and challenge us all to realize that things can be different. These are not alternative realities, they are possible futures.

Illustration by Sylvia Pericles.

In my home country of Lesotho we have two legal systems that operate side by side: a parliamentary one that was introduced by the British colonial rule, and a traditional one based on Basotho traditions and customs. Customary courts, overseen by local chiefs, their advisors and community members, handle cases with an emphasis on restoration and community harmony. For instance, if my neighbor’s cattle destroy our corn crop, the punishment to my neighbor might be sharing their corn harvest with us for the next three seasons. These courts deliver swift, context-aware justice that prioritizes maintaining relationships within the community. Importantly, the judgements in the customary courts are not only faster but also less punitive than the parliamentary courts. In contrast, parliamentary courts focus more on punishment and deterrence, with powers to impose fines and imprisonment.

This dual system illustrates the difference between the tools that communities build for themselves, and the tools that are imposed on these communities by outsiders. Lesotho’s customary courts evolved from our communities’ needs and values. That is why they focus on swift resolution, restoration over punishment, and maintaining social harmony, priorities that might be overlooked by an outsider designing a 'more efficient' legal system.

Just as our local courts serve our community's specific needs in ways a one-size-fits-all legal system cannot, locally-developed technology better serves its communities than solutions imposed from afar. At this year’s ACM Conference on Fairness, Accountability and Transparency, I co-organized a workshop where technologists from New Zealand, Kenya, Argentina and Brazil shared their experiences of building technology that truly serves their communities' needs. These technologists’ stories reveal the context-specific values prioritized by people who build tools for communities they are a part of.

Consider Caleb, A Māori researcher from New Zealand. His primary concern is ensuring that his community retains ownership of their language. For generations, colonizers banned the Māori from speaking in their native tongue, te reo Māori. Now that the Māori have reclaimed their native language, Caleb insists that any technology built using this language must primarily benefit its native speakers. Caleb's first criteria in evaluating potential collaborators is assessing who will respect his community's rights to control how their language is used.

In Kenya, Kathleen faces a different challenge as she develops language tools for Kiswahili: How can she retain the original forms of the language? Kathleen is hesitant to build tools for the current Swahili language, formally called Standard Swahili, because it is not the language of the indigenous people of Kenya,Tanzania or Mozambique. Instead, Standard Swahili is an amalgamation of Bantu and non-Bantu languages created by Western missionaries who went to East and Central Africa to proselytize the local population. For Kathleen, building technology that further entrenches this colonial standardisation of language risks erasing the rich diversity of African languages. Her priority is ensuring that each language receives the respect and attention it deserves in whatever language technology she builds.

I wonder what Kathleen would build if she had funds to create tools that serve the needs of the Swahili people. Indigenous people around the world have fought so hard for the existence and preservation of our languages. What would a future in which we retain the right to our languages, and benefit from the proceeds of all technology built on our languages, look like?

Local knowledge can transform the way we build digital tools. As we see from Kathleen and Caleb’s stories, prioritizing local knowledge would give us a world in which technology serves each community’s unique needs. For example, in my own community, I see opportunities to enhance existing practices in ways that could meaningfully improve daily life.

I imagine a future in which local farmers in Lesotho can run whole markets on their phones using voice based interfaces, and in our local everyday spoken Sesotho. By prioritizing voice interaction over text, we would ensure that most people in our community - including those who can't read, write, or type - can participate fully in these digital marketplaces. This vision for our technological future enhances our existing community practices rather than attempting to replace them. Our informal neighborhood markets and trading networks already exist–farmers sell excess produce, neighbors spread word about available goods, and commuters know the woman who sells homemade yogurt on their walking route to work. But technology could increase the efficiency of these networks and help those with specific needs reach more people.

Imagine a bartering tool where users don’t list monetary prices but exchange preferences, with a user interface that reflects our traditional bartering practices and cultural norms around trade. Using this tool, a man who has excess sheep but is looking for a cow can be matched with someone who can provide a cow but needs sheep. For a country that relies heavily on agriculture yet struggles with food insecurity, these efficiency gains could be transformative: they could reduce food waste, increase access to fresh local produce at lower than supermarket prices, and strengthen our community bonds, all while working within familiar cultural frameworks rather than imposed foreign concepts of commerce.

This is the transformative power of locally-developed technology: solutions that grow from a deep understanding of community needs and cultural practices. When we build technology tailored to the needs of specific communities, we strengthen those communities, preserve our cultural heritage, and ensure no one is left behind. But bringing this vision to life requires more than just good ideas. We need meaningful investment in local talent, research facilities that prioritize community benefit over global scalability, and funding models that recognize the value of diverse perspectives and approaches. Most importantly, we need to trust that communities know best what solutions will work for them. The future of technology should be rooted in local knowledge and designed to serve local needs.