Expertise, Testimonials, Samples

1. Payal Arora
Expert Practice
User-Experience (UX), Digital ethnography & Inclusive Design for the
Next Billion

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How to be:
Next Billion Ready
Prof. dr. Payal Arora
“Next Billion Champion” (Forbes 2019)
• “Payal was right on the mark and exactly what we were looking
for as our company strives to build momentum and reach the next
billion users.” Michael Coakley, VP, Head of Communications,
Liberty Latin America Telecom: 2019
• “Payal gave stunning insight into a topic, our congress
attendees – most of them senior IT-executives – normally are quite
unaware: How is a large part of mankind using Internet and IT,
what are the needs, wishes and hopes of the Next Billion Users?”
Robert Gammel, Executive Producer Hamburger IT-Strategietage:
2020

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Winner of the 2019 PROSE Award in the Business books category
Engadget (Top 5 in the "Technorati top 100" and reported by Time for being one of the "best blogs" on tech)
“The most interesting, thought provoking books on science and technology we can find"
Times Higher Education: “This powerful book explores actual online lives in China, India and Brazil and asks why
many of us in the West are surprised and sometimes offended by the fact that the impoverished are just as
committed as we are to the search for “moments of pleasure and joy”.
Engineering and Technology magazine: “Superb… uncomfortable, myth-busting and compelling, The Next Billion
Users’ challenges our collective superiority complexes and questions the way we see technology in the
connected world.”
Theodore Kinni, Strategy + Business :“The conventional storyline around the transformative effect of technology
on people’s lives often doesn’t ring true… Any leader whose company sees the global poor as a key market will
find its reality-based view of the intended customers bracing and useful.”
The Nation: Arora shows that many of the world’s poor don’t seek out the Internet as a tool to become more
productive, but as a welcome outlet for economically ‘unproductive’ play… there is hope in its capacity to
augment and expand human leisure beyond the realm of material advancement.”
Ronaldo Lemos, Director of the Institute for Technology & Society of Rio de Janeiro: "The Next Billion Users is
mandatory reading for anyone interested in understanding the future of technology or designing applications
that are truly valuable for the majority of the people on the planet."
Justin van Fleet, Director of the International Commission on Financing Global Education Opportunity “A must-
read for any individual seeking to promote economic growth and development in the digital age.”
Shaun Wiggins, President and CEO of Soteryx: “Whether you are a government agency seeking to bring public
goods and services to underprivileged citizens, a multinational corporation entering emerging markets, or an
NGO implementing aid, The Next Billion Users is mandatory, data-driven reading that will guide your digital and
real-world strategies.”

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Payal Arora has diverse teams based in India, Bangladesh, Nigeria, and Brazil that helps
in ground level investigations on how low-income groups exercise their consumer
intelligence and advises how to design digital products and services that can be
culturally appropriate, inclusive, ethical and sustainable.
Select Clients
Talks I Consultancies I Workshops I Digital Storytelling I UX Pilots
Next Billion Ready: Overview

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Next Billion Ready:
Overview
Aims to:
• Sensitize organizations to diverse global user
practices and help build inclusive platforms
• Fill data deficits on NBU markets & foster insights
for rethinking business models for new markets
• Train stakeholders in transferring consumer
intelligence into product design for the NBU
market
Collaboration opportunities can take different
shapes:
• Motivational Keynotes
• Contract research/consulting
• Master Classes/ workshops for Leadership/Staff
training

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We help organizations gain insights into users in global markets and how to use these
insights to shape responsible, ethical platforms that can build deep engagement, trust and
user loyalty
Our process involves 3 steps:
1. Insight: To build user/stakeholder insight via digital ethnography, case studies & action
research/ field experiments
2. Engage: To make insights engaging through multimedia storytelling
3. Design: To guide in ethical and inclusive design and deployment for user engagement,
trust & growth
Consulting opportunities: our process
Insight Engage Design

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• Future of Work: How can we build inclusive applications for gig workers in India and Bangladesh? (with
IDRC/JustJobsNetwork)
• AI & Healthcare in Africa: How can AI be used to scale Universal Healthcare Coverage in Nigeria ? (with Pharma Access)
• Social credit scoring: Categorizing People and Resources in Contemporary China (with Aalborg University Denmark)
• Privacy by design: How do we design for rural users in Kerala? (with MICA-Mudra Institute of Communications,
Ahmedabad)
• Framing Big Data: Global media representations and communicative deliberation on aggregate data and new data-based
processes (with University of Bremen)
• Me and My Big Data: Developing Citizen’s Data Literacy: (with University of Liverpool, Sheffield Hallam University,
University of Glasgow - Nuffield Foundation, UK)
Select examples of ongoing project involvements

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• KAS article: AI-based Strategies to Combat Wildlife Trafficking (Topic: Ethical AI; Inclusive Design/Africa)
• Rest of World article: AI solutions by tech champions (Topic: AI for Good initiatives)
• Harvard Press book: Next Billion Users: Digital Life beyond the West (Topic: NBU/UX/Design/Data Gov)
• NEXT chapter: Unchain the human in the global value chain (Topic: Global Supply chain and Data
governance)
• Journal article: Bottom of the data pyramid: Big data and the global south (Topic: Big data/Global South)
• Journal article: Decolonizing privacy studies (Topic: Privacy and Culture)
• Journal article Examining novel data-driven governance systems in India and China (Topic: data governance)
• Sight & Life Magazine Nudging the next billion(Topic: designing healthcare apps for the NBU)
• Quartz: The biggest myths about the next billion internet users (Topic: NBU myths)
• KPMG: 10 novel thought habits of the NBU market (Topic: NBU behavior)
• UN Report: Prizes for Innovation - Impact analysis in the ICT for education sector (Topic: Digital Innovation
for NBU and financial incentives)
Recent publications (and links)

9. Co-Founder

10. Digital storytelling campaigns (Catalyst Lab)
Diversify project Dutch Brewers #LekkerNuchter

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Sample talks: Next Billion User Market
“Payal presented to our audience of strategists and marketing professionals with unique insights into the lives of the “next billion users”. Through her contributions, she gave
listeners the opportunity to diversify their views on what users around the world are doing online and the impact the Internet and data are having on their lives. She has a very
engaging appearance on stage and has a lively way of presenting figures and statistics.” – Juliane Hennig, Project & Event Manager, NEXT conference Hamburg

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Sample talks: Policy for innovation, sustainability,
and inclusive digital systems
 “Payal is one of these rare speakers that is both a great storyteller and comes with knowledge that is backed by comprehensive academic research” – Martin Thörnkvist,
Curator, TechFestival Copenhagen
 “Payal Arora´s Keynote for the FoME Symposium was inspiring and eye-opening. It was a convincing appeal to the Media Development Community to rethink their
assumptions on how to work in the Global South.” Steffen Leidel, Senior Consultant, Deutsche Welle (DW)

13. Thank you for taking the
time
Reach out in the Contact section of my website for further information.