Abstract
Over 200 million street traders operate in Africa. Our previous research has identified a number of challenges of Tanzanian street traders and related technology innovation opportunities. One identified opportunity is technology to support keeping business records. In this study, an intercultural team of Finnish and Tanzanian technologists, researchers, and Tanzanian street traders was set up to create a bookkeeping application, contextualized for the needs of Tanzanian street traders. A research period, lasting four months, resulted in a successful first version of the application, ready for further DSR projects. In addition, first experiences about what works in co-creation in this cultural context and with this team setup were gained. These results are useful for managing related DSR projects in the future. This study shows the importance of launching similar DSR projects, and the high potential of DSR and co-creation in solving societal and economic challenges in developing countries with technology solutions.
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Notes
- 1.
100 000TZS equals roughly to 42€ (as of 26 January 2016).
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- 3.
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Tanzania census survey of 2012 shows that 16.7 % of 15–35 year olds are illiterate.
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- 7.
Statistics about smartphone ownership of street traders in Tanzania is not available.
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Acknowledgments
We want to thank the College of Business Education (CBE), Tanzania, for broad support of this project. We also want to thank the reviewers for providing valuable recommendations for improving this article. Finally, we want to thank the Finnish University Partnership for International Development (FinnCEAL) for partly funding the presentation of this paper in DESRIST2016.
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Mramba, N., Tulilahti, J., Apiola, M. (2016). Bookkeeping for Informal Workers: Co-creating with Street Traders. In: Parsons, J., Tuunanen, T., Venable, J., Donnellan, B., Helfert, M., Kenneally, J. (eds) Tackling Society's Grand Challenges with Design Science. DESRIST 2016. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 9661. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-39294-3_7
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