This is DataSyn, a free monthly newsletter from IT for Change providing concise and relevant analysis on all matters concerning Big Tech. Building on our strong tradition of deep research and policy engagement on the digital economy with a focus on the Global South, DataSyn delivers quality analysis in bite sized content to your inbox every month.
In an era where Big Tech has become the epochal problem, the spirit behind DataSyn is one of cautious aspiration, critical nuance, and despite everything...a relentless optimism about the digital being a means of equitable development.
Our (only somewhat) namesake, Project Cybersyn, was a 70s public technology initiative in Chile under Salvador Allende. Cybersyn was ahead of its time in encapsulating a powerful idea – that digital innovation could synergize the efficiencies of computing for an equitable and free society. In times when we are deeply aware of how state-controlled data can become a site of authoritarianism, we ironically think back to this short-lived, imperfect experiment to remind ourselves of how, even as we rightly fear the concentration of digital power in the hands of market or state, there remains the imperative to preserving a public, development oriented role for technology.