Geographies of Digital Divide: A data-driven approach to understanding structural determinants of digital inequalities is a project funded by the John Fell Fund and is led by Dr Adam Mahdi (Principal Investigator). It addresses one of the key needs of preparing databases and data visualisation tools for research to understand the effects of local contexts, including policies that regulate digital technologies, technology acceptance and adoption by different social groups in sub-national regions and countries in Europe. This persistent variation represents some of the key challenges in human-technology interactions and is often referred to as the digital divide. The proposed database will allow an easy investigation of the correlations between technology acceptance and technology adoption, as well as individual and structural factors. The availability of such a database will be of use to other researchers and policymakers as a resource on the determinants of the digital divide, for which we will aim to raise awareness of the database through information-sharing events and a policy briefing workshop.
Departmental Research Lecturer
Project role: Principal Investigator
Adam Mahdi’s research focuses on digital health and application of machine learning in social sciences. He is the director of the UKRI-funded OxCOVID19 Project and a fellow at Wolfson College, University of Oxford.
Associate Professor in AI and Society
Project role: Co-Investigator
Ekaterina Hertog is an Associate Professor of AI and Society at Oxford Internet Institute and Institute for Ethics in AI. She studies how the rising digitalisation is reshaping private lives across the world.
Associate Professor, Department of Paediatrics
Project role: Co-Investigator
Samantha Vanderslott is a health sociologist and Associate Professor working on topics at the intersection of health and society.
Former Research Associate
Project role: Researcher
Dr Blaszczyk was a Postdoctoral Researcher at the Oxford Internet Institute. He is a computer scientist with experience in academia and years of leadership positions in the technology sector.
DPhil Student
Project role: Researcher
Andrew holds a B.S. in Applied Mathematics from Yale University and an MSc in Social Data Science from the OII. He is a Clarendon Scholar and was previously a Thouron Prize winner at the University of Cambridge (Pembroke College).
Project role: Researcher