News Update Times

Islamabad (Muhammad Yasir) Karandaaz Design Thinking as a Service Program has been subsidizing design thinking services since last year for digital financial service providers that offer products through mobile and web-based platforms. This year Karandaaz is again offering an opportunity for entities that have an existing mobile or web-based platform of their product or service or intend to develop one, to apply for matching grants from Karandaaz for contracting design thinking services. For this, Karandaaz has formed a panel of top-of-the-line design thinking service providers and is subsidizing their services for the applicants through matching grants.

Financial products can be complex and may appear more daunting for a majority of the population when presented digitally. Hence a majority of the population, especially in an economy with low literacy levels and even more inadequate financial literacy, are unable to benefit from them. This limitation results in lower understanding, lack of trust, lesser adoption, and the potential of such products to impact financial inclusion remains untapped. This year Karandaaz has further fine-tuned the program and increased the matching grant amount to up to PKR. 1 Million. The design agencies that Karandaaz has included in the panel are Ideate Innovation, Designist, and Systems Limited, all with a proven track record of solving design problems for renowned organizations through the use of best international practices of human-centered design. For each applicant, the most appropriate design thinking service provider from the panel will be selected on cost and quality-based criteria. The last date to apply under this program is April 18, 2021. Interested entities can apply online at bit.ly/design_Karandaaz

Ali Sarfraz, CEO Karandaaz while talking about the significance of Design Thinking as a Service Program said, “Incorporating human centered design in digital financial products can lower the complexity, break barriers, and improve customer understanding, trust, and adoption of such offerings. Many upcoming digital financial service providers are unable to engage expert design thinkers while developing solutions due to the paucity of resources and resultantly miss out on critical insights, skills, and knowledge of international best practices. Lower adoption of such products means segments of the population that can be brought in to the folds of formal financial systems through digital technology, miss out on this opportunity. We are confident that the subsidy offered by Karandaaz will bridge this gap and improve the efficacy of homegrown solutions.”

Rehan Akhtar, Chief Digital Officer, Karandaaz said, “Interested entities that are operating in the financial services space or are leveraging financial services e.g. payments for their products or services and are passionate about making it easier for their customers to understand and better engage with digital payments may also apply under this Design Thinking as a Service Program. We are hopeful that more players from the digital financial industry will take this opportunity to get expert design thinkers to help them develop intuitive and human-centered designs that may attract more customers that previously only relied on conventional financial systems or remained financially excluded.”  

Ali Farid Khwaja, Chairman KASB, one of the companies to have availed this opportunity last year, said, “The grant from Karandaaz has been extremely helpful in getting us new insights into the customer preferences and behaviors through a human-centered approach to design. It led us to completely restrategize and change our approach to our product KFunds, a savings and investment platform. The focused design recommended by the design agency that was on Karandaaz panel of expert firms was refreshing and helped us in identifying the customers’ pain points and defining an experience journey based on intuitive design.”

According to the World Bank Global Findex Survey 2017, Pakistan is one of the few countries where the digital gender gap has increased. Under Design Thinking as a Service Program, Karandaaz has kept an exclusive category for women-centric ideas and encourages the digital financial service providers to implement product and service designs that particularly improve the adoption and retention of women customers.

WASHINGTON (NUT DESK)  Tech CEOs defended their platforms” practices as they girded for a fresh grilling Thursday from US lawmakers angered over rampant disinformation about the US elections, the Capitol attack and Covid-19. The leaders of Facebook, Google and Twitter sought to head off critics leading into a House of Representatives hearing, the latest in a series highlighting concerns over moderating online content. The remote video hearing is the fourth for Facebook”s Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter”s Jack Dorsey since last July and the third for Google”s Sundar Pichai: evidence of how the companies” vast economic and political power has landed them squarely in the crosshairs of Democrats and Republicans alike. “Whether it be falsehoods about the Covid-19 vaccine or debunked claims of election fraud, these online platforms have allowed misinformation to spread, intensifying national crises with real-life, grim consequences for public health and safety,” said the heads of the two congressional subcommittees holding the hearing, in a statement. The tech CEOs said they were doing their best to keep out harmful content. “Every day Twitter grapples with complex considerations on how to address extremism and misinformation,” Dorsey said in his written testimony released in advance by the House Energy and Commerce Committee. “Our efforts to combat misinformation, however, must be linked to earning trust. Without trust, we know the public will continue to question our enforcement actions. ” Pichai said Google is dedicated to giving people “trustworthy content and opportunities for free expression across our platforms, while limiting the reach of harmful misinformation. ” Zuckerberg meanwhile said Facebook has ramped up its efforts “to keep hate and violence off our platform” and offered a proposal to address concerns about liability of online platforms, suggesting that each platform have systems in place to weed out illegal content. Zuckerberg said that “people of all political persuasions want to know that companies are taking responsibility for combating unlawful content and activity on their platforms. ” He maintained that Congress “should consider making platforms” intermediary liability protection for certain types of unlawful content conditional on companies” ability to meet best practices to combat the spread of this content. ” – Growing ”techlash” – The hearing comes amid a growing backlash against Big Tech firms which dominate key economic sectors, and which have largely benefitted from the move to online services during the pandemic. A statement from the Energy and Commerce Committee said the big platforms “maximize their reach — and advertising dollars — by using algorithms or other technologies to promote content…(and) often elevate or amplify disinformation and extremist content.” Top law enforcement officials from 12 states meanwhile Wednesday called on Facebook and Twitter to take stronger measures to stop the spread of Covid-19 vaccine disinformation by vaccine opponents. “The science is clear — this vaccine saves lives,” said New York state Attorney General Letitia James. “Facebook and Twitter must take immediate action to protect New Yorkers and limit any further loss of life as a result of the spread of inaccurate information.” The platforms were also expected to face criticism from Republicans for banning president Trump for his comments seen as inciting the violence at the US Capitol on January 6 by his supporters. As the tech firms become a bigger part of people”s lives, they have been facing a firestorm over disinformation, privacy, liability and antitrust as the Biden administration assembles its team and regulatory officials. But prospects for any immediate moves in Washington were unclear. “I don”t expect more than theater” at the hearing, said analyst Carolina Milanesi of market research firm Creative Strategies. “It”s still politics and you are still going to have the whole Republicans-versus-Democrats and free speech coming into play.