Conclusion and Acknowledgements
E-inclusion is Hewlett-Packard's initiative to broaden developing countries' access to the social and economic opportunities of the digital age. A tenet of e-inclusion is that the inclusion of people currently excluded from the benefits of the global information society will be good for those currently included as well. This paper demonstrates that useful lessons for high technology can be learned from excluded communities: I first started thinking about the lessons of microcredit for dependability in e-services after visiting Banco Palmas, a microcredit organization in a slum area of Fortaleza, Brazil.
Many thanks to the amazing people who run Banco Palmas, especially Sandrinha and Marinete. Thanks also to Jackie and Clare of Oxfam GB, Jim of the Cooperative Bank, and Olinda of Cearah Periferia. Some of the ideas in this paper came from a discussion with the Trust and Online Communities seminar groups at HP Labs Bristol: Thanks to those who contributed to the discussion.