Q&A with Eric Kaduru

Honestly, I grew up seeing the gaps up close. Coming from an NGO household, I was always aware of the challenges faced by rural communities, but also informed enough to notice the potential that could be unlocked. The lack of access to resources or recognition was something I always found crazy. Over time, I kind of just fell into this path and eventually became obsessed with figuring out how these things could change. More recently, with the advancement of technology, I started to wonder how digital tools could give people more control over their money, land, health, or futures. It’s always been about leveling the playing field for me. Technology just happens to be the lever I know how to pull.

Understanding and practicality. You can’t design solutions for people you’ve never listened to or worse, don’t trust to lead their own change. I spent years working in places where connectivity is patchy and norms run deep. That’s taught me to design with humility, adapt quickly, and always test ideas with the people they’re meant to serve. Also, being African and growing up across different countries gave me a global lens but a local heart.

They’re the foundation. Before you can talk about formal banking, credit scoring, or digital wallets, you need trust, community, and a way to manage small amounts of money safely. That’s what savings groups offer. For women and young people—especially in fragile economies—they’re often the first experience of collective power, financial literacy, and leadership. It’s not just about money—it’s about belonging.

They intersect at agency. A young woman in a savings group using a smartphone to track her savings, apply for a loan, or learn about crop prices is practicing economic agency. When you layer digital tools into group savings models—whether it’s mobile money, Digital training initiatives on WhatsApp, or land rights platforms—you’re unlocking possibilities across health, farming, education, entrepreneurship. It’s a catalyst and an enabler, not a standalone solution.

That they’re small-scale or informal and therefore not “serious.” People don’t realize these groups are often the backbone of local economies. They’re decentralized, accountable, and more resilient than many top-down systems. When supported with the right tools and respect, they can scale trust in ways formal finance still struggles to. And most importantly, we need to adjust the narrative. These are not charity cases or CSR initiatives. These are customers.

AI is a double-edged sword. The promise is personalization—chatbots that train women in local languages, voice assistants that help people navigate loans or healthcare, predictive models that can help groups manage risk better. The risk is exclusion—bias baked into algorithms, data extracted without consent, and a speed of change that outpaces digital literacy. We need ethical guardrails and community-centered design now more than ever.

It felt like a space that could shift power. I saw the DSG Hub as a rare opportunity to bring voices together—practitioners, tech builders, funders—around digital inclusion that’s practical, ethical, and scalable. Not another closed-door group, but a working community that builds with, not for, savings groups.

By being a trusted source of insight and action. There’s so much noise around digitization—it can be hard to know what works in a rural village or fragile context. The DSG Hub can demystify that. Showcase tools, test ideas, document learnings, and create a space for collaboration. It can help the ecosystem move from pilots to progress.

The shift from access to agency. We’ve spent years talking about getting people online, opening mobile wallets, giving out smartphones. Now the conversation is about what people do with that access, how they use it to advocate, build businesses, or demand better services. That’s the frontier: communities that don’t just receive tech but shape the ways in which they use it.