At just 17, Riya Kamat, founder of the podcast Shadows of Progress, is challenging conventional wisdom by asserting that inequality and exclusion are not random occurrences but are intentionally embedded within the design of everyday systems. Her extensive work, spanning platform economics, women's labor, technology ethics, and systems design, combines academic research with sharp field observations.
The Design Flaw of Exclusion
Kamat's journey began with a spreadsheet during an internship at a creator platform, Animeta. She initially expected quality to drive opportunities for creators to land brand deals. Instead, she discovered that visibility, favoring urban, English-speaking, and already prominent creators, dictated who received opportunities. Regional creators, despite their engagement, were systematically filtered out. This observation led her to a pivotal conclusion: the system wasn't broken; it was operating precisely as designed to exclude.
Redesigning for Inclusivity
At Animeta, Kamat proposed reserving ten percent of campaign budgets for emerging regional creators and fostering collaborations between established and rising voices. This recommendation was accepted and piloted, marking a crucial step towards a more inclusive system.
Her work with another platform, Slurp, highlighted a different facet of systemic exclusion. While homemakers earned income through the platform, some lacked full control over their earnings within their households. Kamat's team recommended workshops focusing on financial confidence, peer support, and family conversations, recognizing that social structures often lag behind technological advancements.
Inequality as a "Design Problem"
Kamat emphasizes that every system is built upon assumptions about user resources, "normal" behavior, and whose needs are prioritized. If a platform presumes stable internet access, fluent English, or a formal financial history, it inherently creates barriers for others. This, she argues, is not accidental but a direct consequence of design choices.
Patterns Across Industries
This pattern of designed inequality is consistent across sectors. In agriculture, for instance, AI-powered farming and digital marketplaces promise increased productivity, yet primarily benefit farmers with existing capital, connectivity, and digital literacy. Smallholder farmers often receive the promise of technology without the necessary conditions for its success. Kamat advocates for evaluating innovation not just by its advancement but by its inclusivity.
Personal Insights and Future Vision
Drawing from her own experience as a competitive powerlifter, Kamat notes how gym layouts often signal who the space was designed for, with cardio machines central and free weights relegated to corners. This personal insight reinforces her belief that design communicates belonging before policy ever does.
Reframing social inequality as a design issue is critical because it makes solutions actionable. Rather than viewing inequality as an insurmountable aspect of "human nature," identifying it as a result of specific design decisions allows those decisions to be challenged and changed. Kamat advocates for two key actions: implementing inclusive design from the outset by asking who is missing and what assumptions are being made, and fostering clearer advocacy that explains how specific outcomes are produced by current systems.
Kamat aims to influence systems early in their development, whether through technology, policy, or research, asserting that the earlier one is in the process, the greater the power to ensure inclusion.