Internet over the ocean: A smart IoT-enabled digital ecosystem for empowering coastal fisher communities

Coastal communities across the globe are prone to imminent disasters and emergencies due to their geographic placement, and their fishing occupations add to their exposure to ocean-related disasters more during their occupational voyage. The fishermen in the state of Kerala, India, lead a distinctive lifestyle compared to the mainstream community, primarily because of a significant digital divide. This divide hampers their access to livelihood support, such as live market information and impedes any potential improvement in their quality of life through digital services. The community's transformation is possible only through discrete and gradual steps of progression by bringing services to different areas such as education, connectivity, technology adoption, business, and livelihood. This study revealed prevalent gaps in the fishing community, including a lack of digital access and communication opportunities in the deep ocean, a deficiency in digital capacity preventing them from leveraging the benefits of Information and communications technology (ICT), leading to community isolation from digital inclusion and limiting economic opportunities. To address these issues, the study proposes an IoT-enabled digital ecosystem, transforming the community into a smart digital community. This ecosystem integrates a low-cost deep ocean communication solution, supportive software applications, a blockchain-based e-commerce platform, and a sustainable social change model for technology adoption. Proper adoption and utilisation of the digital ecosystem can strengthen the community's resilience to natural disasters, and climatic changes by providing relevant information and livelihood resilience by offering them an e-commerce platform to improve income and reduce their vulnerability. It will equip them to enhance their responsiveness to changing environmental and social factors and bounce back to build their innate resilience.