DigiTally
An offline mobile payment scheme designed for poor or unavailable network connectivity, developed as part of my doctoral research at the University of Cambridge.
Overview
DigiTally is an overlay payment scheme for mobile phones. It enables two people to make a payment by copying short strings of numbers between their phones, without requiring smartphones or a live network connection. Either phone can upload the transaction later when connectivity becomes available.
The project explored how mobile payments could be extended to areas with poor or intermittent connectivity while also reducing marginal network costs. The work developed and evaluated a human-usable protocol for constrained offline environments and formed part of my PhD research on resilient payment systems.
The research was supported by a Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation Grand Challenges Explorations grant focused on financial inclusion.
Resources