The Digital Leap: Examining the Impact of Digital Systems on Small to Medium Business Efficiency and Growth in Developing Economies

Digital innovation and sociotechnical dynamics converge in my work. The capstone project builds an integrated fintech platform to streamline financial planning and asset management, while the STS research examines how small and medium–sized businesses (SMBs) in developing economies navigate digital transformation. Both investigations address a common challenge of bridging the gap between powerful technical tools and the real‐world contexts in which they must operate. By evaluating these threads, we reveal how technological design, organizational practices, and institutional supports must align to realize meaningful impact.
My capstone project tackles the long-standing inefficiency faced by financial advisors who have historically juggled multiple siloed systems for market analysis, tax projection, and portfolio management. To remedy this, I helped develop Caravel Concepts’ web-based solution that unifies financial planning and asset management into a single, scalable platform. A central innovation lies in the system’s ability to generate future projections for every major S&P index, incorporating dynamic models of inflation and tax rates, and then apply those projections directly toward clients’ personalized goals. Rather than forcing advisors into a fixed set of forecasting assumptions, the platform empowers each firm to adjust and manipulate the underlying predictive parameters, whether they wish to model more aggressive growth scenarios, conservative economic outlooks, or bespoke tax strategies, so that the software faithfully reflects their own beliefs and vision. By enabling advisors to tailor the future‐looking inputs themselves, the platform produces more precise, contextually relevant recommendations and avoids the risk of “one‐size‐fits‐all” predictions. ​
However, delivering advanced capabilities is only half the battle. Technology adoption ultimately depends on human and institutional factors like user constraints, training, and policy incentives. These factors can either enable or obstruct the effective use of even the most sophisticated system. Recognizing this, my STS research applies Actor-Network Theory (ANT) to examine the broader sociotechnical networks that shape digital uptake among SMBs. This analysis revealed two interrelated challenges. First, many digital solutions carry built-in assumptions like enterprise-level budgets, dedicated IT support, and reliable infrastructure, which rarely exist for SMBs. Second, government vouchers, training programs, and infrastructure investments often operate in isolation, leaving SMBs uncertain which resources to trust and how to integrate them effectively. ​Through ANT’s lens, digital tools function as actors whose built-in assumptions must align with those of human participants (owners, employees, policymakers) and non-human elements (infrastructure, regulations), which illuminates how these groups shape the outcomes of digital transformation.
Viewed together, the capstone and STS analyses demonstrate that technical excellence and sociotechnical alignment are both essential. The fintech platform’s integrated architecture addresses advisors’ workflow needs, while the ANT analysed STS study underscores the necessity of co-design, targeted training, and coordinated policy to overcome real-world constraints. In tandem, these efforts suggest a roadmap for deploying powerful digital tools by designing with end-user contexts in mind, embedding intermediaries to bridge knowledge gaps, and aligning institutional incentives to reduce adoption friction. Only by addressing both technical design and real-world context can we enable durable, inclusive digital transformation for financial advisors, SMBs, and more.

School of Engineering and Applied Science

Bachelor of Science in Computer Science

Technical Advisor: Briana Morison

STS Advisor: Sean Murray

Technical Team Members: Vidur Agaram