A Digital Transformation Lab for Developing Countries and Small to Medium Enterprises

Digital transformation of small towns (population less than 100,000), small enterprises (employees less than 100) and small countries (population less than 10 million) especially in the developing nations is a challenging task. Besides financial and skillset shortages, a wide range of digital solutions are needed that are location and topic specific and must comply with regional government policies and industry guidelines. In addition, these solutions need to be produced quickly and at large scales to satisfy the needs of more than half of the world population. The needed solutions cannot be handcrafted individually and manully for such diverse populations. Based on the work with more thab 40 United Nations projects, a factory model has been developed that generates highly customized portals rapidly to meet the local requirements. Besides supporting UN Projects, this eFactory is being used to support graduate education in the Information Systems Engineering and Management Program at Harrisburg University. This paper explains how this eFactory can fuel a Digital Transformation Lab to support numerous humanitarian initiatives that may include some Metaverse experiments.