Technology is reshaping the daily lives of the 4 billion people living outside the West. You can see it through the lenses of Rest of World’s photographers: From the quiet corners of coworking spaces in Colombia to talking card readers in India to large-scale water-guzzling EV factories and emoji-shaped pinãtas in Mexico.
In 2023, we sent 39 photographers to 31 cities and 22 countries, from Uganda to Iraq. Our photographers went to India in search of scam call centers and met with a crypto pastor in an Argentine prison.
Take a look at some of our favorite photos from this year.
Cambodia’s Buddhist monks have become TikTok superstars, but seeking fame on TikTok could conflict with monastic code.
Photographer Cindy Liu traveled to Battambang to meet viral monks who are clashing with Buddhist authorities. According to tradition, monks are banned from drawing attention to themselves. But that hasn’t stopped them from using TikTok to preach, with some amassing more than half a million followers.
How China took over the world’s online shopping carts
To show the global growth of Chinese e-commerce platforms like Shein, Temu, and TikTok Shop, photographer Alejandra Rajal sourced the reflective and crinkled packaging sent by the e-commerce companies and laid them out in colorful patterns to highlight these companies’ scale and rise. You can see parts of her process here.
How Urban Company built an empire of female gig workers in India
By getting access to training centers and clients’ homes, photographer Deepti Asthana shows us how gig work is transforming India’s beauty services industry from the inside. With a workforce that is one-third female, Urban Company is the biggest employer of women in India’s platform economy.
Online sports betting in South Asia has a new target: Archery
In the northeastern Indian state of Meghalaya, online streaming and digital payments have given new life to the traditional sport of archery. Kirtan P Deka photographed this century-old game as it found a new audience among online gamblers.
Signal President Meredith Whittaker on resisting government threats to privacy
George Etheredge shot portraits of Meredith Whittaker just over a year after she took over as president of the Signal Foundation. The encrypted messaging app is on the front lines of encryption battles in India, Russia, and Iran.
How BYD snatched Tesla’s crown
In Bangkok, Warun Siriprachai met with a group of BYD electric car owners, a fast-growing community in Thailand. Selling vehicles at less than half the price of a Tesla, BYD dominates the Chinese EV market and has its sights set on the global arena.
Inside the world’s last internet cafes
For this project, six teams of photographers and writers set out to document some of the world’s last internet cafes. From backpacker haunts in Nepal to impromptu daycare centers in Mexico City, this visual experience captures a once ubiquitous environment that represented a high-tech future.
How viral memes conquered piñata design
In the lead-up to New Year celebrations, Angie Smith visited piñata vendors in Mexico City, where traditional piñata designs are quickly being replaced by more instagrammable ones.
The tech workers exiled from Europe’s last dictatorship
The political repression in Belarus forced huge numbers of people to leave the country, many of whom were tech workers. Photographers Daro Sulakauri and Andrej Vasilenko visited cities in Lithuania and Georgia to trace the journey of the Belarus tech community.
Meet India’s MrBeast — selfless saint or fame-hungry vlogger?
In mid-February, photographer Harsha Vadlamani traveled to the suburbs of Hyderabad, India. There, he met a milkman’s family as they were surprised with a gift of over two dozen buffaloes and calves. The entire event was orchestrated by Harsha Sai, India’s most popular stunt philanthropist — working in an area of YouTube where generous acts of kindness are turned into spectacles and monetized for views.
The race to put Indigenous land on the map
On a balmy day in August, photographer Muhammad Fadli drove past expanding stretches of palm oil plantations to reach the Long Bangan community in Sarawak, Malaysia. To stop their ancestral land from being turned into plantations, these communities are using GPS and drones to “decolonize the map” and prove their land rights.
Inside Foxconn’s struggle to make iPhones in India
Photographer Saumya Khandelwal documented how Foxconn, in its continued effort to build iPhones in India, flew hundreds of Chinese engineers to India. The Chinese workers struggled to bring Indian factories up to speed — and often clashed with their Indian counterparts.
Taiwan’s most popular EV company, Gogoro, wants to reach the world
In Taipei, An Rong Xu photographed the facilities of Gogoro, a Taiwanese company with a revolutionary EV network. Gogoro battery-swapping stations are as common as gas stations in Taiwan, and the network supports nearly 400,000 swaps a day.
How digital nomads have reshaped cities around the world
In Medellín, photographer Andrés BO visited coworking spaces where foreign coders and digital marketers crowd the tables, drinking pour-over coffee and enjoying loaded avocado toast. The increase in digital nomads can offer an economic boost to cities, but rising rents are leaving locals priced out.
A new Tesla factory comes to a parched corner of Mexico
César Rodriguez traveled to drought-stricken Monterrey, Mexico, where working-class residents ration water while big companies like Heineken and Coca-Cola continue business as usual. With a massive Tesla factory on the horizon, locals are increasingly worried about the looming environmental threat.
YouTube is bringing viral fame to one of Delhi’s oldest markets
Weaving through the narrow bylanes of one of India’s biggest markets, Nipun Prabhakar met traditional clothing store owners who are hiring YouTubers to market their wares.
