How can technology be used to end extreme poverty?
It seems to me that some of the technological developments of the last 30 to 50 years can play a major part in ending extreme poverty, wherever it occurs in the world. CK Prahalad wrote about some of these developments in his excellent book "The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid", but there are many others besides.
A few examples include:
* The $100 laptop, proposed by Nicholas Negroponte, which should offer a much broader range of people the opportunity to access the incredible information resources of the web.
* Peer-to-peer mobile phone networks, which offer the prospect of much more widespread connectivity in sparsely populated areas, including many parts of Africa.
* Development of bio-fuel technologies, such as the use of solar panel systems and blue-green algae to grow bio-diesel.
* Sophisticated computer modelling techniques, that allow public health authorities to monitor disease outbreaks and react more quickly with counter-measures.
An interesting and important question is this:
What can we do to encourage the adoption of the best of these technologies throughout the world?
I don't have any simple answers, but I think it's a question that's worth a fair bit of grappling and soul-searching. I wonder whether other people can highlight different technologies, or suggest ways to accelerate the take-up of the best ones......
I have very different view about poverty and ITVidya may not be an appropriate forum to discuss. If the society and the human beings are willing to end poverty, technology can be the definite enabler. However, the ground realities about perception of poverty by the social animal has made it impossible to eradicate poverty unless the whole definition changes!!
Rajesh
Rajesh,
In many ways, I agree with you, in as much as poverty is a state of mind. However...
...I believe there are plenty of people in the world for whom the issue is NOT state of mind, but rather lack of infrastructure.
In many parts of Africa, for example, the people are extremely resourceful and do not perceive themselves as "poor". However, their lack of infrastructure (roads, telecomms, etc.) makes them vulnerable to external shocks, such as extreme weather conditions or a new agricultural pest. It's in these areas that technology could play an important role in making the communities more prosperous and therefore more robust against such external problems.
The "state of mind" issue is being more powerfully addressed by organisations such as The Hunger Project and the Grameen Bank, which obviously use technology much less.