Tech finds its way into so many parts of
our lives looking at my life it
transforms the way I do things I found
my current job on LinkedIn actually they
found me when I’m trying to find a place
that I haven’t been to before I look on
Google Maps I went on a date with
somebody from bumble a dating app and it
worked out but he taught me how to use
Instagram and right now I’m taking a
course my spare time on systems impact
online course so I have all of these
demands and these needs for different
kinds of Technology there are tools of
technology that can do so many things
things that we can see the technology
already doing and there are new ways to
use technology that are always coming up
and so I am a development economist and
I say wow there are so many ways that we
can connect these new tools to people
that have profound needs there are ways
that we’re using technologies in the
developed world that could have a direct
application to developing world we have
technologies that we use that could be
used totally different means for
developing world right now I am CEO of
the how their foundation and we also
have an app for farmers so tech is
actually a big part of our service
delivery a few months ago I was out in
Kenya where we have a lot of our
projects and we build dams Wells and Luz
and with the purpose of teaching farmers
to farm so teaching the ultra poor how
to leave up the ladder and maybe become
the what they call the viable poor who
everybody else wants to work with like
the Gates Foundation and one of our
farmers it’s very clever lady she was
entrepreneurial she had gone into a big
market and bought a big bag of peanuts
and she divided them in lots of little
tiny bags of peanuts and she was selling
them and they were an affordable price
point and my colleague said oh yeah I’ll
buy some of those peanuts as she asked
for a couple of bags and I just took out
some cash and it was a bigger bill and
the lady’s like no no no I don’t have
change
she’s like you pay me by and payza which
is a mobile money transfer you can use
buy smart or feature
I might call it a little bitch either
but I’m sorry we don’t have him paisa
and she looked us like we were idiots
oh oh okay Wow it’s coming back a little
bit um I said I’m a development
economist what does that mean what is
development to me development it’s not
about people in societies having more
money it’s about people and societies
having more choice at that point of view
is founded in the capabilities framework
so which is developed by March SN and
the capabilities approach is about what
you are able to do your capabilities are
built from things like roads health
safety having friends having knowledge
access to the Internet all the things
that together allow us to make choices
about what today looks like and what
tomorrow could look like so that’s the
theory of development and I did of
course our masters here at Cambridge
about 10 years ago and since then I’ve
been working in international
development and social enterprise and
warmer sleet at for good and I worked on
the ground in Kenya in Malawi in
southwestern China and Bhutan Vietnam
and India and one of the things that is
resoundingly true from the projects that
I experienced on the ground is that they
work better they succeed when people
actually want them so to illustrate from
personal experience I had a beekeeping
training project in shangri-la which is
in Himalayan Plateau and we wanted to do
beekeeping for livelihood as we know
it’s a good way for people with very few
resources to be able to have a cash
income it’s not great and there was this
beautiful place and this community we
knew well and it was surrounded by
mountains looks like Switzerland and
Switzerland you can make very nice honey
so into the communities that would you
like to keep bees and they’re like oh
yeah okay we can keep bees and so we
follow the best practice that I knew
about at the time and the community
leaders selected the five poorest
families and they were each going to
receive four hives and we found a
beekeeping professor from Beijing that
was gonna come and teach them how to
keep these and fast forward one year no
bee eyes left total failure you’re like
uh you know sorry to investigate what
had happened and so the first problem we
identified was that actually the
he’s came by truck the 20 hives and one
of the beehives had fallen over in
transit and the bees had flown away
swarmed so there were 19 hives left and
the community sat down thought you know
how do you equitably distribute 19 hives
don’t you hold them all in common so I
mean we can all think about what the
problems of everyone owning and not
owning these hives and there were a
number of problems like that we went
through them one by one we worked out
what all the solutions could be and then
we went back to the community we said hi
would you like to try beekeeping again
we think we’re better at this now he
said yeah you know that that could be
okay but we’d really like to keep ducks
and so development projects work when
people want that when we ask an open
question rather than would you like
through this specific thing we happen to
want to teach you I think that same
logic applies to tech and innovation you
know it does other people no it does how
do we get innovation right for
development is it about the having a
vision you know a Steve Jobs memory you
you can see a product in the future
people will want and then you can tell
them what it is and then they’ll know
they want it no needed forever you know
or is it you map out all the things that
people seem to need that seem to be
missing in their lives and you try to
build one of those things or is it some
combination I think a very interesting
example sort of walk through this
process is looking at and Peyser
what the lady wanted us to use to pay
for those peanuts in 2015 43 percent of
the Kenyan GDP flowed through and paisa
a resounding success
you know hugely and transformative and
important almost replaces banking makes
banking where there is bank no banking
for poor people and pace that was
originally incubated by differed the
Department for International Development
of the UK and different funded
researcher who noticed that Kenyans were
giving each other mobile airtime credit
as a proxy for money and that got them
thinking about what was possible and I
started talking to Vodafone who was
already working on a microfinance
product because they wanted to give
access to the poor people but also have
more customers eventually and build
build people up and together these two
organizations incubated this amazing
service that actually
captured what people were looking for
and as such filled their needs there are
huge opportunities the cost of
connectivity is plummeting people have
access to information education they
have not had access before and in 2020
it’s estimated that seven point six
billion people will be online there’s a
lot of people and then on the side of it
you know we can envision the feature
phones and pay so things that we can
already see work well yes yes yes now
it’s obvious that works so well but
there’s robotics
there’s artificial intelligence there’s
3d printing
there’s augmented reality there might be
things from these tools that will have
amazing and transformative application
for the problems the developing world
and allowing them to leapfrog things
that have taken a very long cumbersome
process for us to get to for instance
having a grid very cool companies are
m-kopa and cello they’re a little bit
similar a little bit different I think
more will pop up around this area but
basically with cello you get a TV you
get a TV that is so they’re charged but
it’s connected to stations but you don’t
pay for it you pay per play of programs
you wanted to watch so this person
didn’t have to buy a TV set they didn’t
have to have any connection to an
electrical grid they just need to be
able to afford to watch a program and
people demand entertainment you know
it’s an aspiration to have this consumer
good and this access to what people are
up to
another example that I really like is
how their foundation has a prize for a
development journalist and the call this
year was about how is digital technology
transforming development and one of my
favorite articles was about town in
Zimbabwe where there is a big whatsapp
group and the mayor is on it and lots of
concerned citizens are on it and so when
something goes wrong so there’s a
pothole or the pipe is broken they start
what sapping away on this group and they
know he can see he knows they know he
can see and so he fixes things in real
time because there’s no longer a middle
president between the two so thinking
back to what what we’re trying to do now
with
our focus is on sustainable locally
viable agriculture so what the poorest
the poor can do with the resources they
have that it’s also good husbandry with
the land they have protecting and
restoring topsoil we have an app for
farmers and when this job of communicate
of was so excited it was all the things
that I wanted to do and I got it and
then the board is like okay and we have
a goal to take our app to five million
small holders by 2020 okay because
there’s this thing about what people
want an expressed demand and also what
we think is useful and it’s not like
we’re actually selling you know
information about Kim Kardashian or
Beyonce’s baby with a football you know
people definitely want that you know you
know people really want to know about
sustainable ways to farm and resourceful
methods someone does so thinking back to
what I know I’m doing this course online
and why do I do it and why will I keep
doing it I’m doing with a group of
people offline so I told them I was
going to do it and we start at the same
time and we have to meet and so I feel
really bad disappointing them so I’ll
definitely keep doing it and also if I
don’t know how to do something hopefully
they can explain it and then the course
would progress through stages and so I
feel successful for having learned
something and also I think that this is
something will help me do my job better
I believe that this information will be
somehow useful to what I’m actually
trying to do so these three reasons make
me want to take this course and will
keep me in it so thinking about as a
farmer in Kenya most of the farmers
regrets are women so let’s think about
this this lady ultra poor farmer in
Kenya what we know about her we know
that she learns through storytelling
it’s a storytelling culture she may or
may not be in a generation where people
are educated and are fully literate but
she’s an amazing memory because she
tells these full stories and she
remembers these full stories also I know
there are challenges and confidence and
aversion to wrists so she’s very likely
to want to plant what she planted last
year because she more or less knows
what’s going to happen whether side if
she changes and it doesn’t go well you
know there’s no food so the risks are
huge we also know that these women want
to improve the lives of themselves and
their families they want their kids to
be able to go to school it will afford
the books their kids need to go to
school in the uniforms they need to go
to school so we know there is some
interest there well I think is very
important is that development and
tech4good and projects all of these
well-meaning things that we’re trying to
do with other people have to be centered
in pull versus push they’re not pushing
what we think is useful but working out
what we wish to do and then looking
around to see what do people actually
need what are they already doing that
could be adapted or the resources that
we have could make their lives a little
bit easier in their journey do that
thing going back to n paisa and paisa
obviously works is the idea that we
should recreate it you know development
we’re like god it’s a great success the
case study let’s do that again that’s
somewhere else it hasn’t worked that
well they’re places or is it to think
about what it is that we do and to find
someone who actually wants that and that
group of people those people they will
know if the way that we’re developing
the service is actually useful or not
and they can tell us those beekeeping
training projects when we finally found
communities that were just desperate to
have better methods for keeping bees it
was so much easier work too cheap and
equally we know that there are ladies
that we work with directly who want to
improve their livelihoods and
agriculture is the way it is the means
they have available to them isn’t and
they moderately know how to do you know
thing this conference is jumping off the
shoulders of giants let’s say em pace as
a giant and we can learn from how they
did what they did not what they did in
that sense I think the call is really to
have a passion and find a problem thank
you
[Applause]
our lives looking at my life it
transforms the way I do things I found
my current job on LinkedIn actually they
found me when I’m trying to find a place
that I haven’t been to before I look on
Google Maps I went on a date with
somebody from bumble a dating app and it
worked out but he taught me how to use
Instagram and right now I’m taking a
course my spare time on systems impact
online course so I have all of these
demands and these needs for different
kinds of Technology there are tools of
technology that can do so many things
things that we can see the technology
already doing and there are new ways to
use technology that are always coming up
and so I am a development economist and
I say wow there are so many ways that we
can connect these new tools to people
that have profound needs there are ways
that we’re using technologies in the
developed world that could have a direct
application to developing world we have
technologies that we use that could be
used totally different means for
developing world right now I am CEO of
the how their foundation and we also
have an app for farmers so tech is
actually a big part of our service
delivery a few months ago I was out in
Kenya where we have a lot of our
projects and we build dams Wells and Luz
and with the purpose of teaching farmers
to farm so teaching the ultra poor how
to leave up the ladder and maybe become
the what they call the viable poor who
everybody else wants to work with like
the Gates Foundation and one of our
farmers it’s very clever lady she was
entrepreneurial she had gone into a big
market and bought a big bag of peanuts
and she divided them in lots of little
tiny bags of peanuts and she was selling
them and they were an affordable price
point and my colleague said oh yeah I’ll
buy some of those peanuts as she asked
for a couple of bags and I just took out
some cash and it was a bigger bill and
the lady’s like no no no I don’t have
change
she’s like you pay me by and payza which
is a mobile money transfer you can use
buy smart or feature
I might call it a little bitch either
but I’m sorry we don’t have him paisa
and she looked us like we were idiots
oh oh okay Wow it’s coming back a little
bit um I said I’m a development
economist what does that mean what is
development to me development it’s not
about people in societies having more
money it’s about people and societies
having more choice at that point of view
is founded in the capabilities framework
so which is developed by March SN and
the capabilities approach is about what
you are able to do your capabilities are
built from things like roads health
safety having friends having knowledge
access to the Internet all the things
that together allow us to make choices
about what today looks like and what
tomorrow could look like so that’s the
theory of development and I did of
course our masters here at Cambridge
about 10 years ago and since then I’ve
been working in international
development and social enterprise and
warmer sleet at for good and I worked on
the ground in Kenya in Malawi in
southwestern China and Bhutan Vietnam
and India and one of the things that is
resoundingly true from the projects that
I experienced on the ground is that they
work better they succeed when people
actually want them so to illustrate from
personal experience I had a beekeeping
training project in shangri-la which is
in Himalayan Plateau and we wanted to do
beekeeping for livelihood as we know
it’s a good way for people with very few
resources to be able to have a cash
income it’s not great and there was this
beautiful place and this community we
knew well and it was surrounded by
mountains looks like Switzerland and
Switzerland you can make very nice honey
so into the communities that would you
like to keep bees and they’re like oh
yeah okay we can keep bees and so we
follow the best practice that I knew
about at the time and the community
leaders selected the five poorest
families and they were each going to
receive four hives and we found a
beekeeping professor from Beijing that
was gonna come and teach them how to
keep these and fast forward one year no
bee eyes left total failure you’re like
uh you know sorry to investigate what
had happened and so the first problem we
identified was that actually the
he’s came by truck the 20 hives and one
of the beehives had fallen over in
transit and the bees had flown away
swarmed so there were 19 hives left and
the community sat down thought you know
how do you equitably distribute 19 hives
don’t you hold them all in common so I
mean we can all think about what the
problems of everyone owning and not
owning these hives and there were a
number of problems like that we went
through them one by one we worked out
what all the solutions could be and then
we went back to the community we said hi
would you like to try beekeeping again
we think we’re better at this now he
said yeah you know that that could be
okay but we’d really like to keep ducks
and so development projects work when
people want that when we ask an open
question rather than would you like
through this specific thing we happen to
want to teach you I think that same
logic applies to tech and innovation you
know it does other people no it does how
do we get innovation right for
development is it about the having a
vision you know a Steve Jobs memory you
you can see a product in the future
people will want and then you can tell
them what it is and then they’ll know
they want it no needed forever you know
or is it you map out all the things that
people seem to need that seem to be
missing in their lives and you try to
build one of those things or is it some
combination I think a very interesting
example sort of walk through this
process is looking at and Peyser
what the lady wanted us to use to pay
for those peanuts in 2015 43 percent of
the Kenyan GDP flowed through and paisa
a resounding success
you know hugely and transformative and
important almost replaces banking makes
banking where there is bank no banking
for poor people and pace that was
originally incubated by differed the
Department for International Development
of the UK and different funded
researcher who noticed that Kenyans were
giving each other mobile airtime credit
as a proxy for money and that got them
thinking about what was possible and I
started talking to Vodafone who was
already working on a microfinance
product because they wanted to give
access to the poor people but also have
more customers eventually and build
build people up and together these two
organizations incubated this amazing
service that actually
captured what people were looking for
and as such filled their needs there are
huge opportunities the cost of
connectivity is plummeting people have
access to information education they
have not had access before and in 2020
it’s estimated that seven point six
billion people will be online there’s a
lot of people and then on the side of it
you know we can envision the feature
phones and pay so things that we can
already see work well yes yes yes now
it’s obvious that works so well but
there’s robotics
there’s artificial intelligence there’s
3d printing
there’s augmented reality there might be
things from these tools that will have
amazing and transformative application
for the problems the developing world
and allowing them to leapfrog things
that have taken a very long cumbersome
process for us to get to for instance
having a grid very cool companies are
m-kopa and cello they’re a little bit
similar a little bit different I think
more will pop up around this area but
basically with cello you get a TV you
get a TV that is so they’re charged but
it’s connected to stations but you don’t
pay for it you pay per play of programs
you wanted to watch so this person
didn’t have to buy a TV set they didn’t
have to have any connection to an
electrical grid they just need to be
able to afford to watch a program and
people demand entertainment you know
it’s an aspiration to have this consumer
good and this access to what people are
up to
another example that I really like is
how their foundation has a prize for a
development journalist and the call this
year was about how is digital technology
transforming development and one of my
favorite articles was about town in
Zimbabwe where there is a big whatsapp
group and the mayor is on it and lots of
concerned citizens are on it and so when
something goes wrong so there’s a
pothole or the pipe is broken they start
what sapping away on this group and they
know he can see he knows they know he
can see and so he fixes things in real
time because there’s no longer a middle
president between the two so thinking
back to what what we’re trying to do now
with
our focus is on sustainable locally
viable agriculture so what the poorest
the poor can do with the resources they
have that it’s also good husbandry with
the land they have protecting and
restoring topsoil we have an app for
farmers and when this job of communicate
of was so excited it was all the things
that I wanted to do and I got it and
then the board is like okay and we have
a goal to take our app to five million
small holders by 2020 okay because
there’s this thing about what people
want an expressed demand and also what
we think is useful and it’s not like
we’re actually selling you know
information about Kim Kardashian or
Beyonce’s baby with a football you know
people definitely want that you know you
know people really want to know about
sustainable ways to farm and resourceful
methods someone does so thinking back to
what I know I’m doing this course online
and why do I do it and why will I keep
doing it I’m doing with a group of
people offline so I told them I was
going to do it and we start at the same
time and we have to meet and so I feel
really bad disappointing them so I’ll
definitely keep doing it and also if I
don’t know how to do something hopefully
they can explain it and then the course
would progress through stages and so I
feel successful for having learned
something and also I think that this is
something will help me do my job better
I believe that this information will be
somehow useful to what I’m actually
trying to do so these three reasons make
me want to take this course and will
keep me in it so thinking about as a
farmer in Kenya most of the farmers
regrets are women so let’s think about
this this lady ultra poor farmer in
Kenya what we know about her we know
that she learns through storytelling
it’s a storytelling culture she may or
may not be in a generation where people
are educated and are fully literate but
she’s an amazing memory because she
tells these full stories and she
remembers these full stories also I know
there are challenges and confidence and
aversion to wrists so she’s very likely
to want to plant what she planted last
year because she more or less knows
what’s going to happen whether side if
she changes and it doesn’t go well you
know there’s no food so the risks are
huge we also know that these women want
to improve the lives of themselves and
their families they want their kids to
be able to go to school it will afford
the books their kids need to go to
school in the uniforms they need to go
to school so we know there is some
interest there well I think is very
important is that development and
tech4good and projects all of these
well-meaning things that we’re trying to
do with other people have to be centered
in pull versus push they’re not pushing
what we think is useful but working out
what we wish to do and then looking
around to see what do people actually
need what are they already doing that
could be adapted or the resources that
we have could make their lives a little
bit easier in their journey do that
thing going back to n paisa and paisa
obviously works is the idea that we
should recreate it you know development
we’re like god it’s a great success the
case study let’s do that again that’s
somewhere else it hasn’t worked that
well they’re places or is it to think
about what it is that we do and to find
someone who actually wants that and that
group of people those people they will
know if the way that we’re developing
the service is actually useful or not
and they can tell us those beekeeping
training projects when we finally found
communities that were just desperate to
have better methods for keeping bees it
was so much easier work too cheap and
equally we know that there are ladies
that we work with directly who want to
improve their livelihoods and
agriculture is the way it is the means
they have available to them isn’t and
they moderately know how to do you know
thing this conference is jumping off the
shoulders of giants let’s say em pace as
a giant and we can learn from how they
did what they did not what they did in
that sense I think the call is really to
have a passion and find a problem thank
you
[Applause]
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