Only Connect: Technology against Poverty…

Month in, month out The Long Now Foundation’s “Seminars about Long Term Thinking” have to be the most stimulating and satisfying lecture series going.  Hosted by Long Now’s founder, Stewart Brand, the Seminars challenge a series of seminal thinkers with provocative questions– it’s brain food of the most nutritious sort.

Most months Kevin Kelly, a Long Now Director and a presenter at the Seminars himself, helps out by reviewing and sorting the questions that are submitted from the audience on cards.  Most recently, the featured thinker was Iqbal Quadir, the Founder and Director of the Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship at MIT, founder of Gonofone and GrameenPhone, and the founding co-editor of the journal Innovations: Technology, Governance, Globalization.

Kevin’s report on Iqbal’s talk is must reading for anyone concerned with poverty and issues of development.  A couple of excerpts:

Quadir presented this broad outline of development in order to give context for his belief that technology can alleviate poverty. He reminded us that 500 years ago, when the western countries were still “developing” their own societies, their political systems were no better, and often worse, than the instable corrupt regimes of many developing countries today. England had a series of kings who were impeached, arrested, ousted, or beheaded for their crimes. It was only after citizens were empowered by economic markets did the balance of power shift from the central king to decentralized citizens. All steps that devolve power away from a central authority — including laws, trade, and education — will raise democracy.

In Quadir’s view, it’s not that centralization per se creates poverty. Poverty is the natural beginning state of all societies, east or west. Rather, decentralization is the engine which removes poverty and brings wealth. To the degree that infrastructure, education, and trade can be decentralized, wealth will rise in proportion. To the degree that infrastructure, education and trade are centralized, poverty will remain.

Whereas many of us in the west, particularly the digital west, agree with this intuitively, we act contrary to this observation when we give large-scale aid to poor countries. As Quadir’s colleague Wiliam Easterly argues in his book “The Elusive Quest for Growth,” the billions and billions of dollars spent on aid for developing countries has not only  *not* helped, it has set them back decades. Aid, as we know it, kills development. This harm occurs because almost all previous aid has funneled through a central government or semi-governmental organizations and that official route tightens centrality. Even if the governments were saintly, and they are definitely not, the scale of money flowing through these centralizing nodes prohibits the distribution of resources, infrastructure, trade, and education. The more aid that arrives, the less development can actually happen.

Technology is the escape from this quandary. Quadir came to see that “technologies that connect” could liberate productivity…

and

Quadir is now searching for other technologies to decentralize, and thereby become a tool to erase poverty. He is director of the Legatum Center for Development and Entrepreneurship at MIT, which has been funded with $50 million. He is investigating whether energy can also be dethroned from its current mode of extremely centralized generation. Only 10% of the electricity produced at its source remains at the end of the wires as they reach homes and factories. Perhaps there are ways to decentralize its generation, which would trigger connections at the local level, and in his scheme, elevate wealth and democracy. If it worked, decentralized energy might also work in rich countries, increasing wealth and democracy in our part of the world as well.

Throughout his talk, Quadir reiterated: “To raise productivity (and wealth), raise connectivity. It’s that simple.”  Jaron Lanier suggests that connectivity might be one of the criteria we should use to evaluate whether a technology is desirable or not. We should ask ourselves, Jaron says, whether this technology increases connection among people, places and things, or decreases connections. Those technology that up connectivity will more likely do good. So far I [Kevin] have not thought of any counter examples.

Hear the entire talk on a free podcast that you can get here (along with talks by dozens of other fascinating folks).  Or better yet, join The Long Now Foundation– an extremely worthy cause– and get access to this talk and the others on video.

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