Use Technology to Disrupt Poverty

“If you’re not part of the solution, you’re part of the problem.”

That catchphrase came to mind recently when the UN announced ­­that world leaders have committed to 17 global goals to achieve three important objectives: ending extreme poverty, fighting inequality and injustice and fixing climate change.

Since the announcement of the Global Goals for Sustainable Development, leaders from the public and private sectors (including government officials, philanthropists, social entrepreneurs, academicians and business CEOs) have set out an ambitious course of action to solve the world’s toughest problems, ranging from health care to hunger to clean water.

Regrettably, Silicon Valley and America’s leading technology companies are not yet full participants in this effort. So much more can be accomplished once American technology companies truly engage. Yes, a few tech companies such as Facebook and Google, are active and engaged, but far too few.

That’s both a shame and a problem because information technology companies have precisely the human, capital and intellectual resources needed if the UN is going to achieve the Global Goals.

Technology will not provide silver bullets for the world’s problems. But technology can shorten timelines, reduce costs and improve outcomes for almost all of the Global Goals:

* Low-cost mobile laptops and smartphones already serve as platforms for innovation in finance, education and healthcare.

* Cloud computing can bring low-cost computing capability to the most remote locations and allow global sharing of best practices and lessons learned.

* Sensors and the Internet of Things provide unparalleled capacity for monitoring climate, rainfall, pollution and traffic and assisting in designing communities of the future.

* Precision agriculture, combining sensors and data analysis, improves the efficiency and yield for large- and small-scale farming.

* Data analytics enable a more timely understanding of market price, the onset or the outbreak of a disease, current and prospective traffic problems, or corruption in national, local or regional governments.

These examples are just the tip of the iceberg. Technology advances when it is used to solve a specific problem. The revolutionary smartphone based payment system, MPESA, launched in Kenya in 2007 because there was a need for such a financial platform in Kenya. It’s been more than a success with in excess of 25% of Kenya’s gross domestic product flowing through it annually. According to industry reports, in 2014 there were more than 225 mobile money services operating across 89 countries. Technology companies working with innovators closest to the problems of the developing world will lead to numerous new and unforeseeable innovative solutions to pressing problems.

Investment in technology innovations too often goes to solving the problems of the affluent. Billions of dollars are invested for applications or services that assist the world’s richest people find a cab or a vacation rental or a restaurant meal or expedite delivery of dry cleaning or laundry.

What would happen if we transferred even 1% of that investment and energy to helping the billion people on the planet without adequate housing find a home or to help the 750 million people who don’t have access to safe water find clean drinking water or the 795 million malnourished people on the planet eat a nutritious meal every night? What would happen if we rallied our best minds and our most advanced technologies in support of the mission to move 1.2 billion people from extreme poverty over the next 15 years?

These are hard tasks, but not impossible ones. As Hugh Evans, CEO of Global Citizens recently noted, during the past 30 years extreme poverty has more than halved from approximately 50% of the world’s population to approximately 20% of the world’s population today. With effort, investment and the technological tools available today that were inconceivable three decades ago, we can make a good run at lifting the remaining 20% of humanity out of poverty.

Tech industry leaders like to revel in the disruptive impact of technology. What could be more satisfying than “disrupting poverty” or “disrupting hunger” or “disrupting climate change” or “disrupting the chronic under-education of girls and women?”

Disruptive activities need not be charitable. There are fortunes to be made in finding new methods to forecast outbreaks of disease or to forestall climate change. Billions will be made rethinking agriculture in subsistence economies, in providing market information or advice to small and emerging businessmen and women across the planet, and in using technology to reduce energy and water consumption. Moreover, raising living standards increases the marketplace for tech and other companies. Raising a billion people from poverty means a billion potential new customers.

But even if there were no fortunes to be made, U.S. tech companies should join in this global effort to improve lives for the poorest people on the planet because it’s simply the right thing to do. What could be a higher purpose or goal than saving lives or improving quality of life? Technology companies are essential partners in this effort because they can bring tools to the task that no one else can provide. Tech is, in fact, the one indispensable industry if this effort is to succeed.

The opportunity is clear. Our technology companies and their leaders can help change the world for billions of people. And what could be better business or more satisfying than that? To paraphrase Aaron Sorkin’s line in the movie “The Social Network”: A billion dollars isn’t cool. What’s cool is lifting a billion people out of poverty.

Larry Irving is a co-founder of the Mobile Alliance for Global Good, a non-profit focused on the use of mobile technologies for societal gain. He served as Assistant Secretary of Commerce during the Clinton-Gore Administration and was a principal architect of its Internet and technology policies.