Frontier Tech Futures Central Asia — Turning Learning into Action
Frontier Tech Futures is an immersive experience designed to explore frontier technologies, showing promise in international development like blockchain and Internet of Things and connect teams with the technologists working on what’s next.
Through an immersive learning programme, DFID teams and other UK Government departments, their programme partners and stakeholders, can connect with technologists, hear about how tech is being applied in similar contexts, build connections with local innovators, and consider how to integrate technologies into future plans.
The Central Asia team chose to explore frontier technologies at a critical stage in the development of two of their major programmes: early action (the ‘post inception’ phase) of an Enterprise Innovation Programme and the pre-business case approval of a Governance programme. Futures gave teams an opportunity to explore in detail how they might integrate innovation and technology to support achieving their programmatic objectives.
During the week long engagement the team, split across sites in Bishkek and Dushanbe, met with technologists, implementers and Government to hear about the tech and skills in the market, have conversations about the opportunities and challenges of technology and innovation and consider the implications of using frontier tech in programmes.
Learning from these exchanges informed the design of DFID’s Central Asia Governance programme. The programme presented an opportunity to integrate technology into processes that could support transparency, accountability and evidence-based policy decisions. Following on from the Futures week, the team embedded within the business case a focus on technology and innovation for data use, including for example the digitalisation of government M&E systems.
Together with implementing partners of DFID Central Asia’s Enterprise Innovation Programme, the team considered opportunities and challenges that might be faced in the delivery of the forthcoming programming. In a ‘fireside’ discussion at Bishkek High Technology Park, technologists spoke of their limited exposure to international markets and desire to forge business to business links regionally. They spoke about the issue of a shortage of coding and development skills, and had entrepreneurial solutions for addressing that shortage, including setting up their own coding academies and collaborating with local universities. The discussion moved on to how technology could be applied to develop skills in the untapped, more remote regions of Kyrgyzstan where job opportunities are more scarce but ambition to learn coding skills is high.
The Central Asia team are continuing to explore how technology and innovation can enhance programme delivery, in particular how it might inform additions to Central Asia’s programme portfolio in support of Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan Governments’ Climate and Environment priorities.
Futures aims to bring about new connections and start conversations about technologies’ relevance to DFID’s work and methods for incorporating it into programming. During our week, we witnessed a striking thirst for knowledge and to learn, from the DFID team and from the Kyrgiz government and local tech ecosystem. To have the open, far-reaching and curious conversations that we were able to have, required a real humility and growth mindset that it was inspiring to see. This has enabled the team to approach their programming in completely new ways, and this new way of working will only be more relevant as programmes are adapted to respond to the impacts of COVID-19.
