Technology and Poverty

At THRIVEX, we understand the incredible opportunities that emerging tech can bring to society. In the digital age, the tech industry can not only accelerate the upper-level economy but also create a pathway to prosperity for the global poor.

Kosta Peric, the Deputy Director for Global Development at the Bill and Melinda Gates foundation, recently wrote an article highlighting how emerging tech can help impoverished people throughout the world:

We are only beginning to develop the robust infrastructure we need to ensure universal access to DFS (digital financial services). The digital infrastructure needs to be capable of massive growth and handle countless small transactions securely and at low cost to providers.

My colleagues and I at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation are looking closely at what goes into a thriving DFS market. We’re convinced that expanded access to financial services can help low-income nations and communities get out — and stay out — of poverty.

India’s Aadhaar national identity program is connected to tiered DFS accounts; so far it has allowed 200 million people to begin banking for the first time.

Finally, DFS technology should provide open sourcing. All other platform technologies, such as the Internet and the GSM mobile-communications framework, have flourished as standardized protocols and application program interfaces (APIs) have emerged, enabling massive scale and interoperability.

This kind of broad-gauge growth and openness to innovation are exactly what we need to see in DFS. Our foundation is looking with keen interest at ways to apply open-sourcing principles to this dynamic and critically important field.

While the tech industry is capable of furthering our already modernized infrastructure, it is important to consider that there are countless opportunities for growth and development, even in the most impoverished areas, including energy, infrastructure, financial technology, and many other emerging fields.