Giving Compass' Take:

•  The Skoll World Forum brought together many experts in the technology field who discussed how tech can help address problems in developing countries. 

• Why are people in the development field hesitant about implementing new technology-based strategies in regard to humanitarian aid?

• Innovators are already using apps to inform the development sector and aiding them in projects that help refugees. 

To understand how emerging technologies such as automation and artificial intelligence can benefit the poorest, start with the problem, not the solution. That was a key takeaway from a session at the Skoll World Forum on Thursday called “Emerging Technologies: Shifting the Path from Poverty to Prosperity?”

Several of the themes that were discussed are likely to inform a new initiative launched by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation called Pathways for Prosperity: Commission on Technology and Inclusive Development.

The initiative is exploring the impact of rapid technological change on developing countries, and looking for the best ideas for how to navigate this future, in order to provide decision-makers with practical ideas to turn challenges into opportunities for the poorest, said Stefan Dercon, the former chief economist at the United Kingdom’s Department for International Development.

“A lot of people working in the tech space, they are pushing technology for the sake of technology as a solution, and then looking for a problem they can apply to it,” Dercon said.

“It’s sort of easy to reduce this question of pathways for prosperity to: ‘Will the robots take over my job or the job of the garment worker in Bangladesh?’” said Gargee Ghosh, director of development policy and finance at the Gates Foundation.

Ghosh said she is excited about the potential of technology to improve quality of life in areas such as health and agriculture and sanitation — but added that access “is not a given.”  She described her work as “addressing the policy and financing challenges associated with uptake and access to new technologies.” And she said that increasingly she sees the potential for impact from “bundles of technology” that can address not just one problem but rather the “bottlenecks and breakdowns.”

Read the full article about technology in the development sector by Catherine Cheney at Devex International Development