Technology in the Developing World

Speaker 1

Next up, we have Jessica Finnegan speaking on technology in the developing world. Jessica is completing an advanced diploma in religious studies at the University of Cambridge. Along with a certificate in international development. Her area of study includes how religion interacts with society, specifically how religion can adapt and provide meaningful frameworks for human progress and adaptation.

Jessica Finnigan

Technology will change the world, but more importantly, how it will change the developing world seems to be missing in public discourse. There’s a bizarre disregard for technology and international development. It’s very interesting. My professors seem to blatantly disregard any technological ideas quite off the bat with statements similar to, oh, well, they think this technology will improve this part of international development, but we know better, which is always an interesting. I think I’m the only one in class thinking, well, I think that actually might be valid, but I think part of the reason they have this opinion is they’ve seen so many technological projects that have failed, and they’re just jaded in their opinion. of technology rather than looking at the fact that it was actually the implementation of the project that was the problem.

Jessica Finnigan

This is the problem of suffering. In the smaller picture, that is one of the slums in Kenya. And behind it is actually a picture of the slum in Nigeria. The problem of suffering is essential to understand work in international development. I worked for an international database collecting data on women’s issues across the world. Some of the suffering is soul-crushing and at times even hard to comprehend. There’s a quote that I liked when I was studying: What breaks God’s heart eventually breaks our heart.

Jessica Finnigan

Solutions are not simple. Culture is never straightforward. Sometimes international development Most of the projects that fail are the ones who try to simplify culture and instead of living in the complexity and in the tension. As explained in the book Abundance, technology has historically ended large amounts of human suffering, yet we’re not discussing how it can be implemented in the developing world.

Jessica Finnigan

This is the what I call the Great Divide. When we live in a world that looks like this. I know my kids go to a school that has multiple computer labs that look similar to this, although they’re PCs and not Macs. But you can’t have it perfectly. Especially in a group like this where we have a lot of early adopters of technology, especially compared to even the developed world, it’s hard to comprehend what the developing world needs. But the divide is growing larger between the technology in the developed world opposed to the developing world.

Jessica Finnigan

I won’t go into that. It’s a complete It’s shifting, but it’s a lot of data, and that would take a whole another twelve minutes.

Jessica Finnigan

In communities that struggle to even produce enough of a sustainable food security, the implementation of technology is very complicated and fraught with stumbling blocks. There’s a lack of materials. There is often the inability to maintain and repair technology that has been brought in from outside sources. There’s a saying that there’s three things in the developing world cars, cigarettes and Coke. And now cell phones, so I guess four. That’s Nice that they’re all C’s. Let’s see.

Jessica Finnigan

The major issue that I’ve seen in implementing technology in the developing world is The lack is the word actually implementation in the dialogue. Too often, the dis the discourse is from a Western consumption perspective instead of helping the people to create their own technology. I think that inherently within each human being there is the desire to create and consuming constantly cuts your ability to even sustain and to be creative.

Jessica Finnigan

One of the most compelling criticisms I’ve heard. That’s backed up by quite a bit of survey and of conservative Christian groups and People who are not formally part of a religion is that they feel that religion is not is not fulfilling what Christ compelled them to do, especially in international development. I think this is one portion where Mormonism is quite well positioned. If I had my way, I would have implement in some fashion in the developed world the young men and young women’s programs to teach programming and computer skills so that when those youth went out to missions that they would be trained enough to teach the kids in those areas how to program or even the adults.

Jessica Finnigan

There are downsides to technology in the developing world. This is actually a new story that came out a few months ago. So in Saudi Arabia, women aren’t allowed to move freely without consent of their male guardian. And so since mobile phones have been widely distributed, they actually as they cross into different border checks, their mail guardian is sent a text. Saying where they are. So if you are trying to flee an abusive relationship, or there’s just no freedom.

Jessica Finnigan

And one of the other issues is that technology, especially in the Arab Spring or in other revolutions, has been quite profound. But The question is, was it the technology or is it that the repressive regime didn’t understand it enough to control it, which is probably which would be my estimation. So I think that in order to avoid a lot of the downsides of technology in the developing world, it has to maintain It has to stay in as many hands as possible.

Jessica Finnigan

These next three projects, I wanted to explain. These are projects I think that do a very a better job at helping create instead of consume.

Jessica Finnigan

This is the Hole in the Wall project. It’s in India. It started out with just a computer in a wall, literally, outside of an office building. But this one is extraordinary in that it’s teaching children or it doesn’t even teach, it just provides the computer. into rural areas or impoverished areas, and the children are actually teaching themselves how to use computers and then teaching each other how to use them.

Jessica Finnigan

This is a micro drip project. This picture is from Pakistan, where water scarcity is a huge issue, especially with dams being built between Pakistan and India. This is a technology that local people implemented from Israel and made it more cost effective. allowing small farmers to conserve water and to actually grow crops. So the year before, this was completely barren desert. So they’re actually improving the lives of their own families substantially.

Jessica Finnigan

This is a biolight stove. I keep trying to convince my husband that we need one for camping, but or for emergency preparedness. This one is interesting. It’s not quite as Creative, I would say, at a local level, but this solves a lot of problems. So, at least the project itself is trying to solve local problems. There are more women who die in the developing world from the effects of smoke inhalation from cooking than die from malaria So this is a cleaner burning stove, and this is also ingenious that it charges electronics. So Traditionally, women have been assigned to cooking, and I don’t see that changing in the developing world because it really hasn’t changed in the developed world. But but this gives women a fair amount of power in a patriarchal structure where they would have absolutely no power, since they potentially control the recharging of mobile phones or other electronic devices.

Jessica Finnigan

Getting involved. So one thing that I wanted to say is that as people with technical skills you are needed in international development. Even if the projects don’t initially think they need you, they do. Even just for basic initially basic website development or training or helping set up fairly low level technical skills.

Jessica Finnigan

I just wanted to highlight some of the these are more technical organizations that I thought you guys might be interested in this. It’s Engineers Without Borders. They it’s an international organization, although it’s organized locally. at least by country, I’m not sure how locally. And they strive to create engineering projects that are sustainable. And they actually are quite good at even admitting their own failures, which is quite revolutionary in international development.

Jessica Finnigan

This is Frontline SMS. They create mobile enabled devices apps for prenatal care, which is a huge problem in rural developing countries where you might not have a midwife for three hundred miles.

Jessica Finnigan

This is Manufacturing for Change. This is actually a really cool one. So you’re online, but you help coordinate with other volunteers in the developing country to go over manufacturing criteria and to push ideas around so that projects in the developing world with local people input is more are more successful.

Jessica Finnigan

Freedom Phone is a two-way phone for education and information access. And I don’t know how to say this last one, Yushtashi, is a mapping and crowdsourcing technology in order to keep technology in the hands of the multitude.

Jessica Finnigan

Martin Luther King, Jr. had a quote, the arc of the moral universe bends towards justice. I’d like to add that it bends towards justice because we bended there.

Speaker 3

I believe in the introduction it was mentioned that you had been involved with women in some way. And I d i in in other areas of the world, it seems like women are playing a critical role in moving underdeveloped countries to a more advanced stage with small businesses, small manufacturing operations Can you make a few comments upon the role of women in the societies that you’re familiar with?

Jessica Finnigan

Sure. Let’s see if that’s a big question. So I think because women have been so historically underprivileged, there’s a lot of emphasis on helping women to overcome those barriers. And again and again, when women do overcome, when they are given the opportunity to be more equal in the society, not only do they themselves prosper and their families prosper, the entire GDP of the country increases exponentially. The more equality there is and the more opportunity that women are given the potential to fulfill what they need to do. Violence goes down, education goes up. They I mean, when you’ve been ignoring half your population for thousands of years, they’re also willing to work harder because they’re given those advantages that they haven’t been given. Domestic violence goes down. Child mortality goes down.