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Comment by Max_Horstmann | Hacker News Reader

Since this is HN, here's a question: what role could technology play in eliminating extreme poverty by 2030?

Heard an interview with the head of the investing arm of the Gates foundation. (Nerdist podcast interview with Bill Gates)

She suggested that in a few years mobile phone technology has transformed Africa more than many more years of charity and monetary intervention. She suggested that services (like payment services) built on top of mobile technologies were the place to look.

The good news is, if you have a great idea along those lines, they might just invest...

Well an easy answer is to take a lot of that money people are earning in technology (I'm talking personal income or gifts from companies) and put it towards programs that either work towards ending poverty in those cases (through economic development, direct cash grants, etc) or improving health conditions, which often helps.

Some possibilities (although there are many others): http://www.givewell.org/charities/top-charities

If you have a novel approach using technology, you should pursue it, but don't let a lack of a technological solution prevent you from doing anything right now.

Also whenever you earn more money, some the tax you pay goes towards programs like this whether you donate anything extra or not. So getting a high paying job alone helps.

Your taxes also fund the IMF, the legal system used to defend drug parents, and the promotion of "abstinence-only" sex-ed.

The reality is federal programs aren't started or canceled based on total, let alone an individual's, tax revenue, so I call bullshit here.

OK, how about this for starters: do you agree that the following two statements are inconsistent:

1. Increasing tax dollars does not benefit the world by increasing the services provided by the government.

2. Rich people should pay more taxes.

The fact that total tax revenue must ultimately equal total government expenditure in the long run, is not bullshit, it's basic accounting. And the things you listed don't come close to canceling out the benefits of aid (and what is wrong with the IMF in the first place?)

Nope, I don't agree.

Total tax revenue does not need to equal total expenditures in the long run. Fiat currencies are created when the government spends money, and it's a choice (based on monetary schools of economics) to have them correlated with revenue. It is not a requirement. The government prints money.

The IMF is tasked with countering global inflation; anti-inflation policies disproportionately benefit those with cash and harm those with debts. In practice, structural adjustment has led to reductions in all sorts of public goods around the world, including education. Hence my inclusion of the IMF on a list with other government programs that increase, rather than reduce, wealth inequality.

We could use automation to reduce the total amount of work we have to do as a society for each individual to be safe and healthy, and then (and this is the hard part) share the benefit of that automation with the whole society, instead of concentrating it in the hands of a few people and kicking every person whose labor is now not essential to the curb.

Incidentally, the answer to this question has been the same since the advent of technology, going as far back as agriculture.

> what role could technology play in eliminating extreme poverty by 2030?

It will play all of it.

If you want particular ideas for small groups to get it sooner, as mentioned the big thing currently is the fact smart phones are going everywhere.

The current talked about tech is mircopayments.

So I'm assuming you're looking for an arbitrage. Western society will continue full paced but what is missing that the 1st world won't do (mircopayments being done)

Directly thinking - More translations of apps or better english learning apps to get a world language.

Cheaper and simpler versions (A free simple farmer logs, if it doesn't exist, perhaps totally based on rice or something)

Sideways thinking -

Small rewards or a lotto for watching public announcements like aids education, better heath. You could target cell phone areas. Rural different to inner city.

Wikis to design/create cheap as possible Chinese products of value to the poor. Google cardboard but wiki style.

Try and find ways to increase the value of garbage the poor scavenge. Could you recycle plastics in the backyard to new products with 3d printing or moulding or something.

These ideas are dumb but more trying to think what could be done, that isn't in the works.

Really disruptive tech: telepresence that's finally almost as good as the real thing.

I expect luddite attempts to ban it as soon as they realize it means that everyone in the world is now free to work with anyone else, borders be damned. It would lead to massive economic growth as whole countries that have lacked access to high-productivity jobs suddenly gain access.

This is really just the technology version of a solution to ending poverty that we could apply today, if we wanted to: open borders. Let anybody work wherever they can find a job, and global poverty would end incredibly fast. By some credible estimates, it would double global GDP almost overnight, by letting workers go to where the work is.

Never going to happen due to speed-of-light delay. Play TF2 on a server that's in a different continent if you don't know what I mean.

Nothing will stop it working in relatively local areas (i.e. for anywhere within 1000 K's you'll be fine), but where you actually live will never be completely abstracted.

It'll massively increase productivity if it's accepted by society, though, I agree with that - everyone can now work in a CBD without the insane commute times.

Technology is the main driver of growth in GDP per capita. Technology is what makes wealthy countries wealthy in the first place, and gives them enough surplus that they can afford to help poorer countries (whose problems may not be lack of access to technology per se, but other issues specific to their societies, such as unstable government, lack of education, etc.)

By making the developed world richer, technology helps everyone.

GDP per capita can easily be increased without raising the median standard of living, or ending poverty. Increasing total wealth doesn't guarantee anything when the maldistribution of wealth is the underlying problem.

No guarantees, but in general it does. Look at, for example, graphs of GDP vs life expectancy.

I think technology has a key role (as a tool) to play in reducing poverty. Obviously poverty is a complex problem and technology is jut one tool to be used as part of solutions. As Kentaro Toyama wrote in his excellent book, "Geek Heresy: Rescuing Social Change from the Cult of Technology" [1], technology is an amplifier of intent.

This is why we started engageSPARK (a not-for-profit social enterprise), aka "Twilio for Non-Techies", where we're building technology tools to help Non Profits/NGOs, Governments, and Civil Society Organizations globally amplify their work to engage the poor in ways that haven't been feasible for them before. These organizations already have money, intent, and people on the ground, but they don't have access to good technology tools to be more effective in their work.

Because most of the poor now have access to a mobile phone (note that most do not have smartphones nor regular access to the Internet), Voice Calls (pre-recorded in local languages) and two-way SMS are key mediums - which many people forget.

Some examples using interactive Voice & two-way SMS to engage the poor: 1) Education using Soap Operas delivered via phone calls: recipients get a phone call, answer, and hear a soap opera dialogue. A quiz at the end is used to reinforce the lesson and measure comprehension. In a study for 20,000 people to encourage them to save money, savings rates increased by 106%.

2) Information Retrieval: people dial into a phone number (or do a free Missed Call to get a call back) and press keys to retrieve information "Press 1 to learn about preventing Ebola, Press 2 to hear symptoms, etc".

3) Surveys: collect information from people quickly via SMS or Voice - "Press 1-5 to rate the training you received last week. Press 1 if you feel positive about finding a job, or 2 if you don't. Press the number of times your family had a meal last week".

Imagine the use cases in Health, Agriculture, Finance, Governance, Disaster Preparedness & Response to help the poor live healthier lives, grow better crops, increase income, have a voice in government, be more resilient to disasters, etc. - all by engaging them more effectively by leveraging technology.

[1] http://www.amazon.com/Geek-Heresy-Rescuing-Social-Technology...

Long ago, I saw this TED talk as a Long Now talk. I still find it inspirational. The big take-away for me is that a for-profit company can make a lot of money by helping even extremely poor people become less poor.

https://www.ted.com/talks/iqbal_quadir_says_mobiles_fight_po...

http://longnow.org/seminars/02008/may/21/technology-empowers...

Making education and communication more accessible would be a huge win. And that's something you could do with low cost (or subsidized) mobile devices.

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