Sep

Realizations from my second trip to the Social Good Summit

Andrew

Last week, I attended the 2011 Social Good Summit in New York City where dozens of guest speakers talked about the role technology can play in making the world, specifically the developing world, a better place. The two big realizations I had this year were 1) Mobile technology has the power to connect millions of people who live far from hospitals, doctors, schools and emergency care and 2) How the growing movement to empower girls and women everywhere can have such a profound effect on global health.

Today, health workers use cell phones in the field to collect data on pregnancies, help with diagnosis and to send reminders to sick individuals to take important antibiotics. Phones are so inexpensive that almost anyone can afford one, creating two way communications where there previously wasn’t any other than face to face. It is truly the first form of communications technology that can be used regardless if you are rich or poor. People can reach health workers, any time of day, and ask medical questions or call for help. I was amazed to find out that the camera on the phone can be used to take a photo of a blood sample and send it to a lab for diagnosis. Through this use of mobile technology, millions of people who live long distances from hospitals, doctors or health workers are not without some sort of access to answers.

Additionally, Geena Davis, who just helped launch the UN’s newest agency called UN Women, spoke of encouraging girls from a young age to pursue their dreams and criticized entertainment and the media for reinforcing negative stereotypes. There is a global call to help girls realize they can stay in school, wait to get married and be who they want to be without feeling pressured. An educated girl is likely to have fewer children, meaning she will have more time and money to care for the children she does have, resulting in an overall healthier family. Most health workers are women who believed in themselves from an early age and realized their potential. We need smart girls to grow in to strong women who can make a difference for those in need.

But there is more to global development than mobile technology and fighting stereotypes, I was struck by something that Archbishop Desmond Tutu said when he was asked how he stays so optimistic and why he devotes himself to create change for good. He answered by saying “I am not an optimist, but a prisoner of hope.”

Hope was in abundance at the Social Good Summit. At the beginning of the week I was still trying to understand why new technology was so important to people who didn’t even have clean drinking water or access to healthcare. I realized that in this country, our view of new technology is to create a convenience like a cell phone or an Ipad. But in a developing country, new technology is really a tool for survival.