Posted by Jenny Stefanotti on Tuesday, January 31, 2012,
In :
Policy Making
Readers of this blog will know that I’m a big fan of behavioral economics. I’m constantly applying its lessons to a host of development issues, from consumer finance to aid effectiveness to health care to (my personal favorite) venture capital. The list goes on and on. I find the intersection of psychology and economics so central to my thinking that I when I first encountered it at the Kennedy School I was surprised to realize it wasn’t part of the core MPAID curriculum. So surprise... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jenny Stefanotti on Tuesday, January 24, 2012,
In :
Policy Making
I generally resist summarizing an interesting post or article, but occasionally one comes along that is just too good to risk losing in a Twitter stream. I read a fantastic blog post about conditional cash transfers (CCTs) the other day by Lant Pritchett, one of my former professors at the Kennedy School. It’s pretty technical and sometimes Lant is hard to follow if you’re not a trained economist (I shudder to think how much I missed in his class my first semester), so it seems all the ... Continue reading ...
When I decided to leave the technology industry to pursue my MPAID, I did not intend to focus on the application of technology to international development. On the contrary, I was highly suspicious of that trend. When I stepped off the plane in Liberia during my summer internship, I had the task of assessing the establishment a wireless broadband network. But, the country didn’t have electricity. The exercise seemed borderline absurd.
Then I sat at my desk inside the president’s offic... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jenny Stefanotti on Tuesday, January 10, 2012,
It’s been nearly a year since my last post, and in all sincerity, over a year and a half since I’ve blogged in earnest. Despite my best intentions of keeping up this blog upon graduation from the Kennedy school, life swept me away. To be fair, I’ve been busy. I planned two weddings. My husband and I bought and remodeled a home. And most importantly, I brought an incredible little person into the world last May.
With the dust now settling on this new era of my personal life, it’s fi... Continue reading ...
Not shockingly, the presence of a celebrity and a high profile development intervention is getting a lot of attention in the development twitterverse/blogosphere. The latest is George Clooney's efforts in Sudan. As I think we all know, Clooney's Not on Our Watch has partnered with a handful of organizations, including the Enough Project, the United Nations UNITAR Operational Satellite Applications Program (UNOSAT), the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative, and Google for the Satellite Sentinel p...
Posted by Jenny Stefanotti on Thursday, August 19, 2010,
In :
Culture
It's not often I blog about an article I've read without adding substantial commentary of my own, but I read one recently that really struck a chord with me. As my recent posts make clear, I've been thinking a lot about what's important in life, and the values and norms that have evolved in industrialized societies. Something else happened that also heightened the article's impact on me: a week and a half ago, my grandmother passed away.
There was a New York Times op-ed last week entitled Economics Behaving Badly which argues that politicians are becoming over-reliant on behavioral economics to solve problems it was never meant to solve.
While I agree with the broader points of the article, I'm amazed to see the two professors (one of economics and psychology) write -- and the New York times publish -- a piece with blatant inaccuracies.
From the article:
As policymakers use it to devise programs, it’s becoming clear that be...
Jessica Jackely, co-founder of Kiva and the newly
launched Profounder, gave an intensely personal talk at TEDGlobal last
week. It was met with a standing
ovation and actually, it was the single talk that brought tears to my eyes. In addition to conveying her deep
passion for development, Jessica had some very insightful things to say about
the psychology of philanthropy and the mechanisms with which those who give
engage with those who receive.
According to Jackley, the exchange that cha... Continue reading ...
Ethan Zuckerman is a Senior Researcher at the Berkman
Center for Internet and Society at the Harvard Law School. Incredibly and embarrassingly, I never
managed to link with the Berkman Center during my time in Cambridge, so I was
thrilled to see Ethan would be speaking at TEDGlobal this past week. His talk was another of the highlights
of the conference, and one of particular relevance for those of us interested
in how the access to information that the Internet affords impacts developm... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jenny Stefanotti on Monday, July 19, 2010,
In :
Institutions
Tim Jackson, who among other things is the UK
government’s advisor on sustainable development, raised an important issue at
TEDGlobal this week in Oxford. At
least I thought so, because it struck at one of the central things on my mind
these days (outlined in a recent blog posting here). Jackson makes two points, one obvious and the other less
so. The first is that economic
growth is fundamentally constrained by the resources of this planet. Our way out to date has been a blind
faith in ... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jenny Stefanotti on Sunday, July 18, 2010,
In :
Culture
I spent last week in Oxford at my first TEDGlobal conference. I was unexpectedly
struck by the parallels between this prestigious gathering of global
intelligentsia and an event ostensibly as far away at the other side of the
spectrum as possible – Burning Man.
Burning Man is near impossible to explain to the
uninitiated, let alone succinctly. It’s like dropping
yourself on another planet with an entirely different species of human
being. You’re on a dusty dried
lakebed that loo... Continue reading ...
Imagine you are a bank. What information would you
need to determine the creditworthiness of an entrepreneur or a small
business? If the business is at an
early stage, financial statements may not be very valuable. If the business has little physical
capital to be used as collateral, it might be too risky. If the entrepreneur has no credit
history, it might be game over.
Microfinance gets around this with the group-lending model, because
while it is costly for a lender to assess the c... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jenny Stefanotti on Sunday, July 18, 2010,
A few things have been on my mind for awhile. Topics I'm particularly fascinated by,
and that I think are important for development.
They are the following:
How people access and process information, and what the
deficiencies in that process mean for the challenges we face in international
development. I actually think this
is very relevant for a long list of issues, especially aid and access to capital.
Prospect theory and the implications for
development. In sum, prospect
theory arg... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jenny Stefanotti on Sunday, July 18, 2010,
In :
Culture
I'm in the middle of biggest transition state of my life. Not only am I just about to embark in a new direction with my career, but I'm also just about to transition from a girlfriend to a wife, and motherhood looms on the horizon. As I move on to these significantly different phases of my professional and personal life, I'm doing a considerable amount of
thinking about my priorities and how I want to live. In doing so, I'm reminded of a real problem with
the society I exist in.
We're ... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jenny Stefanotti on Sunday, July 18, 2010,
In :
Human Rights
One of the things I'm doing with my time off between
graduation and working full time is taking a massive step back when it comes to
my thinking about development. I'm
asking myself the following questions:
What do I believe should be the societal goals of "development"? Is there some level
of overall well being (or freedom as Sen would define it) that we consider a
right of everyone that inhabits this planet? If so, upon what basis are those rights determined? Or is it that, given the ... Continue reading ...
I recently read Sendhil Mullainathan's paper, " Psychology and Development Economics," for a class I'm taking with him. It's a fantastic read and very accessible -- I highly recommend it. One section, however, is so thought provoking that I felt it worth replicating in full on my blog. It's about the psychology of fairness and its role in corrupt behavior. I have become extremely interested fairness in human behavior, and its evolutionary roots. I think it has a lot to teach us about deve...
Needless to say, I am fortunate to be surrounded by extremely brilliant and passionate people here at Harvard. I should have included contributions from them at the onset of this blog, but late is better than never. A few of the first year MPAIDs wrote the letter below to our school paper in response to the Harvard's response to the earthquake in Haiti.
This is one of several guest contributions I will be adding over the next few days.
* * *
Dear Editors of the Harvard Kennedy Citizen, The...
Below is the executive summary of my Second Year Policy Analysis, entitled "Domestic Broadband Infrastructure Policy: Laying the Foundation for the Future of ICT in Tanzania." It examines the Tanzanian government's policy regarding national backbone infrastructure. Email me if you'd like to read the full paper.
* * *
With the recent launch of its submarine fiber-optic
cable, SEACOM removed the most significant historical constraint to
East African broadband connectivity.
Nonetheless, lac... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jenny Stefanotti on Tuesday, April 6, 2010,
Apologies for the long respite from postings. Responsibility largely lies with my Second Year Policy Analysis paper (i.e. my thesis), which commanded every ounce of bandwidth I had to give (and then some). Then for a few weeks, life got in the way. But I am back, and I have a long list of things to say... Continue reading ...
Ken Bank's recent post "Social Mobile and the Missing Metrics" really started my wheels turning. Among many other things, it started me thinking about how we could be smarter in implementation so as to facilitate true impact evaluation. The first thing that came to mind is Oportunidades, formerly known as Progressa, the famous social assistance program in Mexico that made cash transfers contingent on school attendance and visits to health clinics. When Opportunidades rolled out, they couldn'... Continue reading ...
I’m taking a class on bridging research and
policy with Rohini Pande and Sendhil Mullainathan this semester. Each week we have to answer discussion questions related to
our readings, and last week mine was chosen to share with the class. I figure that’s a pretty good sign it’s
worth sharing with the world at large as well.
In your view what are (up to) three important principles that an international organization should follow in allocating development aid?
I’m going to take a slig... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jenny Stefanotti on Saturday, February 13, 2010,
In :
Economics
In quantum mechanics there is something called the
Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle: we can never know both the exact location and
momentum of a particle – at small enough scales the more precise we are with
one, the less precise we can be with the other. I just realized that when it comes to drawing policy
implications, development economics might have an uncertainty principle of its
own. Esther Duflo spoke at TED this week, talking about the need for evidence and experimentation in devel... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jenny Stefanotti on Saturday, February 13, 2010,
In :
Economics
In addition to the technical challenges with creating a global poverty count as outlined in my post below, there are also conceptual issues with poverty counts that I would be remiss to not include.
First is the simple idea of a head count, as defined by those above or below a defined consumption level. People's lives are not significantly different just below or just above that line, and yet those above are excluded from our numbers. Small changes to the line can lead to big changes in t... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jenny Stefanotti on Friday, February 12, 2010,
In :
Economics
Measuring global poverty levels is hard, so hard the actual numbers might be of limited use. According to Angus Deaton, the godfather of poverty measurement, "it seems impossible to make statements about changes in world poverty when the ground underneath one's feet is changing in this way." I thought it would be helpful to illuminate why.
Technically speaking, creating a measurement of global poverty is a daunting endeavor. It hinges on three key things: 1) household surveys 2) a single ... Continue reading ...
"A man should learn to detect and watch that gleam of light which flashes across his mind from within, more than the lustre of the firmament of bards and sages. Yet he dismisses without notice his thought, because it is his. In every work of genius we recognize our own rejected thoughts; they come back to us with a certain alienated majesty. Great works of art have no more affecting lesson for us than this. They teach us to abide by our spontaneous impression with good-natured inflexibilit... Continue reading ...
Dani Rodrik's teaching forms the basis for how I approach industrial policy - namely that governments should intervene where markets fail, and implement policies that target those failures. This principle also forms the basis for an issue I have with how he approaches policies to promote economic growth through innovation.
In short, Rodrik's position is that market failures lead to an inefficient allocation of resources, which is particularly acute in developing countries. He argues that en... Continue reading ...
This post is a follow up to yesterday's about an article in this week's Economist that discusses the work of one of my professors, Ricardo Hausmann. Though there are important caveats I think people need to understand (see my post), the work has tremendous value in helping us understand how the structure of economies evolve. The real problem comes when Hausmann partners with Dani Rodrik and Charles Sable to translate his findings into policy prescriptions. Somehow, something has gone terr...
Continue reading ...
There's an article in this week's economist about Ricardo Hausmann's product space. I'm happy to see it getting mainstream attention. It's incredibly
important work, and it just makes intuitive sense. But before we start using it for policy decisions, we should be aware of some of the
major caveats. To summarize, what Hausmann and Hildago did was create a mapping of products across the global economy, defining proximity by looking at the probability of a country having a comparative advanta...
Generally, I argue that access to more information via technology is good for development. Access to information (e.g. prices) improves market efficiency. Communication flows fostered by the Internet strengthen democracy. With this information, people are empowered to debate the direction they want their societies to move in. I've read my Amartya Sen, after all.
But could too much information actually be counterproductive? Apparently, yes. As I sat in David King's first lecture in my Cul...
Damon Horowitz, the CTO of Aardvark, is one of the smartest people you'll ever meet. And one of the most interesting too. After getting is master's in computer science at the MIT Media Lab and diving deep into artificial intelligence, he took his career for a left turn and got a PhD in philosophy from Stanford.
A couple weeks ago he gave fascinating and thought provoking talk at the TEDx event in San Francisco about the boundary between machines and people. He has a lot of interesting th... Continue reading ...
In preparation for a recent interview, I readied myself to answer the question: What would you do with $1B to make the world a better place? I highly recommend the thought experiment. Here's where I landed.
I'd spend it grants, debt, and equity for entrepreneurs, with innovations that address the failures that are prevalent in developing countries. Failures of the market and failures in public service delivery. Simply put, many of the systems in place just don't work with the resources and i... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jenny Stefanotti on Friday, January 29, 2010,
In :
Liberia
A very controversial documentary about Liberia has recently come out. I thought I'd weigh in, given my time in Liberia and that Myles Estey, the journalist who co-produced the film and facilitated the interviews is a good friend.
First and I think foremost, Shane Smith is no man to inform the masses about Liberia. It doesn't take long to get a sense for his character and what's coming, with comments like "He's had malaria more times than he's had a hot meal." Furthermore Smith has a woefull... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jenny Stefanotti on Saturday, January 23, 2010,
In :
Human Rights
In case you missed it, Google's announcement last week
marked a real turning point for multinational corporations. It set
precedence for the corporation, representing Western values, standing up to a
foreign state. This value clash involves a plethora of important questions with not so
obvious answers.
When localizing a product for a certain country or
culture or expanding operations internationally, multinational organizations subject themselves to local jurisdiction and as a consequenc... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jenny Stefanotti on Wednesday, January 13, 2010,
In :
Human Rights
In a strategic about face, the world's biggest Internet company has just taken a stand in favor or human rights, risking its business in the biggest Internet market in the world.
Last week Google was subjected to "sophisticated" attacks targeting Google's corporate infrastructure, attacks which originated in China. Further investigation revealed twenty other companies were also targeted, and that the attacks were intended to glean information from Gmail accounts of Chinese human rights act... Continue reading ...
As I sit here during my winter break delving deep into broadband policy for my thesis, a few of the things I was reaching for but not quite understanding last summer in Liberia are now becoming clear. While the appropriateness of many of the policies are very much context specific, a few are really no brainers that would have an enormous impact if adopted widely across the African continent.
The premise for these policies is simple: they promote and take advantage of opportunities to foster c... Continue reading ...
Africa is currently at a crossroads with respect to
broadband policy. Multiple
submarine cables will come online around the continent over the next several
years, radically changing the economics of high-speed Internet delivery and
driving significant investments in domestic and regional telecommunications
infrastructure. Competition in
these markets is highly imperfect due to the high fixed costs necessary for
entry, and positive externalities create suboptimal allocations. These market... Continue reading ...
My boyfriend's wonderful mother Martha wanted to show her support of my decision to go into development and specifically to spend my summer in Liberia. Late last July, she sent an email with a gesture of her support and admiration. She would give money to whatever cause I wanted it Liberia.
I was touched, of course. What wasn't obvious as I read her email was how eye opening the decision process that ensued would be. For the first time I actually had the philanthropist hat on. I didn't wan... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jenny Stefanotti on Thursday, October 1, 2009,
In :
ICT4D
Note to most African governments: "You're going the wrong way."
Everyone's excited about the imminent glut of bandwidth headed Africa's way from the construction of multiple submarine cables. SEACOM went live last July, to the thrill of anyone excited about ICT4D. Increased competition for international backhaul connections has the potential to drop the Mbps cost for Africa to connect to the outside world by a full order of magnitude, from the thousands to hundreds of dollars per month. Suc... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jenny Stefanotti on Thursday, October 1, 2009,
In :
ICT4D
This week's Economist has a special report on telecoms in emerging markets that I highly recommend to anyone interested in ICT4D. While much of the report reiterates what many of us already know, one of the articles in particular got me really excited and essentially validates a lot of what I was reaching for in Liberia this past summer: domestic infrastructure itself can be organized in a way to bring dramatic drops in operating costs. Given the highly competitive nature of service provide...
Posted by Jenny Stefanotti on Sunday, September 27, 2009,
In :
Policy Making
Well, this might not be the brightest move, as I send out my resume with links to this blog. But since last Monday's Liberia Foundations Meeting, I've been thinking a lot about my work this summer and I think it's worth sharing what I would have done differently. Then we can both learn from my mistakes. I'm not embarrassed to have made them: I think that many of us in the development community make them, including some of the loudest voices out there.
What I learned should have been blata... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jenny Stefanotti on Friday, September 25, 2009,
In :
Economics
I'm taking Ricardo Hausmann's Development Policy Strategy course this semester, and every lecture seems more amusing than the last. This Wednesday's lecture on productive transformation and the evolution of comparative advantage was so entertaining, I felt inclined to share.
Professor Hausmann talks a lot about monkeys and trees. The trees represents the product space, a mapping of the capabilities required to produce certain products in an economy. Monkeys then, are the entrepreneurs. The... Continue reading ...
I went down to New York earlier this week to attend Liberia's second annual foundations meeting. It was an exciting opportunity for me to meet the leaders of the foundations engaged in Liberia and present the work I did this summer regarding opportunities for philanthropic support for technology.
I'm inspired by the outstanding group of foundations supporting Liberia. Their commitment to the country runs deep, evident in their willingness to engage on myriad initiatives both within and acros... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jenny Stefanotti on Sunday, August 16, 2009,
In :
Microfinance
Two things I read recently have sparked my
thinking on microfinance: this Economist article about whether
microfinance reduces poverty, and this blog posting by Rachel Strohm, who I
follow on twitter and works in microfinance.
Something about microfinance never sat quite
right with me. Sure, it’s
impossible to argue that group lending models that allow credit to overcome
adverse selection and moral hazard problems aren’t an important innovation in improving
the lives of the poor. Sti... Continue reading ...
I frankly think capacity building needs to
rise higher on the agenda of the development community as a whole. The old proverb says it all “Give a man
a fish he’ll eat for a day, teach a man to fish he’ll eat forever.” All too often we’re so busy feeding
people we don’t teach them how to feed themselves once we’re gone.
So it should come as no surprise that a key
component of my recommendations for supporting technology in Liberia is
capacity building. Not as sexy as
bla... Continue reading ...
Part of what drew me to Liberia was my
interest in understanding best practices in international aid. It's
no secret that aid is often inefficient at best and ultimately
counterproductive at worst. Unlike
others, I do not believe that this unfortunate fact is a justification to throw
the baby out with the bath water.
I believe that there is a role for assistance, and if my path takes me
in that direction, I want to know how to do it well. I knew some of the mistakes that these org... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jenny Stefanotti on Monday, June 29, 2009,
In :
Economics
Before I landed here, I posted a bit
about what I’d heard about Liberia: how incredibly poor it is, how
people live, how little economic activity there is. Now that I’ve been
on the ground for three weeks now (time flies!) I can say that much of
that was just plain misleading.
The
fact of the matter is people living in poverty, people living off a
dollar or two a day, people without running water, without proper waste
treatment facilities, without electricity, in homes that could blow
ove...
Continue reading ...
Posted by Jenny Stefanotti on Monday, June 29, 2009,
In :
Institutions
I missed a raging ethical debate during the drive this morning (I was home sick). Our driver told my housemates that his community caught a thief last night. And then they cut off one of his hands.
This isn’t the first I’ve heard of something like this happening in Liberia. Another friend was at a graduation party recently when people started yelling “ROOGGGUEEE!!!,” which was immediately met by everyone running out, chasing down the culprit, and beating him. Then hoisting him in t... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jenny Stefanotti on Sunday, June 14, 2009,
I had a meeting yesterday with Ben
Wolo, the Managing Director of Libtelco, Liberia’s national telecommunications
company. I’ve spent much of the
past week learning more about Internet infrastructure (just because I worked at
Google doesn’t mean I know these things very well!). After yesterday’s meeting, I now
understand the set up behind the horribly slow Internet that I battle on a
daily basis.
Liberia has next to no
infrastructure. There is no
connection to submarine fiber, ... Continue reading ...
Most internships are not about
getting much accomplished. Many of
my fellow interns her are complaining about how little they’ve done so far, and
many of my classmates abroad are two weeks into the job, still waiting for
their projects to materialize. In
all honesty it was never my goal to have a big impact over a nine-week
period. I just wanted the
perspective that working in a capacity constrained government in Africa would
afford. Turns out I’ve got my work
cut out for me, and ... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jenny Stefanotti on Sunday, June 14, 2009,
I had lunch earlier this week with
the country manager for Google in Senegal, Tidjane Deme. He’s an incredibly impressive guy who
not only understands Senegal but also deeply understands Google philosophy and
approach. We talked about many
fascinating things, but one stuck out enough to merit a posting: the importance
of radio for strengthening democratic institutions in developing
countries. Tidjane told me his
favorite thing to hear is “Let’s do it again in Wolof.”
What he wa... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jenny Stefanotti on Monday, June 8, 2009,
In :
Culture
Now this is interesting. I’ve subscribed for a while now to Daily
Candy, which is a daily email whose value is in its restaurant,
shopping, and culture tips in the city you live in. I’ve always been a
bit struck by the tone they take, and how consumerist their emails are.
It’s always felt very superficial, shallow, consumed with status, and
imbued with a sense of superiority. The underlying message has always
seemed to be “you will be so hip and cool if only you are shopping here
or d... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jenny Stefanotti on Monday, June 8, 2009,
In :
Liberia
As the start of my internship draws near, I’ve been reading more and more about Liberia. I’m pretty sure that it will impact me more than any other place I’ve ever been, and probably any other place I’ll ever go. A few Harvard professors from the Kennedy School visited last winter, and even they said they’d never seen anything like it. These are people who have spent a career studying development.
Liberia is, literally, one of the poorest countries on the planet - next to Malawi, ... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jenny Stefanotti on Monday, June 8, 2009,
In :
Economics
We covered a lot macroeconomics this semester: growth theory, consumption, investment, real business cycle, Keynesian theory of the business cycle, unemployment, fiscal policy, and monetary policy. The assumptions behind so many of the models were just so unrealistic; it seemed absurd to be solving problems to see the conclusions ourselves. I thought I’d outline a couple of the more counterintuitive things we learned and the implausible conclusions that they implied.
Neo-classical Growth Th... Continue reading ...
See my posting below What Dani Rodrik Taught Me About Industrial Policy for background on this one. In a nutshell, when resources aren’t allocated efficiently, structural shifts in the economy to higher productivity activities can create economic growth. Policy interventions to promote these shifts are justified only when we can identify a market and/or government failures that is inhibiting these shifts from happening on their own. What happens when we have identified a list of both marke...
See my posting below What Dani Rodrik Taught Me About Industrial Policy for a description on what allocative inefficiency is, where it comes from, and how industrial policy can improve resource allocation to create economic growth. I felt it was important to make a couple points regarding the implication for overall allocative efficiency of policies justified by efficiency gains in specific sectors. My last post explains how it might be easy to always justify government intervention for sect... Continue reading ...
Per my last post, the key takeaway from Dani’s industrial policy teachings is not to target sectors, but specific market or government failures. Only if these failures are present is government intervention justified. The big ones we should be looking out for are learning externalities and coordination failures. But…it seems one can always justify learning externalities, whether in the form of learning by doing or learning about costs. I didn’t get into these on the last posts, but le... Continue reading ...
I just took my final today for my Economic Development: Theory and Evidence course, taught by Dani Rodrik and Rohini Pande. So if there’s ever a day to post on what I’ve learned about industrial policy from Dani, today is definitely the day. The first fundamental welfare theorem of economics tells us that a competitive equilibrium is efficient, provided markets work perfectly. This is to say the marginal product of labor and capital are equalized across the economy, otherwise resources c... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jenny Stefanotti on Thursday, April 30, 2009,
In :
Health
Dambisa Moyo, author of Dead Aid and one of Time's most influential people in 2009, posted this on twitter yesterday: "Villagers using mosquito nets as wedding gowns: Yet another unintended consequence of a 'good' deed." As someone trained in policy from Harvard and economics from Oxford, she should know better. As someone with an increasing amount of influence, she should really know better. We shouldn't be using anecdotes as support for any policy formulation. This one especially concerns... Continue reading ...
Posted by Jenny Stefanotti on Wednesday, April 29, 2009,
Caveat: My boyfriend is the CEO and I am an investor in Aardvark. Having said that, I have frustrated him to no end with my (hopefully constructive) criticism from the beginning ;). There are a total of 3.5+B mobile and 1.6B Internet users worldwide. These two numbers used to get us very excited about mobile opportunities at Google, especially in the Asia Pacific and Latin America team where I did strategy for two years. But the fact of the matter is the vast majority of mobile phones are not... Continue reading ...
My bed nets post has gotten me thinking more about the issue people are raising with the status quo of aid today - that it inhibits the ability of local capacity to develop and to find local solutions to the problem. There's a lot to be said for this argument. Western NGOs sweeping in like white knights and moving on to the next development fad du jour, particularly when they wipe out local producers, leave developing countries without the capacity to solve their problems over the long term... Continue reading ...
I'm just finishing up my first year of a two year master's degree in public administration and international development at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard. Though it has its faults, I feel pretty strongly that it's one of, if not the best, programs in international development out there. Caveat: that statement only applies if you are a very quantitative and
analytical person (I studied physics and engineering
once upon a time). If you don't like math, I promise you will hate th... Continue reading ...
I've been blogging when I travel for years now, but I felt it was
important for me to have a separate blog dedicated to my experience in
Liberia this summer. Though I won't take off for Monrovia for over a
month, there's already a lot to say about why i chose this internship,
how it fits into my overall career goals, and what exactly I'll be
doing there. Not to mention the people I'm already connecting to and
the meetings I'll be having in San Francisco in the coming weeks. So
with that, D... Continue reading ...
Yesterday was world Malaria Day. The social media community has embraced malaria of late, with the "king of twitter" Ashton Kutcher donating $100,000 to the cause after beating CNN to 1M twitter followers and some of twitter's loudest voices such as Evan Williams (CEO of twitter) and Kevin Rose (Founder of Digg) tweeting to garner support for the cause. Supporting the distribution of malaria nets has become the hot development cause du jour.
This has created quite a stir in some corners of t... Continue reading ...
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