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...

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...

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 ...

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...

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 ...

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 ...

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...

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...

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...

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 blanke...

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...

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, ...

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 ...

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...