Page 44 - Rockefeller Lockstep Document
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Scenario Narratives SMART SCRAMBLE
“THE SPREADING OF IDEAS and a stronger set of overlapping institutions
DEPENDS ON ACCESS TO did far better than others; so did cities and
COMMUNICATION, PEER communities where large numbers of “returnees”
GROUPS, AND COMMUNITIES OF helped drive change and improvement. Most
PRACTICE. EVEN IF SOMEONE innovation in these better-off places involved
HAS BLUEPRINTS TO MAKE modifying existing devices and technologies to
SOMETHING, THEY MAY NOT be more adaptive to a specific context. But people
HAVE THE MATERIALS OR KNOW- also found or invented new ways — technological
HOW. IN A WORLD SUCH AS and non-technological — to improve their
capacity to survive and, in some cases, to
THIS, HOW DO YOU CREATE raise their overall living standards. In Accra, a
AN ECOSYSTEM OF RESEARCH returning Ghanaian MIT professor, working with
AMONG THESE COMMUNITIES?”
resettled pharma researchers, helped invent a
– Jose Gomez-Marquez, Program Director cheap edible vaccine against tuberculosis that
for the Innovations in International Health dramatically reduced childhood mortality across
initiative (IIH), MIT
the continent. In Nairobi, returnees launched a
local “vocational education for all” project that
proved wildly successful and was soon replicated
communication and internet gadgets, while in other parts of sub-Saharan Africa.
Scenarios for the Future of Technology and International Development But there were silver linings. Government solutions — addressing everything from water
others became more isolated for lack of
such connections.
Makeshift, “good enough” technology
purification and harnessing energy to improved
capacity improved in more advanced parts of the
crop yield and disease control — emerged to fill
developing world where economies had already
the gaps. Communities grew tighter. Micro-
begun to generate a self-sustaining dynamic
manufacturing, communal gardens, and
before the 2008-2010 crisis, such as Indonesia,
patchwork energy grids were created at the local
Rwanda, Turkey, and Vietnam. Areas with good
on the aura of co-ops, some even launching
44 access to natural resources, diverse skill sets, level for local purposes. Many communities took
