During his latest radio broadcast, Kojo Nnamdi spoke with Alec Ross, Senior Adviser on Innovation to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on how technology can be a vital tool in promoting global development.  The program, Technology and 21st Century Diplomacy, discussed how Mr. Ross was working to improve communications technology inside the State Department offices in Foggy Bottom as well as in developing countries around the world.  Highlighting the success of the cell phone industry in Rwanda and Afghanistan, Mr. Ross stressed the importance of empowerment, one of the core goals of development.  Empowering people with technology globally, rather than over-powering them, will ensure that the global labor market will include thinkers and executives from all corners of the world. Listen to the full discussion here.

“I’m focused on development because I think if people in developing countries, if they are going to be able to compete and succeed in 21st century economies, they need access to the internet, they’ve got to be able to use the tools of the digital age. What we don’t want to see happen with globalization is that we have a global labor market of people who are the thinkers and the executives in the west and then the manual laborers in developing countries, part of what I would love to see happen is empowerment in developing countries so that the executives and entrepreneurs of the future can come out of central/southern Africa, and Bangladesh and so that not all of the wealth that is generated from the digital age comes out of European and American capitals” – Alec Ross

“You can’t understand technology without understanding its cultural component, and technology survives, thrives or fails based on the way people use it” – Kojo Nnamdi