Technology Infrastructure

“A 2009 World Bank study found that raising mobile-phone penetration in a developing country by ten percentage points increased GDP growth by 0.8% a year.” – The Economist, Telecommunications in Brazil,8/11/2012

Every publication about technology’s effect on the developing world always reminds me of my first exposure living in Latin America.  While living on an island off the shore of Costa Rica, I spent time with a subsistence fisherman who used a cellphone to work his way out of poverty.  Outfitted with the technology of a cellphone, the fisherman could check market prices of fish in the capital city and break the tradition of get ripped off by wholesalers at the local pier.

World Bank, 2010

The spread of cheap technology is extremely encouraging in how it revolutionizes economic development.  While new technologies and gadgets have changed Western economies, their affects are strongly felt in low and middle income countries even more so.  In a 2010 study, the World Bank found that for every 10 percent increase in broadband access, developing economies accelerated growth by 1.38 percent (for comparison, total US growth hovers at 1.7 percent).

Capitalizing on this trend, Campus Tecnológico in Guatemala created an urban enclave of telecommunications facilitated businesses and start-ups.  As part of a three phased public/private development collaboration, Campus Tech aims to change the Central American technology industry by investing in young entrepreneurs and providing them with broadband infrastructure and local database centers.  Campus Tech has already facilitated 28 start-ups and has subscription backlogs for the first phase of its wired office-complex.  “In Guatemala,” reads a NYTimes article on Campus Tech, “many entrepreneurs have been focusing on the union of technology and social policy, creating things like affordable water filters, or a program for distributing health information to cellphones.”  

Technology infrastructure and their facilitators like Campus Tech truly have the power to drastically stimulate economies and alter life in developing countries.

Technology Infrastructure