So TechforTrade really I guess, builds on my kind of interest in the role
that technology can play in terms of improving social outcomes for people.
And the vision really, behind TechforTrade is that we see ourselves
working towards a time when technology innovation re-enables full and
fair payment for work and trade.
In a way that will lift, hopefully millions of the world's out of poverty,
so very much for us technology is at the heart of what we do.
And it's central to our idea that, technology is an enabler.
That provides the opportunity to create systemic changes in the traditional
ways in which a systemic changes that are pro-poor in the sense that they
benefit the poorest in the society not only those at the top of the value chain.
[SOUND] I was fortunate enough to be able to persuade my board to
allow me to run a competition at the 3D4D Challenge.
Which really was simply to try and
find groundbreaking opportunities that could have a transformational
impact on the lives of some of the poorest people in the world.
And then applying 3D printing technology at the center of those transformational
ideas and that was the competition that is what we launched.
I will be really honest with you, when we launched the competition I had
no idea whether we would receive even five applications and to that end.
I did spend about three months doing a bit of a roadshow,
visiting universities in Kenya, in South Africa,
in Chennai in India, maker spaces in Romania, a trip to Brooklyn.
To try and plant the seed of the idea of the competition the result,
as you know, was we received 80 entries from across the world,
from Chile, to Senegal, to the Gaza Strip.
A wide range of ideas, many of which we dismissed as being too fanciful.
Many of which have gone on to be some of the leading players in the Treaty printing
industry, so it just shows we don't always back Windows.
And we very quickly found through the news that spread around the competition
that we were moving closer and closer to the center of an emerging sort of
spiders web of people who shared a similar vision.
When the competition ran, I was amazed by the level of interest.
You may recall that the competition received a full page of coverage in
the economist.
We were on the BBC and on NBC, and it seemed that the idea that
the technology might have a part to play In [INAUDIBLE] relief,
really resonated with a wide community.
Not only of technically minded people, but those people that were generally
interested in the enabling power of technology for development.
So, I think that was Was really where we started that really was the trigger for
the work that we're now involved in.
And George, to come back to your question about what did we see and
what do we see in the technology?
Well, if you think about the context of the developing world, if you think about.
What I've described earlier on, poor infrastructure.
