To help solve global problems, look to developing countries | Bright Simons

I am an ideas activist.

That means I fight for ideas I believe in

to have their place in the sun,

regardless of which side of the equator they were born.

As well I should.

I myself am from that part of the world

often euphemistically referred to as either "the Global South"

or "the developing world."

But let's be blunt about it:

when we say those words, what we really mean is the poor world --

those corners of the world with ready-made containers

for the hand-me-down ideas of other places and other people.

But I'm here to depart a little bit from the script

and to try and convince you

that these places are actually alive and bubbling with ideas.

My real issue is: Where do I even start?

So maybe Egypt, Alexandria,

where we meet Rizwan.

When he walks outside his souk,

walks into a pharmacy for heart medicine

that can prevent the blood in his arteries from clotting,

he confronts the fact that,

despite a growing epidemic

that currently accounts for 82 percent of all deaths in Egypt,

it is the medicines that can address these conditions

that counterfeiters, ever the evil geniuses they are,

have decided to target.

Counterfeiters making knockoff medicines.

Luckily for Rizwan,

my team and I,

working in partnership with the largest pharmaceutical company in Africa,

have placed unique codes -- think of them like one-time passwords --

on each pack of the best-selling heart medicine in Egypt.

So when Rizwan buys heart medicine,

he can key in these one-time passwords

to a toll-free short code

that we've set up on all the telecom companies in Egypt

for free.

He gets a message -- call it the message of life --

which reassures him

that this medicine is not one of the 12 percent of all medicines in Egypt

that are counterfeits.

From the gorgeous banks of the Nile,

we glide into the beautiful Rift Valley of Kenya.

In Narok Town, we meet Ole Lenku, salt-of-the-earth fellow.

When he walks into an agrodealer's shop,

all he wants is certified and proper cabbage seeds

that, if he were to plant them,

will yield a harvest rich enough

that he can pay for the school fees of his children.

That's all he wants.

Unfortunately,

by the reckoning of most international organizations,

40 percent of all the seeds sold in Eastern and Southern Africa

are of questionable quality,

sometimes outrightly fake.

Luckily for Ole,

once again, our team has been at work,

and, working with the leading agriculture regulator in Kenya,

we've digitized the entire certification process

for seeds in that country,

every seed -- millet, sorghum, maize --

such that when Ole Lenku keys in a code on a packet of millet,

he's able to retrieve a digital certificate

that assures him that the seed is properly certified.

From Kenya, we head to Noida in India,

where the irrepressible Ambika

is holding on very fast to her dream of becoming an elite athlete,

safe in the knowledge that

because of our ingredients rating technology,

she's not going to ingest something accidentally,

which will mess up her doping tests

and kick her out of the sports she loves.

Finally, we alight in Ghana,

my own home country,

where another problem needs addressing --

the problem of under-vaccination or poor-quality vaccination.

You see, when you put some vaccines into the bloodstream of an infant,

you are giving them a lifetime insurance

against dangerous diseases that can cripple them or kill them.

Sometimes, this is for a lifetime.

The problem is that vaccines are delicate organisms really,

and they need to be stored between two degrees and eight degrees.

And if you don't do that, they lose their potency,

and they no longer confer the immunity

the child deserves.

Working with computer vision scientists,

we've converted simple markers on the vials of vaccines

into what you might regard as crude thermometers.

So then, these patterns change slowly over time in response to temperature

until they leave a distinct pattern on the surface of the vaccine,

such that a nurse, with a scan of the phone,

can detect if the vaccine was stored properly in the right temperature

and therefore is still good for use

before administering this to the child --

literally securing the next generation.

These are some of the solutions at work saving lives, redeeming societies,

in these parts of the world.

But I would remind you

that there are powerful ideas behind them,

and I'll recap a few.

One, that social trust is not the same as interpersonal trust.

Two, that the division between consumption and regulation

in an increasingly interdependent world

is no longer viable.

And three, that decentralized autonomy,

regardless of what our blockchain enthusiasts in the West --

whom I respect a lot -- say,

are not as important as reinforcing social accountability feedback loops.

These are some of the ideas.

Now, every time I go somewhere and I give this speech

and I make these comments and I provide these examples,

people say, "If these ideas are so damn brilliant,

why aren't they everywhere?

I've never heard of them."

I want to assure you,

the reason why you have not heard of these ideas

is exactly the point I made in the beginning.

And that is that there are parts of the world

whose good ideas simply don't scale

because of the latitude on which they were born.

I call that "mental latitude imperialism."

(Laughter)

That really is the reason.

But you may counter and say, "Well, maybe it's an important problem,

but it's sort of an obscure problem in parts of the world.

Why do you want to globalize such problems?

I mean, they are better local."

What if, in response, I told you

that actually, underlying each of these problems that I've described

is a fundamental issue of the breakdown of trust

in markets and institutions,

and that there's nothing more global, more universal, closer to you and I

than the problem of trust.

For example, a quarter of all the seafood marketed in the US is falsely labeled.

So when you buy a tuna or salmon sandwich in Manhattan,

you are eating something that could be banned for being toxic in Japan.

Literally.

Most of you have heard of a time when horsemeat was masquerading as beef

in burger patties in Europe?

You have.

What you don't know is that a good chunk of these fake meat patties

were also contaminated with cadmium, which can damage your kidneys.

This was Europe.

Many of you are aware of plane crashes and you worry about plane crashes,

because every now and then, one of them intrudes into your consciousness.

But I bet you don't know

that a single investigation uncovered one million counterfeit incidents

in the aeronautical supply chain in the US.

So this is a global problem, full stop.

It's a global problem.

The only reason we are not addressing it with the urgency it deserves

is that the best solutions,

the most advanced solutions, the most progressive solutions,

are, unfortunately, in parts of the world where solutions don't scale.

And that is why it is not surprising

that attempts to create this same verification models for pharmaceuticals

are now a decade behind in the USA and Europe,

while it's already available in Nigeria.

A decade, and costing a hundred times more.

And that is why, when you walk into a Walgreens in New York,

you cannot check the source of your medicine,

but you can in Maiduguri in Northern Nigeria.

That is the reality.

(Applause)

That is the reality.

(Applause)

So we go back to the issue of ideas.

Remember, solutions are merely packaged ideas,

so it is the ideas that are most important.

In a world where we marginalize the ideas of the Global South,

we cannot create globally inclusive problem-solving models.

Now, you might say, "Well, that's bad,

but in such a world where we have so many other problems,

do we need another cause?"

I say yes, we need another cause.

Actually, that cause will surprise you: the cause of intellectual justice.

You say, "What? Intellectual justice? In a world of human rights abuses?"

And I explain this way:

all the solutions to the other problems that affect us and confront us

need solutions.

So you need the best ideas to address them.

And that is why today I ask you,

can we all give it one time for intellectual justice?

(Applause)