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Accelerating opportunityObservations from the Living Progress Exchange

Why inclusive growth?

LPX participants identified that without a shift to more inclusive growth, the world will continue to see significant challenges in areas such food security and nutrition, healthcare, education, gender inequality, and unemployment. Further, these challenges can lead to greater levels of social and political unrest at local, national and global scales.

Participants acknowledged the importance of the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), and how they offer a framework for all stakeholders, including companies, to build upon.

Closing the digital divide to drive economic progressOn December 9 and 10, 2015, Hewlett Packard Enterprise hosted the third online Living Progress Exchange (LPX) in conjunction with GlobeScan. The LPX brings together experts and opinion leaders from business, civil society, government, and academia from around the world to create a dialogue that helps inform how we advance human, economic, and environmental progress. Using a text-based discussion format, we explored how information and communications technologies (ICT) can accelerate opportunity for people around the world by helping to drive more inclusive growth in societies. In this paper, GlobeScan summarizes the top insights from the discussion, with additional insights from Hewlett Packard Enterprise.

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Table of contents2 Why inclusive growth?

3 The digital divide in a changing world

5 How ICT can help drive inclusive economic opportunities?

6 Where can ICT drive the greatest impact?

7 Hewlett Packard Enterprise perspectives

“Growing inclusively is more than the right thing to do—it’s the smartest path to sustainable development.”– Susan McPherson, McPherson Strategies

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The digital divide in a changing world

Participants pointed out that a discussion about the ability of the ICT sector to help drive more inclusive economic growth must take into consideration the digital divide. However, this is not a simple consideration. The divide has moved beyond traditional issues of access to include the skills and capabilities needed to make use of technology. There are divides that exist within all countries, as well as between developed, developing and least-developed countries.

Participants highlighted that while mobile phones are allowing more universal access to ICT technology, the sophistication of the technology (SMS v. 3G, for example) and user needs varies widely.

“[C]urrent evidence suggests, least-developed countries are becoming more detached from the rest of the world in adoption and usage levels. So while most developing countries are more or less keeping pace with those in the North in terms of access and usage, more marginalized (or least connected) countries are becoming more excluded. This has potentially negative effects for them in terms of economic inclusion, which need to be addressed.”– David Souter, ICT Development Associates

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“Education and training on a local level are critical. Putting a computer in a classroom or passing along smart phones to youth in a developing village is not enough. Whether it’s in a classroom or at a place of work, we must partner with local teachers/employees/organizations to deploy training programs that give people the skills and knowledge they need to use technology to its full potential and do so in a sustainable way.”– Susan McPherson, McPherson Strategies

A key consideration when thinking about ICT’s role in helping to drive inclusive growth is that the digital divide (in many forms) is strongly associated with levels of income and education, both between countries and within countries. Solutions that address these challenges—or work within these limitations—are essential.

•Affordability and accessibility: Making the connections that enable inclusivity more affordable and accessible is an important consideration. Despite the high penetration of mobile devices among lower-income people across the world, access to smartphones and access to the Internet via these devices is often out of reach. Moreover, the infrastructure for reliable and affordable connections is often lacking. This includes broadband access, which is not available for many people in developed countries, nor for most people in developing countries.

•Education: The ability to drive more opportunity and inclusive growth through ICT solutions in many ways depends on education. In the broadest sense, those most in need of ICT solutions that will deliver greater opportunities may be hindered in their use by either lower levels of education or by a lack of basic ICT skills.

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LPX participants insisted that if ICT is striving to drive inclusive growth then efforts need to be made to design ICT solutions for the bottom—as well as the top.

“As we think about deployment, I think we have to be thoughtful about mindsets. Often we design for the top 5–10%. To create inclusive growth, we need to think and design for the other 90%.”– Lindsay Clinton, SustainAbility

How ICT can help drive inclusive economic opportunities?

The LPX highlighted a number of key challenge areas where participants believe that ICT can most effectively help drive inclusivity and improve people’s lives. These ranged from gender inequality, homelessness, unemployment, lack of access to basic services, job inflexibility and many more. Some of the most mentioned issues are highlighted in more detail below.

1. Identify challenges first: Participants noted that there is a need to improve inclusivity across a range of social and economic areas, whether or not ICT is a potential solution. As David Souter stated, it is important that “[i]n the development context, companies in the ICT sector need to start from the challenges of economic and social development, rather than the potential of ICT.”

2. Be local: ICT solutions should build on local experiences. There may already be local ICT alternatives available that just need help improving their reach or effectiveness. Rather than developing new solutions, it is important to identify and invest in existing ones so they can be taken to scale.

3. Leverage Big Data and IoT: The potential for Big Data and the Internet of Things to help improve sustainable development outcomes has been covered in previous LPX discussions. Their utility was again highlighted in this discussion, but it was cautioned that while they have great potential to empower and improve inclusion and participation, their use and impact have to be monitored to ensure they do not have the opposite effect. In particular, with the increased use of Big Data to help improve inclusion, it must go hand in hand with education around online safety and data protection.

4. Transitioning to new business models: This has been another recurring theme in the LPX discussions. In order to help drive more inclusive growth and access to essential goods and services, companies would benefit from innovating upon and investing in new business models to identify opportunities to expand access to their products and services to lower levels of the pyramid. The ICT sector can help drive these opportunities in many ways, including data and analytics, and innovative and effective ways to provide information, education, basic services and products to people traditionally excluded. ICT companies can also be multipliers by partnering with and investing in start-ups (including those in developing countries) to help local solutions reach scale.

5. Collaboration and partnerships: This has also been a recurring finding in the LPX discussions. To help drive inclusive growth, it is key for ICT companies to develop partnerships and work in collaboration with a range of actors and sectors, both at a local level (local government, civil society, entrepreneurs, etc.) and at a national and international level (NGOs, government, business) to identify the most needed solutions that ICT can help scale.

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Where can ICT drive the greatest impact?

Participants identified a few top focus areas for driving a more inclusive economy.

•Financial inclusion: Technology solutions that drive financial inclusion, both in developed and developing countries, are essential. Examples included mobile money, mobile transfers, mobile lending, micro-financing, insurance (including health), and credit-history building.In addition, it’s important to provide financial and technology literacy education, and also education to ensure understanding of rights and security when using technology solutions for financial access. This information and education can be delivered through technology solutions.

•Healthcare: Participants noted a range of ways that ICT can help to drive more inclusive access within the healthcare sector. These include mobile technology, which can help provide diagnosis capability, and education and training for health care workers in more isolated areas. The ability for local healthcare workers to provide more reliable information back to central institutions about local conditions, can also improve healthcare data and research outcomes. Providing more reliable healthcare information to the public through low-cost devices is another important way ICT can drive health inclusion. Participants also saw ICT as a crucial tool in enabling healthcare systems to run more efficiently. Improved resource allocation through better data and information sharing would help increase inclusion by ensuring resources are where they need to be when they need to be. This is particularly true when it comes to the distribution of medicines—technology (including the use of everyday basic technology, such as SMS) can help increase access by reducing supply chain problems.

•Education and skills building: Participants acknowledged that ICT can help build capacity in many ways across the education sector in both developing and developed countries. Participants also identified the potential for technology to empower local education services in delivering education. Beyond basic education, ICT also has an important role to play in delivering skill-building programs across a range of areas, including entrepreneurship. Women, who have been traditionally marginalized in this area, are a prime target for skills building.

Hewlett Packard Enterprise perspectives

We are living at a time of unprecedented opportunity. Tools that enable disruption, such as cloud computing, mobile technology and Big Data analytics, are so accessible and affordable, it’s never been easier to turn an idea into a solution. Ideators and innovators are bringing new products and services to the global market seemingly overnight, shattering traditional businesses models and disrupting entire industries. It’s quickly given rise to the world’s fourth industrial revolution—what we call the Idea Economy.

In previous centuries, a certain percentage of the population was excluded from experiencing the benefits of industrialization. From the mechanical innovations of the first industrial revolution, to the mass production models of the second, to the connectivity and data collection of the third, a divide existed between those who could participate in each new economy and those who could not. Today, roughly 70 years after the introduction of the first computing technology, more than half of the world’s population remains excluded from the opportunities that information technology provides.

As we embark on this fourth industrial revolution, we believe there’s never been a more opportune time to unite people, ideas and technology to advance inclusion. We are challenging ourselves and others to apply the same radical innovation and rapid time to value that fuels the Idea Economy to help close the digital divide and drive inclusive economic growth.

One way we do this is by bringing together experts, opinion leaders, dreamers and thinkers in these LPX discussion forums where we can share ideas, identify obstacles and test our assumptions. Vetting ideas and learning best practices from other leaders across industries and sectors helps us sharpen our Living Progress strategy and build essential connections and partnerships, within and beyond our industry, to enable faster time to opportunity. As we apply the insights from the LPX to help close the digital divide and to accelerate opportunity, we will share regular updates on our website at hpe.com/livingprogress and on Twitter at @HPE_LivingProg.

Further, we are accelerating the innovation process through a new crowd-sourcing initiative called the Living Progress Challenge. It uses the power of technology to tap the creative ingenuity of the global community and invites them to tell us how they would use software applications and digital services to solve social challenges and improve lives. The top ideas compete for the chance to become real-world solutions with Hewlett Packard Enterprise by the end of the year.

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© Copyright 2016 Hewlett Packard Enterprise Development LP. The information contained herein is subject to change without notice. The only warranties for Hewlett Packard Enterprise products and services are set forth in the express warranty statements accompanying such products and services. Nothing herein should be construed as constituting an additional warranty. Hewlett Packard Enterprise shall not be liable for technical or editorial errors or omissions contained herein.

4AA6-4304ENW, February 2016

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As the LPX participants rightly pointed out, closing the digital divide won’t be easy. Technology continues to evolve at unprecedented speeds, and traditionally new innovations target those who already benefit from IT—what participants called “top-down” innovation. At the same time, it’s never been easier to solve the challenges that blocks whole segments of society from accessing technology’s benefits. ICT enables us to connect in ways never possible before, to unite people from all backgrounds, cultures, geographies, experiences and capabilities to identify the needs, develop the solutions, break down barriers and drive inclusion. In the Idea Economy, virtually any idea is possible.

By uniting the creativity, ingenuity and diverse perspectives of the crowd with innovative technology solutions, we can close the divide and accelerate opportunity for all.

Learn more athpe.com/livingprogress

Engage in future discussions and read the full text of all LPX forums at globescanforum.com/hpe-living-progress